Is there something I can do or buy to stream sound from my computer to my hearing aids? They do not show up when I go to the bluetooth settings on the laptop. I think maybe the hearing aids are too old to work with that? They connect fine to my iPhone.
What I want is simple, just to listen to audio through my without it playing out of the laptop speakers, so no one else can hear it. I will buy a device that plugs in, if I need to. I found the ReSound TV streamer49 but it looks like it is made to also play out of the regular speakers. Plus I don’t know if it will work with my older aid, and I think it is very expensive?
The TV Streamer will work. You can connect the streamer to the headphone jack of your laptop and the sound won’t play out of the speakers. That’s how I use a streamer with my laptop.
You can use it with a TV too, and set it up like shown at the link you posted so the speakers of the TV still play. I have on on my TV but have the speakers turned off since it’s just me watching.
All three devices, Phone Clip Plus, Multi Mic, and TV Streamer 2 will work. The Phone Clip Plus has latency issues compared to the Multi Mic and the TV Streamer 2 as it has two wireless connections, PC to Phone Clip, then Phone Clip to ’s. The Multi Mic and TV Streamer would be hard-wired to the PC.
The TV Streamer 2 would be the most preferable of the three devices as there is no battery to have to charge or eventually wear out. The only advantage of the Phone Clip Plus would be that it doesn’t have to be physically connected to your PC and could perhaps be used to answer phone calls at the same time (someone else would have to vouch for that and it would depend on whether you’re an iPhone or Android user, too, I would think - since I don’t use my PC+ with my PC, not easy to test myself).
The only advantage of the Phone Clip Plus would be that it doesn’t have to be physically connected to your PC and could perhaps be used to answer phone calls at the same time
The PhoneClip+ can be connected to 2 phones simultaneously (e.g. PSTN and mobile), so I think 1 PC and 1 phone would work too. With my PC at least, the Bluetooth connection is unstable and often needs repairing, so I prefer the MultiMic as streamer. Charging is not an issue. The MultiMic is permanently powered from one of the USB sockets on the PC and is connected to the headphone jack with a male-male adapter.
Charging is not an issue. The MultiMic is permanently powered from one of the USB sockets on the PC
Unless the Multi Mic is clever enough to bypass charging its battery while connected as you describe, this is not a good idea as it will get the Multi Mic battery at 100% charge (microcycling), probably heat the battery a bit to boot, and degrade the battery charge capacity (and therefore longterm battery lifespan) more rapidly than keeping the device at less than 100% charge and using a narrower charger/discharging range if feasible than the full capacity range of the battery (fine to use that occasionally if needed). If you don’t mind simply buying a new Multi Mic whenever needed and not worrying a whit about how you charge it, that’s obviously the simplest strategy. See this thread for further discussion of maximizing Li-ion battery lifespan. OEM’s love to sell you new devices. Apple is the source of some of the best battery care info and they can replace batteries in just about everything but the Apple Watch at a reasonable rate. The Phone Clip+ and the Multi Mic are “expendable” devices as ReSound says when their batteries are dead, you have to buy new. What is the expected battery lifetime of Phonak Roger Select? - #31 by jim_lewis
Theoretically you’re right, but for the past 3 years I’ve been alternating between using my MultiMic as battery-powered partner mic and as USB-powered PC audio streamer. I haven’t scientifically done any measuring of possible battery degradation, but it still works fine for any purpose of mine, and I find it convenient, that the MultiMic is always fully charged for battery operation.
I haven’t scientifically done any measuring of possible battery degradation
One easy way to find out where your battery stands is to buy a USB-based digital multimeter on Amazon. They’re quite inexpensive for what you get. The one that I got is https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07X3HST7V/13 but there are cheaper for $10 or less. I agree with one of the Amazon reviewers who said that the particular one that I got is not a toy but actually a fairly precise measuring instrument.
I have an old Plantronics Calisto Pro headset. So old, it’s from back in the day when wearable devices were powered by NiMH, not Li-ion batteries. I’ve let it sit around in a discharged state (not good for NiMH or Li-ion batteries). If you try to recharge such a device to 100% capacity, the mAh (milliAmpere-hours) metering on the digital multimeter will tell you how many mAh go into the device before it thinks it’s fully charged. I found that I had less than 10% of the battery capacity of the Calisto Pro device left when the charging light said that I had charged it up from ~depleted to “100%.”
Edit_Update: BTW, the above recommendation is for WIRED charging via USB from a computer port or an adapter. If you were trying to measure mAh contributed by WIRELESS charging, you’d have to allow for the much greater inefficiency of wireless charging as compared to wired charging (which also is probably not 100% efficient). Here’s an interesting article that blogs how relatively inefficent wireless charging is and how much energy wireless chargers needlessly expend into the air even when not charging anything - don’t know if the results can be extrapolated to all wireless chargers - ideally a wireless charger should be EcoSmart and realize nothing useful to charge is nearby and not expend much energy until an appropriate device comes in contact with the charger. But I’ve been leaving several wireless chargers plugged in when I’m not using them. May have to rethink that. It’s a case of pennies make BIG dollars (and more CO2 into the atmosphere). When you’re talking one teensy wireless charger, not a problem, obviously. But when you’re talking 3.6 billion, …, 10 billion someday, look out! Here’s Exactly How Inefficient Wireless Charging Is | Debugger (medium.com)5
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