Anyone having issues with Apple MFi Hearing Aids?

Received this from my audiologist.

I received your e-mail and spoke with an Oticon representative to discuss your current issue with your hearing aids. The Oticon rep states that they are updating the firmware for the app (for Iphones) in January

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As a new user I can only post 3 times in a single thread. I tried to delete a post without success. Here is what I have learned over the last few days in my own experience.

I am back and I was WRONG the issue absolutely is interference. I restored the phone to the current version 11.2.1 and started it new. I connected to the OPN 1 HA and it worked noticeably better without any of the clicking noises. 1 by 1 I installed apps and set up the device. I got to tile.app, signed in and connected to the nearby tiles and within minutes the clicking could be heard. Removed tile.app and the issue went away the moment all active BT connections were gone. I made several calls w/o issue and streamed 2 hours of music. I then paired the iWatch and again the moment another active BT connection was made the clicking like feedback returned. Again I removed the active BT device in this case by unpairing and in several more hours of calls and streaming its been working great. I am not sure what this means but the aids are being affected by other active connections sadly other MFG’s of BY hardware do not seem to be effected.

Is there a way a consumer like myself can be alerted when a new FW or software version is made available for the OPN 1 aid?

I am going to miss my watch headed to workout…

R

@JordanK said:

The reason this works is that the clicking is caused by other devices using the same frequency and interfering with the signal. Turning Bluetooth on and off forces the phone to select a different frequency.

Yes, I’ve tried that with my Phonak Brio 2’s and the Compilot II. It seems to work most the time.

This is the technical explanation for @rick
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth3

Implementation
Bluetooth operates at frequencies between 2402 and 2480 MHz, or 2400 and 2483.5 MHz including guard bands 2 MHz wide at the bottom end and 3.5 MHz wide at the top.[15] This is in the globally unlicensed (but not unregulated) industrial, scientific and medical (ISM) 2.4 GHz short-range radio frequency band. Bluetooth uses a radio technology called frequency-hopping spread spectrum. Bluetooth divides transmitted data into packets, and transmits each packet on one of 79 designated Bluetooth channels. Each channel has a bandwidth of 1 MHz. It usually performs 800 hops per second, with Adaptive Frequency-Hopping (AFH) enabled.[15] Bluetooth low energy uses 2 MHz spacing, which accommodates 40 channels.

So low energy Bluetooth has 1/2 the channels which should result in potentially greater chance of interference.

@HalfEar said:

Yes, I’ve tried that with my Phonak Brio 2’s and the Compilot II. It seems to work most the time.

I assumed that the clicking was only for MFi hearing aids, not the hearing aids that still need to use a streamer like your Phonak Brio 2s.

Thank you, that is helpful information. Wouldn’t it be cool if Apple acknowledged such.

My personal story: I abandoned MFI HAs for now, both sides of the equation (HA manufacturers and Apple) are woefully inadequate in responding to this problem. Seriously: “…a what, a clicking problem?” I can apply this quote accurately to Oticon, ReSound, Earlens and Apple.

Getting some new Signia Pure 312s in a week or so. Should I be optimistic?

Cheers.

@KenP said:

Remember that BT and WiFi share frequencies and can cause cross band interference. If your WiFi router is locked to a band, you may improve things by changing bands. There are phone apps that display WiFi band use that may help.

Even the Phonak Roger System has problems with WiFi. My friend updated her Roger Pen to the 1.1 Pen and every time she turned the 1.1 Pen on, it stopped her WiFi from working. But with her old Pen, it didn’t stop her WiFi from working.

Sounds like the pen is defective. That should never happen.

I have an Apple Watch series 2 and it in connected all the time. No problem w/ clicking. I am running iOS 11.2.1. I have Signia Pure 13BT. I did have trouble at the beginning prior to iOS 11. I very seldom get clicking anymore. Occasionally, but either turn BT on and off or open battery compartment in the HA that is clicking.

Did anyone try closing the apps in the background on your iPhone. Videos that are embedded in background apps may possibly interfere with the stream.

It is an iOS11 problem. I have tried everything suggested by Apple and Resound and nothing seems to cure the dropouts. No Siri. Re - paring the aids from scratch. No other apps running. Resetting Network connections (?), Externally, it could be that MFi is more subject to interference, but since MFi worked fine with iOS 10, it has to be a software bug…

From My Experience (Caveats around) I SEEM to have less problems when I am not using the dedicated Resound hearing aid control app (Smart is what they call it). If I just use Apple’s built in app, That does not make sense to me at all, because the Smart app is just a wrapper for the iOS hearing control. But…

BTW, I found out that the iOS hearing aid control app can be accessed directly from the lock screen with the standard triple tap. This is much better than having to wake up the phone, log in, go to the Smart hearing aid control app, open it then make your adjustments.

the trouble with abandoning MFi is that some aids makers sacrifice stereo when they use a translator device. If stereo audio is important to you, ask if the audio is stereo before you buy…

Odd experience with the clicking. I was on Facebook scrolling down when I came upon something interesting with a video. Starting reading it while the video started playing, no sound though but the right HA started clicking. I then opened the video to get a larger playback… the clicking went away and sound started streaming. Sonic Enchant

I agree with mstrmac, that other apps that have video play can interrupt or try to take streaming control of the MFI aids. I have Starkey Halo2 aids and Flipboard app in particular does this all the time.
Also Instagram.