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Phonak Marvel Bluetooth

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In reply to @Don

The BT300 dongle does not go to steady blue. After about half a minute blinking it turns off. Both devices are in pairing mode, no further devices around. Perhaps it has to do with the BT specs of Marvel? As far as I know the BT-Standard of Marvel is 4.2 (Low Energy), the standard of BT300 is 2.0. Somewhere in the Marvel Support FAQs it says that the minimum standard to communicate with Marvel has to be 2.1. We’ll do some further tests today and I’ll keep you informed.
Thanks a lot, Andreas.

In reply to @Don

We did a lot more testing today, no success. The Dongle delivered along with the MDA220 (it’s a MDA220, not a MDA200 as I wrote yesterday) was a Plantronics SSP2714-01, a special version for hearing aid. I also did some tests using a standard BT300, which I already owned as part of a plantronics Voyager Legend Headset, same result. To make sure that the MDA220 works, I paired my standard Voyager Legend, which was successful immediately.
Finally, I think I have to wait for the answer to my Support request our dealer sent to Phonak yesterday.

I don’t know, it should work. The Marvel has standard Bluetooth, not Low Energy. Or maybe it has Low Energy too, but that is a different thing.

Can you pair the Marvels to another device? Could you try pairing to one phone, verify, then pair to another phone, just to make sure it will pair to a new device?

Edited

Thanks, Don, for your answer. My wife uses the Marvels all day log with her Samsung Mobile Phone, Re-Pairing after removing inside the Samsung works without any problems. Perhaps I should also place a support call at Plantronics. Greetings from Colgne/Germany, Andreas.

Addendum: After reading the FAQs of Phonak Audéo an Phonac Marvel again I found a difference:

–> Audéo:
Phonak Audéo B-Direct supports the following Bluetooth profiles:

  • Bluetooth Classic with the HFP (Hands Free Profile).
  • Bluetooth LE (Low Energy).

Audéo B-Direct is designed for phone calls as well as offering hands-free phone functionality. This requires the Bluetooth Classic profile with HFP . It provides direct connectivity to a large variety of phones in the market as well as a hands-free function. With a push of the hearing aid button you can answer and end a call without holding your phone.

The second Bluetooth profile that Audéo B-Direct supports is the Bluetooth Low Energy (LE) . This provides connectivity to the Phonak Remote app which is available for free to customers who want to select their hearing aid programs of volume settings via their smartphone. Pairing of the app to the hearing aids is done through the Phonak Remote app. Changes are made to both hearing aids.

–> Marvel:
Phonak Marvel hearing aids will support the following Bluetooth profiles:

  1. Bluetooth Classic with the HFP (Hands Free Profile) and A2DP (Advanced Audio Distribution Profile).
  2. Bluetooth Low Energy.

So, the difference is “A2DP”. Perhaps this could be a reason? I don’t know.

Edited

What you are experiencing is how the Marvels work. They cannot be paired with more than one device. Full Stop. I’m highly skeptical of any claim to the contrary, because I experimented with this extensively using my iphone, my android phone and my laptop, not to mention that Phonak admits this how they work. (See below.) If you want to switch the Marvels to another device, you have to pair them with that device, after which the pairing with the previous device will no longer work. You will have to remove the original pairing and then re-pair. After which the pairing with the previous device will no longer work. And So On.

If you pair them with a laptop, in my experience you will have to reboot the laptop every time, although some people claim they did not have to reboot their laptop. It was my experience and also my colleagues experience that under Windows 10, a laptop has to be rebooted before you can use a bluetooth device. It’s also the same with my Opns, although I don’t have to re-pair them with any of my devices to use them, so it’s a minor issue.

My audiologist asked Phonak about this and their response is the following, which I quoted from the email. tl;dr, bluetooth is too hard for us:

From what I read the problem is having multiple devices paired to the Marvel.

It is a limitation, but at this point the Marvel can only pair to one device.
I understand his frustration. The hearing aids have been thoroughly tested, but it is still a hearing aid and at this point in time it doesn’t have all the capacity that a Bluetooth headset device can do due the complexity of sound processing for hearing loss. We are working with a very small chip to fit in a discreet housing that patients will accept to wear as a hearing aid, while trying to provide the best sound quality for different hearing losses, keep the power consumption low, and offer Bluetooth compatibility to facilitate communication. We are still facing some technological challenges when it comes to multiple bluetooth connections.

He is right that in order to pair to another device, you have to forget it from the first device you paired it to.

After receiving this response, I got a pair of Opn hearing aids from another audiologist. They are not perfect, but they don’t have the single-pairing limitation. I asked my audiologist if Phonak intended to fix this issue and told her that unless Phonak would commit to fix this issue, I would return the Marvels. Phonak would not make any commitment, so I returned them. Maybe they will fix the problem, maybe they won’t.

In reply to @Don

Don, with all due respect, you don’t have these hearing aids and you don’t understand the issues. The Marvels cannot be paired with more than one device. This is according to Phonak. It is necessary to un-pair and re-pair to switch the Marvels from one device to another. Phonak is aware of this problem. They may fix it or they may not.

I have a marvel 90 since last week, and only one side of my hearing aids (right) gets connected for both audio and phone calls. Also when I press a button on either side to change programs example, only one side gets changed. So I’m wondering whether it’s phone which has only Bluetooth 4 (and not 4.1 or 4.2). But that would still not explain why pressing the button on either side, doesn’t effect the other side.

I’ve not trialed Marvel yet but have read a few other posts addressing “the one hearing aid connection issue” versus two. Hopefully it’s a phone problem and not a connection/streaming issue. There have been reports that new iPhones don’t always work with Phonak Marvel but I believe that’s been limited to the iPhone XS and iPhone Max. On the other side of the coin if audio and phone calls are connecting to your designated/dominate HA, then as I understand it your designated/dominate HA should then be connecting to other HA to offer stereo. Hope you get things straightened out.

I have an Android. Nokia 3 and it does not appear in the compatibility list, Nokia 3.1 does.

In reply to @darylm

@darylm said:

Don, with all due respect, you don’t have these hearing aids and you don’t understand the issues. The Marvels cannot be paired with more than one device. This is according to Phonak. It is necessary to un-pair and re-pair to switch the Marvels from one device to another. Phonak is aware of this problem. They may fix it or they may not.

Yes, I’m aware. That’s why I suggested pairing to a new device just to make sure the process of changing the device was working. If he could pair and connect to a phone, drop that and pair and connect to a new phone, then he should be able to pair and connect to the MDA220.

Sometimes, when something should work but doesn’t, it can be helpful to try some related things with other devices, as a way to isolate the problem.

@Cologne said:

Found another pairing problem:
Pairing the Marvel M90 with a Gigaset S850HX does’t work. Did anyon test this so far?

I’m sorry, but I’m not surprised to hear of issues pairing with some of these lesser known devices. While Bluetooth is a standard, it’s hardly a guarantee that things will work with each other as manufacturers can choose to implement the various profiles however they like. Even Apple had a problem with their flagship phone with the Bluetooth standards.
Generic A2DP and HFP are the profiles implemented by Phonak in the Marvel for Bluetooth classic, but there are a lot of options within those that the Marvel’s don’t support such as next/previous track, traditional volume up/down, battery life, etc. The pairing process is also different and there is no ability to enter a pairing pin when pairing with a device that requires a pin exchange. In general, those things aren’t issues when pairing with most devices, but it certainly will be a problem with some. My experience with cordless phones and Plantronic headsets is that they are already finicky to pair with and most expect a pin for pairing and won’t work unless you’re on a device that supports that level of interaction like a mobile or desk phone. Looking at the manual for your Gigaset it looks like it only supports pin pairing.

In reply to @gsl

That’s not the normal behaviour, one of your Marvels must be fitted wrongly. You have to get stereo bluetooth streaming and bluetooth phone calls in both. And when you press the button for a program change both must switch the program. You should check them with your audiologist.

Yesterday I received a Marvel M50-312 as my first . It was set up right and I now hear all the things I have missed over the past 4 years. Great BUT the Bluetooth connection to my Android Samsung Note 5 is giving me real problems. I can connect the Right hand for “call and media audio” Al good to listen to music. When the phone rings it stops music and I can talk perfectly But when I launch Phonak Remote to change the program it does not find either ear bluetooth and consequently I cant adjust program or volume. Any ideas? to get P Remote working.

Found the solution. Uninstall the application and then reinstall. It works OK

In reply to @edge5050

I have my M90s paired with my phone and use the Phonak TV Connector plugged into my laptop at the same time. An incoming call will take over from the laptop and return to it when the call ends.

In reply to @edge5050

Copied from tech support:

“You always want to see 3 pairings listed. There is a pairing with the right hearing aid that is done with the Bluetooth menu of the phone. This is for calls (Bluetooth profile HSP) and for audio (Bluetooth profile A2DP). Then there are pairings with both the left and the right hearing aid – this is the pairing with the app (Bluetooth LE). When a user looks in the Bluetooth menu of their phone they should see the right pairing listed as “connected” and the left & right pairings (app pairings) listed as “not connected”. This is because the app pairing only connects when the app is open.”

I deleted one R-Phonak thinking it was redundant and this messed things up. I corrected this by reinstalling the app.

Edited

For a few days I test the M70 13T.
Bluetooth works very well with my smartphone (Android 9.0).
However, the Mavel are not detected on Windows 10 laptop or Windows 10 PC.
Both have a Bluetooth 4.0 dongle: CSL - Bluetooth 4.0 USB Adapter - V4.0 verbesserte Energieeffizienz - Bluetooth Class 4.0 Technologie - Plug and Play - Neues Modell - Windows 11 10 8.1 8 7 Vista XP 32-Bit und 64-Bit: Amazon.de: Elektronik & Foto17 = 2KD7HJHIIGUT2 & keywords = bluetooth + 5.0 + dongle & qid = 1553649998 & s = computers & sprefix = bluetooth + 5% 2Ccomputers% 2C316 & sr = 1-6

No matter if I decouple the smartphone or disable Bluetooth on the Smatphone, Windows does not find the Marvel via Bluetooth search. Bluetooth headsets (Bluetooth 2.1 + 4.0) work with laptop and PC.
Restarting the Laptop or PC does not help, too.

bye,
Ralf

Just testet another Win10 64bit laptop with “internal” :
Dell Latitude 6410 with BT modules (DW375). It is BT 3.0

In the Dell, the preconfigured left hearing aid is recognized as an “L-Phonak Hearing Aid” with a headset icon. Before I had to deactivate BT from the smartphone, otherwise it reconnect.
Sound of TV + music from the Dell to the Marvels is good at a distance of up to 1 meter, but has frequent disturbances “underwater-like”.
From a viewing distance of 3 meters I hear clear dropouts that exclude a meaningful use.

To connect the hearing aids to the smartphone again, the following was necessary:
BT on laptop must be disabled. “disconnect hearing aids” in the Dell is not enough, otherwise constantly reconnect.
“Pairing” the former Marvel BT connection in the smartphone does still not work. Battery cover open / closed. Then “pairing” works again.
This reminds me of PC experiments from the early 2000s.

From day to day I hesitate to take the devices or not. Actually they have functions that i like.
But also limitations and characteristics that make me doubt (not just BT).

bye,
Ralf

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