Phonak Marvel, Paradise and KS9 and Zoom--microphone

I use Marvels, the Phonak TV connector and a Mac and I have zero issues. The mic on the Mac works well.

Is there anything specific to read in his posts. I thought you were experiencing some of the same issues with windows 10 and connecting your Marvels. I see where he is using a Bt 50 doogle and getting good results at connecting to Zoom. Right now I’m on a Asus small two in one and connecting to You tube great. This small laptop has a different bt chip than my hp laptop. I’m using windows 10 on my Asus laptop.

I thought it was just a good overall take of the complexity involved. My biggest take was if one finds something that works, stick with it and don’t change things. I can connect fine to my Windows desktop using a BT dongle and doing “routine” streaming, ie youtube. It doesn’t work with Zoom. My Chromebook works great with Zoom. My plan is to continue using my Chromebook for Zoom unless I become desirous of beating my head against the wall and I might try to make the Windows Desktop work.

I just logged into a Zoom and audio works great. like I said different Bt chip in this Asus laptop. Will keep you updated. I’m going to do some research to see if the BT chip can be changed and again I had troubles with the bt doogle. I did not see where Gary disabled the bt chip in his computer in order for the bt doogle to work.

CLARIFICATION on Connections — AND, DONGLE considerations
–>> MAX 2 pairings, per HA (pair [no pun intended])
–>> MUST disconnect FIRST, and STAY disconnected before you can connect with the other (ONE) paired device.

Invariably, unless you DISABLE BT on your PC or phone, it often will RECONNECT AUTOMATICALLY, before you can switch to the other device.

• The way my Windows 10 PC works:
• –>> I have to keep that BT WINDOW open when I “disconnect” the HA from my PC, (which sometimes you must do twice, to get it to release the HAs).
• –>> Then, ENABLE the phone’s BT, and PICK, or MAKE SURE that the HA are chosen. My phone after connecting, says “Phone - Music”.
• IF it fails, then recheck to make sure the PC is still disconnected. If you must, DISABLE BT for now, instead of disconnect. IF connect / disconnect fails, try again and it will usually work. Just make sure when having problems, you have BOTH BT setup screens open.

Since a BT Dongle would work on most everything, and the range is said to be better, I might try one.

ISSUES though -->>
Plugging into the headset jack should work fine on most devices. But, here’s the problem: I don’t know how your phone could then use the “Music Mode” vs “Headset”. They are different BT Channels, at least from the PC or Phone’s perspective. So, they might then not sound at all the same as “music”. In the PC’s case, I might be able to switch to the other jack. But, on the phone, not quite the same and YMMV.

A good test would be to try the “Phonak App” on my tablets WITH a dongle, (which for me are the only devices this app works on, since that app requires Android +6 and I my phone has 5.) I hope the app works well with the dongle, because today I “can’t afford” connecting to my tablet as a third device, and still use my PC and phone.
–>> DO KNOW though, that the SOFTWARE UPDATE and COMM with PHONAK is NOT going to work through the dongle. That requires a DATA CHANNEL from the HA to/from Phonak, so I doubt if that would work through the phone jack. OTOH, firmware updates are infrequent. And for me, the VA doesn’t use remote HA manage.

Dell has a recent BT update for my 2017 Alienware PC, so after I apply the updates, there might be some changes.

FIX -->> TELL PHONAK that they need to ALLOCATE MORE SPACE to store more than TWO BT pairings!!

Update, called Phonak this morning got a hold of a lab tech named Carl. Not sure if he spells his name with a C or a K. Explain my problem with Bt connections issues with my hp laptop and he proceeded to tell me that for the Marvels to connect to a pc or laptop is an hit or miss situation. He was very informative and explained to me that the Marvels are really setup for mobile devices. A laptop is not considered a mobile device. Tablets are considered mobile devices as well as phone. So that explains why it connects to my Asus laptop because I think I mentioned before is a small 2 in 1 but it has windows 10 and it connects pretty good. Because the screen is on 10in it is considered a tablet. Carl also said that Phonak recommend Sennheiser BTD 800 doogle. Kind of pricey but that what he said Phonak recommended for pc and laptops.

Thanks! That was informative on several key points:

• That you talked to a “Lab tech” is great news, in that even if he was just tech support, he sounds as if he gets to at least influence, or talk to the engineers. I know that in my company, we “forced” engineers to do first line tech support for at least an hour a day. That led to customers driving engineering that no manager could ever match. They could see first hand, the implications of their decisions, and that drove engineering much better products.
• I’m not at all sure I buy that BT is different on PCs, vs phones. Generally, a spec like BT is a spec, regardless of which OS or device it is on. We pioneered SCSI devices for all OS’s, all SCSI devices, and all hardware hosting. So, I have a bit of experience with device drivers, OEMs and software distribution. They could have “done it wrong”, but I doubt it. To maintain as much compatibility as possible, they should have only supported what they had to. Once you try to do exotic functions that only exist in x hardware, or x OS, then you not only limit your market, but you generally will break and make fragile what you do “support” i.e., it becomes unreliable.
• Again, if someone talks to support or engineering:
  ----- >> Please lobby for more than TWO BT pairings that can be saved.
  That alone would clear up most of our problems. The alternative of requiring a dongle is not good. They then cannot “talk to the HA” from any app or application. Think of “programming” your HA — think you are going to do that through an ANALOG audio port?? I don’t think that’s possible. (Or, it hasn’t been since TRS-80 Radio shack days when you stored programs on audio cassette tapes!!)
• Eventually, they, or someone else, will open up an API that we can control our HA with our devices. That can’t happen unless and until we can always have a DIGITAL wireless connection from our PCs and phones.

Same experience here. Updated BT on my Windows 10 desktop. KS9’s pair & connect but consistently cut out. I didn’t want to spring for the pricy Sennheiser dongle (about the same price as the Phonak TV connector at Costco) so I purchased a knock-off dongle (<$20USD). I’ll let you know tomorrow if it fixes the cutting out issue. Fingers crossed!
-kate.

Streaming to my KS9s connected to Dell Windows 10 desktop with BT 5.2 drops in-and-out. I just tried a BT dongle (not the recommended $100+ Sennheiser) – it may have been a slight improvement, but did not make the connection usable IMO.

I am running on a desktop pc with only a BT dongle so I didn’t have to disable any other BT device. Hope this helps.

I have new Phonak paradise HA’s. Everything works pretty much as expected. I have the paired to my iPhone and MacBook pro. Streaming from the Macbook works fine. Until I connect to a zoom call. Then, it disconnects the Phonak Bluetooth. If I try to reconnect, it spins and lights up like it’s going to connect, then disconnects again. I can’t seem to get it to stay connected.

Does anyone else have this issue? If so, how did you fix it? Right now, I have to dial into the zoom and would prefer to use computer audio (like I did before HA’s).

As you know I’ve made several comments regarding connecting my Marvels to my Windows 10 and Zoom with very little success. I have a android phone and I install the Zoom app on my phone. It works pretty good when I’m within the router range. When I connect to Zoom it asks me whether I want to dial in or internet and I choose internet. The phone is a little inconvenient because I don’t have a bigger screen but I really don’t have any complaints using the phone when connected to the internet and within range of my router usually twenty feet.

What I do is use my computer for my video and call in from my Android phone. It works well for me. With this combination I get the larger screen and and the great audio from my phone. The only thing that is a pain is that I have to manually put in my meeting ID and my participant ID for every meeting. But that is the only inconvenience. you can even mute and unmute the phone mic using the keyboard shortcuts.

Thanks I will have to try that next time I log into Zoom.