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Bluetooth for hearing aids different?

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Edited

Hi @lylynn

I’m pretty confident on the first one (the stereo streaming), not so confident on the second.

I’m confident on the first because I don’t think there’s any other way it can happen. It’s inherent in the A2DP protocol. The source sends out both channels in the one stream which is decoded by the destination device. In headsets, this is seamless because both sides are connected by some kind of wire. It’s one of the reasons why headphones and physically connected buds have much better battery life. There’s no need for transmission to the other bud.

Btw, my Oticon aids show up in my Android phone. This has nothing to do with audio streaming. That’s a LE connection which is used by the Oticon app to control the aids.

The pdf you linked to includes the following:

Proprietary protocols for connecting to Roger
technology, streaming from the TV Connector and
ear to ear data and audio exchange with
Binaural VoiceStream Technology.

So the facility for one aid to ‘exchange’ audio with the other is there.

As for the second, you may well be right. The Phonaks use the hfp (hands free profile) for calls, which from what I can tell uses a mono input and mono output. So you can’t use the microphone AND have high quality audio but I haven’t seen anything to suggest that they can’t be used at the same time…

I’ll do a bit more Googling and amend my post. If anyone wants to chime in, please do.

Edit: Edited the section on Classic Bluetooth.

Now reads: Phone calls use hfp (hands free profile). The microphone in one of the aids picks up the
user’s voice, enabling hands-free communication.

Perhaps off-topic: I fired-up my ChromeBook while wearing my Marvel. I looked in BlueTooth, nothing. I turned my Android cell-phone full off, now the CBook saw the Marvel but didn’t connect. Remembered that the Marvel is only pair-able right after boot, so rebooted the Marvel. Connected, and CBook popped-up the Volume slider for my possible need. I watched AND heard a pretty nasty YouTube about steel rolling. Beats heck out of the CBook’s tinny speakers. I turned on the cellphone and heard the notification ding. I let both toys rest and acoustic sounds faded back in.

All working well and with least-surprise.

One “surprise”: when the CBook connected it told me “Phonak is available to all users”. Huh?? Who else is using my hearing aid?? :laughing:

Edited

That’s good to know. The keyboard on my Windows 10 laptop is messed up, so I’m currently using a mini Android tablet with a mini bluetooth keyboard. Except for the size, the overall experience is working well and I’m giving serious thought to switching over to chromebook.

Update–After nearly a month in the repair shop by laptop still isn’t fixed. They said the new keyboard was never delivered. I picked it up and put it away in the closet–maybe I’ll try it again later. For now, I’m using my new Chromebook that was delivered last Wednesday. It’s a bit different even from the Android tablet, but I think it’ll work for what I do these days. The Marvels connect to it quite nicely too–although I haven’t tried it outdoors yet. (While it is extremely lightweight, it’s still a bit too bulky to take on a 5 mile walk.)

After easily pairing my new hearing aids with my iPhone I was hoping I could connect it to my PC laptop too. Unfortunately that will not work. So, on a whim I tried my wife’s Ipad. Voila ! The hearing aids paired with the Ipad flawlessly. I could stream everything, videos, clips, youtube, even TV on the Ipad straight to my hearing aids. I had been wanting a newer computer and wanted an Apple laptop. After pricing them I optioned to get an Ipad instead. So far I am quite happy with it.

I got the cheaper one, less than $300 online through Walmart, a 10.2", 32gb. It is much faster than my PC laptop. I found an app so I can d/l books for free from Amazon Prime and other sources. So far I am really enjoying the Ipad. I should have bought one earlier.

Edited

Sounds great! I’ve been strictly Microsoft until just recently. I wanted to have access to full size piano scores for sight reading on my piano, so I purchased Apple’s iPad Pro 12.9 with 1TB of storage. It’s the largest iPad and is the same size as a sheet of music. I use it with a Bluetooth foot pedal, PageFlip Firefly Bluetooth/USB Page Turner Pedal1, to turn pages for me. All my music is now stored on my iPad using the Henle Library app and I can turn pages “hands free” as I play! You gotta love technology!

I can also now report that my Marvels are paired with both my Microsoft Windows 10 PC and my Apple iPad Pro 12.9!

In reply to @wwwoliver

You might want to explore the Libby app. It allows you to “check out” books from your local library, which you can then read on your iPad. I just set my technophobic spouse up with Libby on her iPhone and she’s become an ebook reading demon. Yeah, dead-tree books are fun, but when the library is closed, a good ebook beats all hell out of Tiger King any day. :wink:

If you are an Amazon Kindle app and device user as I am, you will also find hundreds of free books available on the Amazon site. All the classics and books out of copyright are readily available for free.

I generally get my “out of copyright” books off one of the Gutenberg sites. I don’t trust the editions on Amazon. Amazon merely poaches something from the Gutenberg sites, but never bothers updating things as errors appear. I learned my lesson when my Amazon version of The Mayor of Casterbridge was missing some dozen or more pages about halfway through chapter 20. It was very disorienting.

But you’re right, the Kindle app is also another viable way to read ebooks on one’s phone or tablet (I’m primarily a Kindle reader, however.). The nice thing about Libby is that one can get recent things without having to “buy” them from Amazon.

As for free things, the Gutenberg sites have a much larger collection than does Amazon. For example, I have a complete collection of the Raymond Chandler books from a Gutenberg site. You have to pay for them all on Amazon, albeit not all that much.

The only problem with using library apps in the Atlanta area is the waiting list for popular books. Libraries are given a limited number of concurrent electronic “copies” by publishers. The wait can sometimes be many weeks long.

If I’m not mistaken, Kindle should still display one of the Gutenberg file formats. At least it used to. That way you can still keep and read all your books on your Kindle or with a Kindle app.

Kindle reader apps are available for free on both the Android and Apple app stores. No matter where I am, waiting in a line or in a doctor’s waiting room, all my books are immediately available to read on my phone, on my Android, Microsoft or Apple tablets, and of course on my Kindle Oasis.

@TraderGary said:

Kindle reader apps are available for free on both the Android and Apple app stores.

I love my Kindle app on my iPhone. It’s my lifeline.

Thank you all for the informative replies. I learn something new every day with this IPad. I will look into the library apps also. Something I just noticed. If I have my ’s paired with my iPhone all is well. If I make a call or a call comes it the sound streams directly too my HA’s and the sound is remarkable. All is well, until I turn on my iPad, then my HA’s beep and the pairing switches to my iPad automatically. I am assuming it has a stronger signal than the iPhone. I can manually change the settings in the iPad but so far it’s really not a bother.
Cheers, Walt

Was thinking further about Bluetooth 5.2 and Codec. When hearing aids and smartphones that support both are finally out, we’ll still need a way to connect to whatever other devices we have, so until we get all new devices that support the new format, we’ll still need some sort of intermediary device. Phonak’s use of standard bluetooth will have the advantage of being backwards compatible. Will be interesting to see how it’s handled. Resound One appears to have potential to be compatible and is Made for iPhone. I wonder if other manufacturers will try to include two standards?

Bluetooth is generally backwards compatible, but that means you can operate a “classic” feature over the new standard, but not vice versa. For a new feature, such as streaming, to work, it must be supported by both ends. There is nothing special about Phonak’s bluetooth. They deliberately chose a “classic” feature, but this means it’s inherently limited by how the feature was designed, years ago. I will take a modern feature over an classic feature any day.

I really like the idea of 5.2 and the new Codec but when I started thinking about it, I’m not so sure I want to make the leap right away when it becomes available in I really appreciate being able to use my KS9 as headphones with Bluetooth from my two computers. Although I expect my next phone will have BT 5.2 and LC3 Codec, I’ll likely wait awhile for hearing aids. The new phone will work with the KS9, but HA with new BT won’t likely work with my current computers. I guess like all things, try to gain some understanding about how things work and don’t just assume.

In reply to @MDB

Intel’s new network adapter has Bluetooth 5.2, so for desktops it should be a simple upgrade. Hopefully for laptops compatible usb dongles will be available by then. You’re right though. Best not to get ahead of ourselves.

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