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One Phonak Lumity aid going dead for a few seconds - problem?

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@1Bluejay said:

Phonak has released NO NEW version of this.

If it’s potentially dying, might as well try a new one?

If you got your TV Connector with your Direct Aids, then it’ll be the V1.0, of course there’s a V2.0 now which is of course newer.

I just checked my boxes (I got two TV Connectors in case one failed). And they both say Dec 2019 V2. Dangit. I guess I have the latest versions, and have encountered the odd streaming issues with BOTH of them.

I may be paranoid, but since I’d never had any streaming issues up to about a month ago, and the issue is present in ALL pairs of Phonak aids (rechargeable and battery), I’m guessing there could be an external factor at play here.

I’ve now had TWO solid days in a row of perfect streaming - no issues at all. So I’ll see how it goes. I’d had no issues till June; then 2-3 weeks of non-stop streaming issues; then no issues for a couple weeks in July; then about 3 days of streaming issues prior to the past two days of NO issues.

Can someone tell me if Martians have landed? Or perhaps they are reaching out to me and wondering why I’m so slow responding? :alien:

Other than the new ADT wall panel added in June (which runs off wifi, not bluetooth or the 2.4GHz frequency band), nothing has changed in that media room in terms of electronics.

Our house had a direct lightning strike on 11th July, but these problems started even before that.

Edited

Some Wi-Fi routers have been known to interfere as it can be 2.4 GHz as well.

Could the person who installed the ADT changed the Wi-Fi frequency by mistake?

Some people can change there’s too 5 GHz and not 2.4 Ghz.

You wouldn’t have known if the frequency was changed as iPads etc will still connect.

IMG_0332

Googling says ADT can use 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz Wi-Fi range.

2.4GHz is good for long distance transmission. 5GHz is good short (near) distance transmission.

In reply to @1Bluejay

How dos an owner cope in this never-never land? Lions and tigers and bears oh my.

That’s a serious question…there must be a good way out. It’s an awful maze.

I want my hearing aids to work, so that I understand what’s being said. That’s all.

DaveL

In reply to @Zebras

Your post prompted me to look at our user manual for the ADT Model ADT7AIO/ADT5AIO Series just installed, and it says, “A 2.4GHz wireless router connection with its own SSID is required for communication. If you have a dual-band router, be sure to segregate your wireless channels and connect the control panel to the 2.4GHz channel. The controller is also compatible with the NETGEAR EX6100-NAS Wi-Fi Range Extender.” We don’t have any wifi extenders in the house, but we have like 5 wifi zones placed in rooms all over the house.

The user manual also includes steps on how to connect the ADT control panel to our local network router here… Wonder if this should be explored a bit more?

In any case, I’ve now got my backup pair of aids in and will see how I stream today, again at 11am, 5pm and 7-10pm. It’s 11am here now, and the aids are streaming A-OK in both ears.

Go figure.

@1Bluejay said:

“A 2.4GHz wireless router connection with its own SSID is required for communication.

That might be the issue?

Phonak Roger works on 2.4 GHz, Bluetooth works on 2.4 GHz, TV Connector works on 2.4 GHz, plus a lot more.

You might come into more issues with other things that use 2.4 GHz.

@Zebras said:

You might come into more issues with other things that use 2.4 GHz.

Yes, it sure does seem like everything in that Wizard’s Closet here is running on 24GHz. These newer devices are supposed to optimize the 80 frequencies to run on, so they should be avoiding any interference.

The only other 2 possibilities are: 1.) a verrry strange neighbor who could be using some device to jam things here? (but then why would it only impact my Phonak aids?) or 2.) house was built on ancient Indian burial grounds and they are NOT happy someone planted this house on top. :rage:

Without any more insights, I’m living day-to-day, fingers crossed, hoping for stereophonic streaming here. I don’t think my audi or Phonak Tech Support would do any better than guessing. It’s too weird a situation.

Googling about it, the neighbour can cause issues as well but I wasn’t aware of how close you are to your neighbours in the USA.

My mum grew up in Forth Worth Texas and her neighbour weren’t that close compared to how tightly packed we are in the UK.

It can go from shared walls in townhouses, condos, etc, all the way to next neighbor distance measured in miles. Can’t make assumptions. In the city where I lived until two years ago, I could “see” about 70 APs. In a rural town now I occasionally see an AP from one neighbor, but so weak it wouldn’t be useful.

WH

Makes sense. :slight_smile:

My Mums nearest City was Forth Worth but she was not in Forth Worth itself.

My Mum had a huge amount of land when she was growing up.

I live in a road with 16 x 3 bed houses and the whole road is a tiny amount of land that she had when my Mum was younger.

Think she was unusual. :slight_smile:

Well the issue with my aids going INTO and OUT OF streaming continue. Now I’m wondering if it isn’t the wireless, wifi sensors that came with the new ADT home alarm system installed here in June. That’s when the trouble began, and to this very evening, I’m still having issues.

Tonight, both of my aids went OUT of streaming dozens of times. They’d either go back INTO streaming by themselves, or I’d manually cycle through all the programs to force them back into streaming mode.

What’s kind of scary and frustrating is that the THIS is the home alarm system of the future: it’s WIRELESS, so the wall panel and the sensors are all going to jam all the signals I need for my aids to stream with the TV Connector here. I don’t see any way to fix this cuz even the Roger On in is going to need a clean signal to keep a signal going into my aids.

I could give up on the TV screen completely and just watch shows in a different room streaming to my laptop. Sub-optimal, but other than that and my cell phone, there is no reliable, consistent streaming happening here at home anymore since the new ADT Alarm system was installed.

Sad. :expressionless:

The only other thing I’m wondering is if these rechargeables are too drained by evening to stream reliably? By 10pm tonight, they read 20% charge, and the last hour’s worth of TV viewing was a tedious circus of me putting the aids back into streaming mode over and over and over and over and OVER and OVER AND OVER AND OVER every couple minutes.

If that’s the problem, I can just charge the aids before watching TV/movies at night or even swap these for my backup aids.

Even weirder, it seems that only in the TV room do I have these issues. And yes, there is a “wizard’s closet” of all the HH wiring right off that room. That’s where my Phonak TV Connector is plugged into the Marantz hi-fi unit; that’s where the new ADT wall unit is mounted; that’s where a wireless motion detector unit is stuck on the sliding glass door.

But I thought wireless and devices from even a decade ago onwards were able to skip around and avoid these collisions? The fact that I don’t have issues in other rooms or using my laptop or phone seem to indicate it’s something IN or CLOSE TO the TV room.

And that’s what even made me ponder our odd neighbor and wonder if he could be pointing a device at our house to jam signals - intentionally or not.

I hope I don’t sound NUTS, but we live in one of these “smart” homes, where the lights, shades, etc are all controlled by a Crestron brain. So it’s just layer upon layer of complexity and electronics that I simply can’t figure out.

I’m going to see if my aids work better streaming TV tonight when FULLY charged. I’m also making an app’t to see if they need a firmware update. I’ll stand on my head if it makes this issue go away.

GREATLY appreciate your insights here, cuz you experience something similar living in a busy urban area. I’m in the 'burbs, so I blame the electronics here in the house.

Except that the 2.4GHz is divided into 80 signal bands, and AirStream, wifi and devices from even a decade ago have been made to avoid signal collisions and skip around the bands to find those not in use.

It can’t be that ADT is using all 80 bands nearly all the time. On a post, someone had a thread indicating that a new firmware update for Lumity aids supposedly addressed streaming issues in addition to other things. I’ve just pinged my audi to see if she can get me in to look at the aids.

The “newest” Phonak TV Connector V2 dates from 2017 - hardly new, but again, it’s not supposed to flake out on streaming with the technology its built with.

Also odd that the streaming issues don’t extend to my laptop or cell phone even in the same room as the TV Connector issues.

I thought the V2.0 TV Connector came out with Marvel in 2018.

V1.0 TV Connector pre Marvel.

V1.1 after V2.0 when chip for V2.0 wasn’t available due to Covid.

There’s not really anything to improve with AirStream. Bit like the actual Bluetooth is the same with all Phonak Bluetooth.

Difference in all TV Connectors is how they connect to TV and V2.0 has on/off and volume.

@Zebras said:

Difference in all TV Connectors is how they connect to TV and V2.0 has on/off and volume.

Yes that is the case - minimal changes to V2 from the original. And the initial AirStream tech used should still signal-hop to avoid the streaming issues I’m having.

I wish Phonak Tech Support would have an answer, but I’m probably the only user having these multi-factorial issues. Very difficult to pinpoint the single cause here.

You can download Wifi Scanning Apps on your phone that will show you all the wifi channels that are currently in use at your location. I think you can do the same for Bluetooth. Here is a sample of the results you will typically see. It’s a much bigger mess than most people think. The routers and other wifi devices are supposed to do things to prevent collisions of signals but in most cases, there are so many overlapping signals from your own house and your neighbour’s houses sharing the channels that is a challenge sometimes.

Try downloading one of these apps and having a look.

Jordan

intro-1

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