Oticon More 1.4.2 firmware

It is within the Gene2 software is all that I know.

The pairings in the hearing aids are cleared using whatever Oticon software the audiologist uses.

The pairings in the ConnectClips are cleared using ± Power.

The pairings in the phone are cleared using “forget”.

The pairings in the laptop are cleared using “remove device”.

Like I said before, I have gone through these steps more times than I can count.

I have gone through them myself and with the audiologist, because she initially didn’t believe it was happening.

If the paring was not being done properly, there would be no sound at all. The Opn S hearing aids work perfectly with no dropouts. The More hearing aids worked perfectly with no dropouts when the firmware was 1.3.0. After that, sound through the ConnectClip from my laptop was cutting out, as others have reported and as Oticon has admitted.

I experienced this exact phenomenon with the first set of More hearing aids after they were updated to 1.4.0. These hearing aids were returned to Oticon for testing and replaced with another set. They were supplied with 1.3.0 firmware, but accidently updated to 1.4.0 by the audiologist when they were supplied to me, so they had drop-outs from the beginning.

Here is an excerpt from an email I received from Oticon:

I heard back from our head office during the holidays. They have identified an issue with the ConnectClip and newer Firmware and are planning to do more testing with laptops and the dongle. A new Firmware will be released by the end of January for More hearing aids (FW 1.4.2) and they recommend updating your hearing aids when this Firmware will be available. Once your aids are up to date, they recommend deleting the Clip from your computer and from the aids (done by your hearing care professional) and proceed with a new pairing.

Based on the note posted by Oticon about 1.4.2 firmware, I don’t think it includes the ConnectClip fix. I emailed Oticon yesterday and I will report back when I receive a reply.

@darylm said:

I replied in the other thread, but I didn’t mention that the ConnectClips are not paired with either of my phones (iPhone or android), only with my laptop. The problem occurs ONLY when streaming from my laptop and ONLY with the More hearing aids, but not with the Opn S hearing aids.

I wonder if you have tried using the BTD800 dongle connect to your laptop to be used to connect to the ConnectClip. Technically you shouldn’t have to. But I remember that initially when the ConnectClip was released, I remember some of them were sold with the BTD800 USB dongle because for some PCs, the streaming connection sometimes wouldn’t be reliable unless the dongle were used.

I think hardly anyone ever have to use the dongle anymore with the ConnectClip lately. But since you mentioned that your only use is with your laptop, and the issue is only when you use the laptop with the More, I wonder if maybe there’s something about the laptop’s BT specifically that is causing the issue. If it’s specific only when using your laptop, perhaps with the dongle, it’ll resolved that for you.

Got it, @cvkemp & @darylm. This is what Oticon says:

Bluetooth pairing

If the instruments are paired with a phone, you can delete this pairing in Save and Exit. If instruments and phone need to be paired again, it must be done on the phone.

So, in the screenshot below there is the list of accessories. In “Phone”, right bottom corner, just click the little “trash bin”. This option is hidden, you need to move your mouse around that area to uncover it.

Edit: I forgot to mention that the screenshot is from Oticon Genie 2, the software used to program the hearing aids. Also, I suppose the process to clear the other accessories is just the same (I don’t have any, so I can’t confirm).

Thanks everyone for your suggestions. I appreciate it.

You have to understand I don’t use the ON app to me it is useless and causes worse battery life to both my aids and iPhone.

@darylm said:

I have never tried using a BT dongle. I don’t even have one.

If I was not able to get the Opn and Opn S to work using a ConnectClip, I would be suspect of the laptop, but it works fine, and the other connectclip works. I even tried swapping them. The only commonality is the More hearing aids with newer than 1.3.0 firmware.

I agree with you that everything you’ve tried seems to point at the newer than 1.3.0 firmware being the culprit. I was only pointing out the dongle option because I notice that it’s only option you haven’t tried in case you may have one that came with your ConnectClip that you can just pop it in to try. If not, then it’s probably not worth trying, although it can be bought for around $35 from eBay if you’re desperate enough that you’re willing to try anything at this point, at least to rule yet another thing out.

Using the dongle doesn’t necessarily imply that there’s a reliability with your laptop BT, because you’ve already proven that your laptop works just fine with the ConnectClip and the OPN and OPN S. However, there might have been something buggy about the firmware in the OPN and OPN S before that required the dongle to resolve when connected to the ConnectClip as the intermediary device to the PC, but subsequent OPN and OPN S firmwares resolved the issue and made the dongle no long necessary. Perhaps the post 1.3.0 firmware broke something similar to how the OPN/S firmware was broken which the dongle fixed.

OK, ideally Oticon should have fixed it in the 1.4.2 firmware of the More, but apparently they didn’t fix it like they thought they did, specific to your situation. So it depends on how desperate you are now to blow $35 on a dongle to either rule it out or maybe hope that you get lucky, vs holding your breath for god-knows-how-long of yet another firmware for the More that may not be until another 6 month in the making. If you need this for work and you can expense the $35 dongle as a work-related item then maybe it’s a worthwhile thing to try (if anything just to rule it out).

@cvkemp said:

I am just curious about why some have the issues and others don’t

I wonder if the traditional BT has some ambiguity in their standard that’s left to interpretation, such that it may cause unreliability with one computer’s BT interpretation to implementation and not with another computer’s BT interpretation to implementation.

Obviously, Oticon talks about this on their ConnectClip’s FAQ page (see screenshot below). They’re basically saying that if you have unreliable connection between the ConnectClip and a PC, the first thing you should try is the BTD 800 USB BT dongle.

I haven’t had issues with my connect clips and never used the dongle they recommend.

Me neither. And why would you or I use the dongle they recommend if we don’t have issue? But it doesn’t mean that others shouldn’t have issues nor use the dongle just because we don’t.

Obviously Oticon is foreseeing the issue for certain situations, so that’s what they recommend as the first thing to try if you have issue. They’re allowing for both scenarios here.

The firmware cannot be rolled back unless the hearing aids are sent to Oticon. It’s an option, but I will find out if they are doing another firmware rollout soon.

If the laptops are actually Bluetooth certified and the connect clip is certified, they are required to follow the interoperability standard or not use the Bluetooth name.

EDiT The ConnectClip is certified, using a Qualicomm design. Here is the certification from the searchable Bluetooth database.

https://launchstudio.bluetooth.com/ListingDetails/19983

Apologies I’m not as frequent as I should be in this forum. Is one symptom of the ‘ConnectClip’ issue a problem with poor audio, cutting in and out like a bad connection? I discovered my Bluetooth mouse was interfering with the streamed audio. Logitech mouse, no dongle, M1 MacBook Air and 1.3 firmware. I had to compromise by using the Mac’s trackpad when using audio. Next problem was at some stage, probably not Oticon firmware related because I was a couple of months from my 1.3 upgrade, I could only get the left aid to stream audio with ConnectClip and I gave up and bought some over-ear noise cancelling headphones for conference calls. Mouse was a Logitech so both brands in theory sticking to standards or maybe I just have a bad mouse or Clip? I’ve found the over ear with noise cancelling a great solution, as others have said it shuts out ambient noise better than muting the aids.

While I don’t know the details of the hardware inside the aids what you mention makes sense.

It’s usual to buy in a chip to provide wireless services and these are subject to firmware/driver updates as are the laptops or whatever ‘the other end’.

Resetting pairings after a firmware update can’t hurt and may certainly help rather than assuming forwards and back adds compatibility is always OK (it’s far from it).

I did notice that More firmware upgrades lose the programming but retain the Bluetooth links and I will be removing them in future.