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Is it common for hospital equipment to mess up Bluetooth hearing aids, mainly Phonak?

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I spent the whole of yesterday in a hospital ward and my Bluetooth (hearing aids) kept misbehaving. It would sometimes connect and sometimes not. Phone calls also became very crackly. Nothing worked apart from resetting my iPhone and factory resetting my hearing aids.

Is this a common issue as I had no issues with my Phonak ComPilot?!

I spend a lot of time at hospital due to a rare medical condition so if this is a common issue, I won’t wear my Phonao M70 hearing aids whiles at the hospital.

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I know some light motion sensors play havoc with my hearing aids. I’ve never noticed in a hospital–only a car dealership. There’s also a lot of wifi activity in a hospital.

I alway find not in hospitals but anywhere that i go that has like those security things at the door my cros aids go off for a few seconds and then will come back on haven’t really experienced that yet with the nathos nova

Not disputing what anyone is saying. But the op asked if anyone has had a similar experience and my response was no

I work in a hospital as a biomed tech. so I’m all over the hospital and I have no problems with my hearing aids. I have Phonak Marvels 90 R hearing aids.

@Petbug said:

I have no problems with my hearing aids.

Are you on your phone at the hospital?

I’m wondering if it was because I was bored, I was on the phone for the whole time using 4G mobile data and the hospital WiFi.

the problem may be up to bluetooth. Because too many people have bluetooth devices and it is possible that there is mutual signal interference.

A lot of devices and technology share the broader 2.4Ghz frequency, including Bluetooth and Wi-Fi. I’m guessing, these days, most hospital monitoring equipment is connected via a central monitoring station. Therefore, causing some interference. I know in Australian hospitals, you see a lot of signs around asking you to switch off your phone to reduce ‘their’ interference from their vital monitoring equipment.
So it becomes a 2-way problem.

In reply to @BrBarry

@BrBarry said:

I know in Australian hospitals, you see a lot of signs around asking you to switch off your phone to reduce ‘their’ interference from their vital monitoring equipment.
So it becomes a 2-way problem.

We used to have these signs but they went quite a few years ago and since then, I’ve asked about using my phone and I’ve always been told it’s okay. I do think this is the issue tho.

@Petbug

Ah that’s fair enough.

I’m never in a ED/A&E hospital. I’m always in the Endocrine part of the hospital, so the equipment might be different. Where my Endocrine department / wards are, the hospital don’t have an emergency part.

:slight_smile:

I use Naida M90 Sp and take a therapy dog in medical, surgicaland pediatric wards with lots of equipment and never have interference even when I change from Autosense to Comfort in Echo maybe youneed to forget aids, delete bluetooth from phone settings then re pair the aids again, works when I had bluetooth trouble after Android security update

Phonak Marvel 90/312 user here … I’ve found that when in some businesses (mainly Weigel’s) as I walk through the store, I will intermittently hear static or white noise. Looking around, I found that each time it happens, I’m underneath an electronic device mounted in the ceiling. I asked the store manager what it was and was told that it was part of their newer smoke/fire control detection. I don’t know what sort of connectivity they use, but it plays havoc with my ’s.

I spent Friday on the same hospital ward and again, my hearing aids started to play up.

It’s Saturday here in the UK.

So weird that I’m having these issues when my Phonak ComPilot never had this issue.

I wear KS9’s and work across all areas of a major hospital and have never had any out of the ordinary issues in that environment in comparison to outside of the hospital environment with Bluetooth.

(In saying that, though, as great as it is to not have to have the cord around your neck and dangling against your chest, the calls are generally more crackly in any environment with the KS9’s Bluetooth in comparison to when I used to use the Compilot II.)

But back to your specific question, nope no difference in the hospital environment with Bluetooth in comparison to outside of it.

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