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Anyone having issues with Apple MFi Hearing Aids?

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Add me to the list. kS6 hearing aids. Connection issues since iOS 11. Seldom have both connected at the same time. Also seems to be slow to connect on phone calls. I should have backed up to iOS 10 before they closed the option

Edited

Yes, I do stream music and videos on my iPhone frequently. Also talk on the phone a lot with my iPhone.

It seems like a mystery why some people don’t have any problem and others do. I just know that there are a lot of OPN wearers on this forum and if it’s a common problem with the OPN, we would have heard much more complain about it from these OPN wearers. But so far I only hear a few outliers for the OPN.

In reply to @Volusiano

multiple apps in background might use connection like google duo video call/ or nearby other connectable device of Bluetooth if auto connect selected in accessiblity/?? any experience

I have Costco’s older KS6 which is the original Linx. I’ve never had a real problem with phone connection other than having to once reinstall when it would only pair to one aid at a time. My phone is the older 5s. That too may be a factor. Resound didn’t seem to have any teething pain from the start and that’s continued through various iOS upgrades.

Ken. Are you still using clip+? If so i believe the has mini connect to and Bluetooth connect to Apple products. If that’s the case you might not have an issue.

To be clear, the recent drop off issues only seems to affect hearing aids that are connecting directly to the iPhone and not via the phone clip and seem to have gotten worse after the iOS 11.1 update. I honestly think the issue is caused by two things. The first is having multiple devices simultaneously paired to the same hearing aids and then being in range of more than one of these devices at the same time (i.e. iPhone, iPad, TV Streamer, etc). The various devices seem to compete for the connection and Apple’s module doesn’t know how to properly broker the conflict. I believe the second cause is wireless interference from numerous other technologies that may share the same frequency range. For some reason, when Apple rolled out the patch to protect against the new wifi vulnerability, something in the patch aggravated the issue.

I’m happy to report that once I unpaired my hearing aids from everything but my iPhone, the issue has all but disappeared. I still have the occasional drop off but it’s back to where it was prior to the iOS 11.1 update.

Jordan

In reply to @Vanwall

@Vanwall said:

Ken. Are you still using clip+? If so i believe the has mini connect to HA and Bluetooth connect to Apple products. If that’s the case you might not have an issue.

No, I did use the PC+ with a transmitter for TV but my understanding is good enough without it. My ongoing success with calls/streaming is .

Edited

Starkey Halo 2 i2400 and iPhone 5s with iOS 11.1.1. No problems streaming iTunes or streaming phone calls to my HAs.

I loaded 11.1.2 over a week ago but the app just quit working today. It started by only working on the right side and then went out completely. It can see the kirkland 6.0s but won’t connect. Loaded a fresh app on a different device apple device and that does the same thing. Something broke. Hope they can get an updated app soon.

@JordanK said:

When I landed at the airport in Amsterdam, the hearing aids wouldn’t connect to my iPhone. I

Could it be that you were in airplane mode? Even if you were NOT - take it from me, there is some electronic shield that prevents aids from streaming with phones while ON a plane - even if just sitting at the gate waiting to deplane or take off. I had the same issue with my Phonak Audeo B-Direct aids trying (unsuccessfully) to stream to my Samsung phone last month. VERRRRRRY frustrating!

I have Resound Linx3D paired to my iPhone. Can’t say I’ve had a whole lot of problem other than the selection of device. For instance, I’ll get into the car and the phone will switch from my hearing aids to the car. Or other times, I’m playing my iPhone to a bluetooth speaker (so others may here) and it switches back to my aids.

After using the Sonic Enchant 100 on 3 long distance driving trips where I watched music videos for hours, I did from time to time get disconnected from one of the momentarily for less than a minute or so, and then it just reconnected itself.

The Sonic Enchant, being a sister company of Oticon, probably has the same technology as the OPN. But I haven’t seen this issue with the OPN yet, although I’ve never stream music to the OPN for this long of a stretch. But I have listened to the same materials with the OPN before on long distance trips without any problem, just not for as many hours.

In reply to @bobbydigital16

I have contacted Apple and got a similar response.

I have had this ‘clicking’ failure mode on, no lie, 6 different sets of , by three different manufacturers.

Currently wearing Oticon OPN 1, firmware 4.0 with iOS 11.1.1 on iPhone 7. Frustrating, indeed. The problem is intermittent, so hard to predict severity of it. Previous devices: Earlens, Resound 3D.

Interesting thought about additional devices, I have been wearing iWatch pretty much through all of the different HAs, and my life has multiple BT devices involved. I have always considered that it is likely some sort of electromagnetic interference between different antennas on the IPhone. I will concede the frequency of occurrence may have decreased in 11.1 and 11.1.1, but am reluctant to commit to cause and effect since it is intermittent in nature.

Cheers.

I have had no issues over the last week. I think the clicking is just plain interference from other devices using the same frequencies. Go for a walk in the woods and I suspect it won’t happen.

Jordan

One thing I’ve noticed is that when loud sounds occur via streaming from the iPhone X with the latest stable software or the TV streamers, my Oticon OPN1 hearing aids does one of the three in decreasing frequency:
1 start clicking
2 occasionally blank out and
3 rarely restart on its own

In all three cases, a restart of the hearing aids fixed the issue.

It may either be faulty streaming protocol or an iOS bug or a programming issue where the streaming sound output exceeded the hearing aids maximum output. Not entirely sure how to best troubleshoot.

In reply to @bobbydigital16

@bobbydigital16 & @MrAerodynamic … same issue! Just opened up a bug about it in our new bug tracking system: http://bugs.hearingtracker.com/issues/147. This is a pilot project and initiative that I’m hoping will help formalize how we track bugs on the Hearing Forums, and eventually bring in manufacturer reps from Hearing Aid companies as well as phone makers.

Keep me in the loop if you hear new information on this issue, because I’d love to keep that report up to date. If you discover workarounds or new strange behaviors, I’ll add those on there too.

Cheers!

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