Bluetooth cuts out with Oticon hearing aids and Samsung Galaxy S10+

Thank you for your reply, she has tried putting her phone in a carrier around her waist and she has problems with just that distance. It does it when making or receiving phone calls also. Maybe will try attaching it to her chest and see if that works.

Let me share my findings with More 1 (and 2). I tried both beginning in Jan when they were both first available. I too experienced the random BT disconnects. After extensive discussions with both Oticon and Samsung and a lot of tests I personally carried out - this is what happened.

Oticon admitted there was a problem and new firmware should address it. I had at least two firmware updates, the last being 1.004. I think it may have improved a little but still occurred. They may have released further firmware updates by now.

Samsung also admitted there were issues with their BT implementation. again a system update was promised to fix that. I had one system update while I had the More 1s but that did not make it any better. Further updates may or may not improve matters.

My own testing showed this… the new ASHA Bluetooth is lower power than previous versions. This means that when walking with the phone in my jeans pocket it would cut out especially when I turned my head to the left or right. Sometimes it would come back but not always or might take some time. BT signals do not travel through the body well and this would cause the problem depending on where your phone was in relation to the hearing aids. Following on from that, there were far less disconnects if I had the phone in my shirt pocket - nearer to the HAs. Furthermore, if I had the phone oriented in my pocket with the top of the phone uppermost there were less disconnects than if the top of the phone went in my pocket first - which I discovered was the usual way I placed it… I believe the BT antenna is at the top of the phone.

The fuss was too much for me… and promises from vendors or phonemakers may or may not happen in my experience… but perhaps they will fix it at some point. I had much better luck with Phonak.

I suggest you keep writing to Oticon tech support about this problem until they can assure it is fixed.

Hope that helps!

Could the disconnect problem be worse in a high-Bluetooth environment?

I have More3s, but live in the boonies, and haven’t experienced this issue. I’ll be going to the mall later this week
(shudder), and I will report back any disconnects that I experience.

@CChamp said:

Does anyone know how to fix this? Thank you very much.

A possible fix would be a ConnectClip - it is shown as a connectivity option for Oticon aids. It would connect to the phone with regular Bluetooth and to the hearing aids with an Oticon (or maybe Apple) protocol. Maybe your wife’s hearing aid provider has one to test with? A ConnectClip might reduce the need for firmware fixes in the phone and/or aids and allow things to work as expected but that is only a guess on my part.

I use a ConnectClip with my OPN S 1 aids to connect to my computers - I don’t need it for my iPhone as the Oticon are MFI aids and that has worked reasonably for a number of years. With my original OPN aids, there were a number of firmware fixes for the aids to fix connectivity issues and at least one with the ConnectClip also. So I’m not surprised that fixes are needed in both the phone and aids for a relatively new protocol.

I have a similar problem with my Starkey hearing aids. That’s why I looked for a forum. Hope I can get some ideas to fix this problem.

FWIW, @Exe, I wear More3s, and have experienced none of the issues that @Hooby (Andy) has written up, nor has my audiologist warned me about any "known issues ". I’m not saying that there are none, but he has not flagged anything (which is his usual habit when there are issues).

[My devices are using firmware version 1.0.2, btw, which doesn’t match with what Hooby has posted. (Probably a typo …)]

YMMV

We had problems with this when trying to connect a Galaxy S20 to a pair of Bernafon Alpha 9’s (Bernafon are a sister company to Oticon). The Alpha 9 is Bernafon’s version of the More 1.

To get it to stream to both ears consistently I think the key is to ensure that the hearing aids only show as one device in your Bluetooth settings and not two separate devices. When originally pairing the hearing aids via Settings and Bluetooth before then pairing via the Bernafon app this led to the hearing aids showing as two separate devices and streaming would not work to both ears.

When only pairing through the Bernafon app during initial setup this led to the devices being shown as only one device and streaming to both ears seems to now work.

In your case I’m not sure if your even using the Oticon ON app but I would suggest trying to forget the hearing aid devices in Bluetooth settings. You could then delete and reinstall the Oticon ON app and start the pairing process again but through the Oticon ON app only.

We reported this feedback to Oticon and Bernafon support but did not receive a reply. Hopefully they’ll get this resolved.

I hope this feedback helps.

@xWill: I don’t think the process you’ve described would work for my Oticon More3s+iPhone.

I have an iPhone SE 2. This is what I see in Settings->Accessibility->Hearing Devices:

The HAs don’t show up in the Bluetooth section, and the only problems I have experienced is when my devices were concurrently paired with both the iPad and my iPhone.

@kevels55 has repeatedly pointed out to me that his Phonaks behave as you describe, with only the RH device showing as paired in the Bluetooth settings. Also, I don’t know your phone, so forgive me if I err.

FYI

[EDIT: I haven’t been able to confirm the equivalency of the Bernafon model you have and Oticon More, BTW. I suspect the Bernafon firmware may be different, because the Bernafon technical writeup talks a lot about “hybrid directionality” and “dynamic directionality”.

This may, however, refer to the same process Oticon describes in terms of adjusting the binaural microphones’ “null nodes” to achieve spatial orientation.

The marketing babble makes it difficult to compare them, I find.]

Often, randomly, one HA shuts off. I have to re-boot my phone to make them both come back on. Is there a way to turn on HA without having to turn off my phone? Thank you in advance.

If they have disposable batteries, it’s a simple matter of opening and closing battery doors. If rechargeables, there’s probably a way to do it with buttons, but you’d need to look it up or ask your audi.