In trialing the ReSound Omnia vs. the Phonak Lumity, I’ve tested both devices for listening to audio output from my computer. I’ve been Board Secretary of my neighborhood association for the past year and done meeting minutes by making a Sony digital voice recording of proceedings, uploading the resulting .MP3 audio file to my Microsoft 365 OneDrive Account and using the online Microsoft 365 Word A.I. to make an audio transcript (voice to words) of what was said and identify speakers.
Overall, the process works great but the transcript has got quite a few bloopers where mistakes are made because of the Zoom audio quality, the ability of the speakers to enunciate clearly and not use neologisms or argot or esoteric words. So, the fastest way to correct bloopers, grammar, and punctuation errors (e.g., the famous book about the panda who “eats, shoots, and leaves,” rather than the panda who “eats shoots and leaves”), is to play back a snippet and then voice dictate the correction using Dragon Naturally Speaking Professional Individual 15.
The advantage of this method is that each timestamp in the recording is actually a PLAY button to start playing the audio at that point in the recording. So, instead of a typical linear recording, where it’s difficult to find the exact point to replay some audio, you have “random access” to begin playing at any point in the recording, guided by the visible transcript.
00:37:31 Mike
Everybody got a ballot when they came in.00:37:34 Mike
It’s a really, very simple process for our association.00:37:38 Mike
We have five Board member slots.00:37:42 Mike
When you vote, you’re not voting for a President or Vice President.00:37:47 Mike
You’re voting for the Board.00:37:49 Mike
The Board actually selects00:37:53 Mike
who has what position at the first meeting in January.
The problem is with both the Lumity and the Omnia, there’s an audio lag between the time that you click on a timestamp “PLAY” button and the time you hear corresponding audio streamed directly into your hearing aids (the streamed audio is great for both the Lumity and the Omnia, better than computer speakers or over-the-ear wireless headphones). The lag is worse for the Omnia than the Lumity as I have to use a Phone Clip+ as an intermediary device whereas the Lumity can be paired to and stream directly from my computer. To counteract the lag, I have had to start playing the transcript a few phrases back (earlier) than the timestamp that I actually want to listen to again. So, I waste time searching for a spot far enough back and waiting for the computer to silently play through the earlier transcript before the BT connection goes “live.”
Haven’t tried this trick with the Lumity but I think it will work for both brands as the Phone Clip+ can maintain two BT audio connections and I think the Lumity can, too.
Besides my computer, my Apple Watch Ultra is also paired to the Phone Clip+. There’s a very useful app called Battery Charge Alarm in the App Store by Bastiaan Modderkolk (4.7 rating) that works on both the iPhone and an Apple Watch. It allows you to set a charging level for either your iPhone or Apple Watch. When the device you’re charging reaches the desired level, an alarm is triggered that will sound in your hearing aids. If you’re anywhere in BT range, you’ll hear the alarm directly in your ears and be able to disconnect the device you’re charging so you don’t go above your desired preset level and decrease your Li-ion device battery lifespan, e.g., by charging to 100% SOC all the time, etc.
Where this comes in to reduce audio latency is the following. By setting an alarm in the Battery Charge Alarm Life app, say, on your Apple Watch, you open up and keep open a BT channel to the Phone Clip+ (and I imagine the same would happen for the direct connection to the Lumity - you can use Battery Charge Alarm Life with the Lumity as well). So, the Phone Clip+ doesn’t go to sleep because Battery Charge Alarm Life is keeping the PC+ device awake by maintaining an open BT channel. Thus, when you go to play an audio snippet, the PC+ is paying attention to BT signals and the audio begins to play immediately with ~no lag, saving a lot of time waiting for the audio to reconnect after finding the appropriately earlier audio snippet to start over again from.
You might say, “Well, does this mean that I always have to be charging my watch and using the Battery Charge Alarm Life alarm app to keep the BT channel alive while I do this? That’d be a hassle!” 
Well, no. If you normally charge your watch to 55% SOC as I do, simply set the alarm for the next highest SOC level, e.g., 60%. The Battery Charge Alarm Life app is a bit stupid, it seems. It doesn’t actually check whether you’re actually charging your watch. If the watch is at 55% not on its charger and the alarm is set for a 60% SOC level, the BT channel will be kept open, but the watch isn’t going to charge and the BT channel will remain open waiting for the alarm that’s never going to be triggered. But the PC+ will always be awake, ready to play almost immediately with very little audio lag using the other of the two open BT channels, the one connected to your computer. You’ll start playing the audio right on the timestamp that you click.
If I get more motivated, I’ll check how this trick works with the Lumity. But for me, it removes almost all of the awful latency associated with using the PC+ to get audio output from my computer streamed to the ReSound Omnias. I imagine it takes a little bit of battery runtime both out of my watch and the PC+ to continuously keep the BT audio connection live, but I only need to work on correcting the audio transcript a few hours a day so it’s not a big deal for me.
Edit_Update: The Battery Charge Alarm Life trick does not appear to work with the Lumity. The Lumity lag by itself is much less than that caused by using a Phone Clip+ as an intermediary classic BT screen device to bridge to the ReSound Omnias. By itself, when clicking on a timestamp PLAY button, the Lumity usually only has the first few words in a snippet missed by silent play until the idle BT connection goes live again. The PC+, because it’s an intermediary relay device, causes much more of a transcription snippet to be missed before the BT connection goes live again. However, with the Battery Charge Alarm Life lock-on trick, the PC+ misses nothing out of direct play of any time snippet. The Lumity direct connection still requires one to go back in time a transcription snippet or two. In the unlucky event that the previous transcription snippet was a long burst of conversation, there can be a fair wait before the audio you want to check and correct starts playing again.
2nd Edit_Update: Apparently I confused the names of two apps I use: Battery Charge Alarm is the one I intended to reference but after first mention in my OP post here, probably due to advancing senility, I switched to calling it Battery Life, which is an entirely different app that I have on my iPhone and Apple Watch. So, I’ve updated the app names in my post to correct my egregious mistake.
You’re ignoring this member’s posts.
