Phonak Marvel Bluetooth

Problem of cutouts during outdoor streaming SOLVED … at least for me. The three steps were:

1. Get the Phonak 2.0 firmware update at my audi’s office.
2. In my iPhone Bluetooth settings “forget” the pairing for the aids.
3. In my iPhone Bluetooth settings re-pair with the aids.

Two days (so far) of cutout-free audio outdoors

I hope the same works for all of you!!

So glad bentsn1. I updated my M90’s about 2 weeks ago. When I returned home I paired my aids to my MacBook pro and it worked perfectly. After a day I started having problems. The My Phonak app on my iphone8 connected but would not stream. I checked the BT on the iPhone and it was missing the “R-phonak hearing aid” listing. It’s supposed to have three listings and all three connected. I tried rebooting, deleting the app and starting all over from scratch but it still would not stream. I think you came up with a good idea to remove them from the BT on the phone. I went yesterday to my audiologist and she removed everything and started over from scratch again. This time it worked. I think there may be a slight bug in the 2.0 firmware update.

Just got my Marvel 2.0 update in my M70-R’s yesterday. The audi didn’t know about the Bluetooth audio distortion but did know about the “fixed bandwidth” setting for iPhone. I had her set the “fixed bandwidth” just for the heck of it and see how it works with BT phone calls. Had one so far without interference.

Come to think of it now, I probably shouldn’t have had her set “fixed bandwidth” before I tested the quality of the calls just with the 2.0 upgrade alone.

I tried that but still couldn’t connect.

What finally worked was forgetting the hearing aids both in the app and system-wide (bluetooth settings). Then I had to reconnect using only the app! Now the myPhonak app connects almost instantly.

Interestingly, under my Note 9’s Bluetooth Settings, it now shows:

R-Phonak hearing aid
Connected for calls and audio (just like in the old days)

But now there are 2 new devices (and the old “L-Phonak hearing aid” no longer shows up):

LE_R-Phonak hearing aid
LE_L-Phonak hearing aid

I get it that “LE” means “Low Energy”, but I’d love to have a clue as what is going on here. I’m “officially” only connected to “R-Phonak hearing aid”, but what are these 2 new mysterious “LE_…” devices that I’m not officially connected with?

Enquiring minds want to know.

On a totally separate note, anyone know when the new Roger Pens will come out? I’m going to be playing with the new Speech Focus thing in the new myPhonak app with the new firmware going forward to see how well this works (comments from those who have already done so are more than welcome!), but as someone who has suffered with “speech in loud noise” even with these wonderful marvels, I might be interested in an updated Roger Pen. Restaurants and talking with people walking down noisy streets with cards, motorcycles, construction, etc. gave me a problem with the pre-firmware aids, even after switching from Autosense to the “speech in loud noise” program my audiologist had installed for me…

Thanks to all who chimed in on the myPhonak connection topic, it eventually got me there!

The LE connections represent the Bluetooth low energy pairings that are required for myPhonak app connectivity. Even though these say they aren’t connected they will connect when the app is being used.

The main single pairing (i.e. connection listed without LE in the title) covers the audio streaming Bluetooth connections for phone calls and media (which are technically two different Bluetooth profiles).

That is honestly very weird thing to hear that wifi networks cut it out as I’ve never had this issue with ANY of my other bluetooth headsets. And this is the first time i hear of such a strange issue as I tend to dive deep into the PC tech.

After the update I still get the issue, but i get it a bit more including now inside of a building when there is an open space. This issue happens always when I’m outside so there is little to no wifi that I know off outside unless it’s from the passing houses BUT when I’m inside the building i have no issue, it streams well until i step out.

Here’s a test that Signia did that explains the dropouts outside a house or building.
“Provided there are hard surfaces in the wearer’s immediate vicinity then the signals are transmitted successfully between the ears and the wearer enjoys a continuous high-quality streamed signal. The problem arises when there are no hard surfaces such as walls and ceilings to facilitate transmission between the ears, such as in large halls or outdoor spaces. The study revealed that while Bluetooth Classic hearing aids performed well in indoor environments, in outdoor situations the performance fell well short of our threshold of acceptable streaming stability.”

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I’ve had the M90s for about two months. Connection to bluetooth was shaky on my iphone X, but it generally worked with some garble. I just upgraded to the iPhone 11 pro max, and it is not at all compatible. Cannot sync to the hearing aids. I’m going to give them a week or so to come out with a fix, and if not back they go.

See the iPhone 11 thread; this is problem that Phonak acknowledges, but I suspect it will be a while until there is a solution (weeks, anyway).

I hear it’s more of an iPhone 11 problem than a Phonak problem. I mean, there are some HA’s that work with iPhone 11. But from what I’ve heard there are more BT Classic devices that don’t work with the iPhone 11. So Phonak may expect the change to come out of Apple. And that may not go well, given Apple’s arrogance. (I’m thinking about the great WEP incompatibility in MacOS in the 2000’s that was fully acknowledged and they refused to do anything about it.)

I don’t think there’s any way to hear actual ringtones. When I’m connected in the car, for instance, I hear a generic ringtone from the car audio system when the phone rings. Likewise when I’m connected to my Bose headphones. I think it’s just the way they do it – It’s like the BT HF (handsfree - phone) profile overrides the A2DP (audio) profile.

For your other question, have you tried turning off your phone’s ringer? Does it still ring in the HA? I’ve been in this situation and I think I still got a ringtone in the HA, but you’d have to check.

The ringtone is generated from within the Marvel hearing aids, there’s no way to deactivate or stream a ringtone from the smart phone instead.

Thanks, interesting though the notifications of the phone come through the hearings aids with the same sound. Hopefully this can be corrected in a future firmware release.

I have found a solution for the issue where ringing is heard through both the HA via Bluetooth and the phone speaker on Android. Download Sounds Assistant (Samsung App) via Google Playstore, Open app>Advance setting>Alerts through headphones enable this. Rings on HA when connected via BT and and through the phone speaker when BT is disabled.

Hi jerks.cabaniss,
I was just catching up on the forum and saw this again. I wanted to respond because I also am having issues. Let me give you some info on mine. About a month ago I updated to 2.0 and things seem to be better. But it only lasted a short time. One day my M90 312s would not connect to my phone. So no streaming or calls. I contacted my audiologist and went by for help. We had to eliminate everything everywhere. One of the issues was that we had to do it twice. Then it connected. That lasted about a week. One day it quit connecting again. So I called Phonak Tech service and spoke to a guy to get some help. After explaining again, we eliminated everything on everything. We tried four times to re-install and they would not connect. We even tried to use my wife’s phone to see if it was my phone. It connected to hers. So he told me that I may have a phone issue and then we hung up. After about 10 minutes I decided to try again on my phone after removing everything from my wife’s phone. This re-installation connection to my phone worked this time. So, I thought that all was goo for a day or two and then weird issues started to happen again, I tried with my wife’s phone but it would not connect to hers. We both have iPhone 8s. But it did connect mine. After a day , connection to my laptop quit after a 5 min usage. I clicked the BT and it showed connection but got nothing. I disconnected and reconnected and it came back. But only for another 5 minutes and the same thing happened again. This issue happened another 4 times so I just removed it from my laptop. It also would not work on my phone again. for a few days I just went without. Then one morning I opened my laptop and it automatically connected to my HA’s. That was weird because there is not automatic settings. But after it went through that “5 min.” issue again, quitting. I called Phonak again and spoke with a different guy. He suggested that I take them back to the audiologist. to send for repairs. I did that and my audiologist grabbed a set of M90’s to loan me. They too would not connect to my phone. She grabbed another set and we had the same issue. So she grabbed a Widex Beyond 440 and it connected easily and also connected to use “Live Listen” on my phone which I’ve used many time before many months ago with my M90s. I’ve not been able to use Live Listen since the 2.0 update. This tells me that Phonak firmware does not allow it anymore. So, my HAs are on their way to Phonak for evaluation and repairs. I’ll let you know what I find out. Thanks.