Skip to content
HearingTracker
Log in

Phonak Paradise P90 - reliable Bluetooth dongle at last!

This topic is closed.

2 replies2.1k viewsLast reply

Link to this topic

I make heavy demands on my P90’s, for Teams calls and streaming, from a variety of laptops, an iPhone and a desktop PC at home. The laptops and iPhone all seem to work well, except that sometimes the P90’s don’t automatically reconnect after being away, but that’s a story for another day.
My biggest issue in these days of working from home was finding a Bluetooth dongle for the USB3 port on my desktop PC.
Initially, I looked around for a dongle that had Bluetooth 5.2 but these seem to not exist (yet)? The ASUS USB -500 seemed to have the best spec.
It was a disappointment. The sound was interrupted every 5 seconds or so by a “spit” sound and varying lengths of silence.
I also already had a Sennheiser BTD 500 USB. Also unsatisfactory with the P90s but worked well with my headphones.
Since these adaptors are inexpensive (at least compared to a Phonak !), I then bought a range of adaptors to try to find one that worked.
Next up was the Edimax Bluetooth 5.0 Nano USB adaptor. Similar issues to the ASUS, only without the spitting sounds.
Last try was the Avantree DG80 USB Audio Transmitter (external). This is a slightly different type of product to all the others, which are general purpose Bluetooth adaptors. The Avantree device shows up as a sound device when inserted. The main thing is - it works. The sound quality is good, there are no spits or breaks and I can reliably call with Teams or listen to streaming.
The Avantree does have one inconvenience. It does not respond to the normal Windows volume control! To change the volume, it’s necessary to start the Windows Sound Mixer applet, locate the program producing sounds (i.e. Chrome or MS Teams) and reduce the volume there. A minor but annoying characteristic!
Brief specs from the box: BT 5.0. Bluetooth profiles A2DP, AVRCP, HSP, HFP. Codecs aptX Low Latency, FastStream, aptX, SBC.
Price, around $25, as are all of the adapters I mentioned except the Sennheiser, which is expensive!
I have no idea why this is so hard - whether it’s the Bluetooth stack in the P90s, the firmware in the adaptors or Windows 10, but am happy I have a solution.
I hope this is of use to others. Feel free to ask questions.

WH - There was a previous thread about fun with Zoom and Phonak aids:

https://forum.hearingtracker.com/t/phonak-marvel-paradise-and-ks9-and-zoom-microphone/

where one poster had spoken to Phonak Tech support and was told that Phonak recommended the Sennheiser BTD 800 dongle. On my iMac Pro running either macOS or Windows 10, that device shows up as a USB audio adapter. I don’t have Phonak aids but Oticon Tech Support recommends the same USB dongle be used with their ConnectClip (I have Oticon OPN S 1 aids) if you have bluetooth issues with a notebook or (more likely) a desktop pc. It fixed issues I was having with an iMac Pro (2017) running either macOS Catalina or now Monterrey. It is not inexpensive but one was shipped with my ConnectClip when the ConnectClip first delivered (after a long delay after it was announced). EPOS/Sennheiser also includes the dongle with certain of their headsets to ensure that they work with various PCs and call center software. The Oticon Tech Support person said that many bluetooth implementations (chipset and/or driver) had bugs or didn’t correctly support the bluetooth profile and/or versions needed by the ConnectClip.

On my iMac Pro running Monterey (12.1), the System Preferences Sound panel shows the “Sennheiser BTD 800 USB for Lync” as type USB. It can be selected as the Output or Input device (or both). When used as an input device and the dongle is paired with the ConnectClip, the microphone in the ConnectClip becomes the input sound device. If it is selected as the output device, the sound is relayed fthrough the dongle to the ConnectClip as classic bluetooth and from the ConnectClip as Low Energy (Apple MFI) to the hearing aids.

I expect the Avantree DG80 might work with your MacBook and I expect the Sennheiser BTD 800 would also but I’m only guessing. I do know that EPOS/Sennheiser does issue new firmware every so often for their dongle - I’ve updated the firmware a number of times when the issues fixed included support for Teams and similar applications. You do have to run a windows application to update the software - I use Windows 10 with Boot Camp on my iMac or a Windows 10 box at work to do that.

Good luck - you may need it with bluetooth :slight_smile:

Active discussions

What the forum has been talking about this week.