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New hearing aid wish list (Bluetooth and Android)

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I have useful hearing only on one side now since going through SSHL in 2016, I hear only high frequencies with zero speech recognition on the left. I have a 3 year old Audibel A4 in the right side that works fairly well, except that with my moderate-severe loss, most jaw movement results in feedback because the canal changes shape. It is time for something new, and I was hoping the tech had improved in the last 3 years - I would love to be able to Bluetooth stream podcasts to my ear when I am cycling. That is all I really want, and the only time I would really want to use Bluetooth. I am not overly interested in using the phone in general - I only use it as a last resort anyway. Currently, I have a small in-line amplifier that I plug my earphones into that I then plug into my Google Pixel 3 phone , and that pumps the volume up enough so I can hear without an aid in that ear. But it is clunky and a lot of cables.
I am trialling an Phonak Audeo Marvel 90 312 and I have not found their system useful. You can stream Bluetooth () from Android, but there isn’t a good way to turn it on and off. So if I want to stream BT, I need the app running, and with the app running, I hear ALL notifications from my phone, even when I am not streaming. So if I get an email when the phone is connected, my main volume drops for a second or so while the phone streams the notification sound, sometimes causing me to lose whatever sound or conversation I might be listening to at the time. Their solution is to turn off all notifications, which makes no sense to me. The only way I can fix this is to go into the BT settings on the phone and manually turn on and off the BT media streaming - just more trouble than it needs to be.
I am also unimpressed with the “helping” tech that is supposed to help with wind and crowd noise - what I find is that it drops the volume of everything, so that I can’t hear the noise of the wind or crowd, or anything else. Useless.
Anyone have any suggestions? I don’t see much point in putting that much into the new Phonak if it can’t do what I want it to, and I am not getting an iPhone (I just found this, which describes my feelings perfectly, thanks @BlueCrab) - I personally have no use for Apple and iOS.

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I think your bluetooth struggle will be the same no matter what hearing aids you try. The problem is that notifications are media, and in no way differentiated from songs or audio books.
I started a thread here (member archive) a while back about Android and Bluetooth.

@Microfiche said:

I have a 3 year old Audibel A4 ITC in the right side that works fairly well, except that with my moderate-severe loss, most jaw movement results in feedback because the canal changes shape.

I have that issue with custom molds, and actually to a lessor degree with off the shelf closed sleeves. I am hoping a new set of impressions made with my mouth open will address it. In most people the ear canal is largest with the mouth open, and impressions taken that way tend to be larger. Have not done it yet, so for me just of theoretical hope.

I found this old (2011) paper by Siemens (now Sivantos/Rexton/Signia) that talks about the design of feedback suppression. At least in theory there is static feedback suppression and also dynamic suppression that responds to changing feedback routes. And here is a later paper on testing Signia has done on feedback suppression systems, which show unsurprisingly that Signia works well if not best. The downside is that the other guys they compared to are not identified other than in total they represent the “big six”. This said from personal experience the KS8/Rexton/Signia feedback suppression is not perfect. It works well in my better ear, but not so well in my poor ear. Somewhat surprisingly I cannot make it act up by holding my hand over my ears and ’s, but it does react to certain speech and music.

On the bluetooth streaming, I am anti Apple even though I own the stock. However when I considered the cost of hearing aids the cost of an iPhone (a hand me down i7 from my son) was incidental so I broke my anti Apple rule. seems so much more advanced over the Android solutions. Generally it works well for what I want. However, I don’t think it would solve your problem with the notifications. I have all mine turned off, so it is fine for uninterrupted streaming. I suppose one could switch notifications to vibrate so they would not interfere with audio.

Hope that helps some.

i wanted the same thing, tried the bose hearphone, poor volume. Just purchased a set of Costco k9’s, so far, a vast improvement. Android works fine, with my phone at 1/2 volume…Costco did a fine fitting job with . Happy camper… even home tv is good with out the streamer

Edited

In reply to @Sierra

To clarify, I am not opposed to hearing notifications when I am streaming. What I don’t want is to have notifications going off in my ear when I am not streaming. With the Phonak app, unless you go into Bluetooth and disable media streaming after you finish streaming, as long as the phone is connected to the aid, you get that annoying dropout - notification - pause, when you aren’t streaming. That is what I think is silly.
And I have no problem takng dividends from Apple! I just don’t want to use their products. I had an iPad for a while to communicate with young nieces via iMessage. That thing almost went through the wall so many times. I was ecstatic when they graduated to Android… Goodbye iPad!2

Try turning off the sound notifications on your phone. OK you will not get a notification of an email or text but I find all those bings and bongs annoying so I’ve never used them.

@Microfiche said:

So if I want to stream BT, I need the app running, and with the app running, I hear ALL notifications from my phone, even when I am not streaming. So if I get an email when the phone is connected, my main volume drops for a second or so while the phone streams the notification sound, sometimes causing me to lose whatever sound or conversation I might be listening to at the time. Their solution is to turn off all notifications, which makes no sense to me. The only way I can fix this is to go into the BT settings on the phone and manually turn on and off the BT media streaming - just more trouble than it needs to be.

Is your version of Android up to date? Mine is and I can selectively turn off notifications individually by app. Go to the Settings gear icon and type in “Notifications” and select “Apps & Notifications” and you can then go down the list and turn off individual notifications by app, leaving only those if any that you feel are important enough to interrupt you. There are many other options there as well to fine-tune when, what and if notifications you want. You really don’t need most of them.
Instead of being interrupted by notifications, I find in most cases I prefer to wait until I feel like catching up, at which point I simply pull down the white “window-shade” from the top of the screen and take a look and touch the ones of interest and dismiss the rest.

Yeah - I bought a Google Pixel 3 because I want the latest Android version at all times - without rooting - so it is as current as it can be.
In any case - I want to hear notifications that I have enabled - just not in my aid with an ambient volume drop. I own a business and this is a work phone as well, so they are important. What I am trying to find is a way that I could easily turn the streaming on or off - the Phonak app is either loaded or not loaded, there is no way that I can see to turn the streaming off, and if the streaming is on, and I am not listening to streamed content on the phone, I hear the notifications. When a notification is streamed to the phone, the mic level drops for a second or so while the notification is playing, which can cause me to lose part of a conversation. You can program to turn this input level drop off, but then when you are streaming, outside noise becomes loud and distracting. So they are simulating wearing ear/head phones by dropping the ambient noise down when your phone streams (which is good), but if the app is loaded, streaming is always on, unless your actually go into the Bluetooth settings of the hearing aid and turn off that profile. That is not convenient. I guess really what would be ideal would be to be able to turn streaming on and off within the app, rather than having to work around by going into the settings.
I read the Bluetooth thread (member archive) that @BlueCrab started, and it sounds like I am pretty hard to please, based on what some people are happy with! I like to be able to control my hearing aid - for instance, if I could selectively turn the mic on or off, then I could set the streaming profile so that the mic level didn’t drop during streaming. Then, when I am not streaming media, the ambient volume would not drop during notifications, and I could simply turn the mic off when I was streaming.
As someone who needs to know why and to be able to fix things myself (hence the Android preference), it makes me crazy to have to run and back and forth to the audiologist to be able to set these types of things up (like new profiles) so I will very likely try to pick up a Noahlink. The Target software seemed easy enough to find.

You could have the ambient sounds at 100% when streaming. It’s adjustable and streaming will probably sound better with some drop in the mics but it’s something you could try.

In reply to @Microfiche

I see what you mean and why your needs require that you instantly hear notifications that you have enabled because they come in frequently in the performance of your work, but without the jarring effect you are presently experiencing.

Please keep us posted of your efforts and hopefully your progress in finding a suitable solution.

I hate to be the bearer of bad news. But until Resound/Google come up with a low energy bluetooth for hearing aids with Android - - only Apple iPhone will do what you want. I am a totally Google person, and I HATE my iPhone with a passion, but cannot say enough GOOD things about the bluetooth to hearing aids. I have 3 year old Resound Linx aids.

I keep the ringer volume turned OFF and have a gadget that vibrates on my wrist when calls or text come in - - or I get too far from phone for bluetooth to connect. I listen to audio books when I walk my neighborhood, clean house and/or other mindless chores. I can HEAR much better via bluetooth on the cell phone than on the landline which I used to prefer.

But I would switch back to an Android phone in a heartbeat if Google comes up with a similar bluetooth system!!!

@lsmith77025 You mean this type of support? Google brings native hearing aid support to Android18
That is why I was hoping that the major brands of hearing aids had started to work with Android better.
I know that the Audéo Marvel M90 312 I just had was streaming directly to the aid via Bluetooth1.
The problem I am having is with the control and implementation.

In any case, after reading the related threads in this forum and seeing what others are settling for, I have returned my Audéo Marvel and will be trying an device (which I prefer) with a streamer and a streaming profile with the microphone muted. Maybe in a few years the Android implementation will have improved. The stress of dealing with Apple products is not worth the small benefit I am looking for.

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