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Bluetooth Multipoint on Phonak Lumity Life

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Well call me AMAZED!!! My hubs wondered if these new Phonak Lumity Life aids have Bluetooth multipoint capability built in? “Say WHAAAAAAA?!” I’d never even heard of it! So first I read an article about what it is37 … and then I PUT IT TO THE TEST!

What have I got to lose?

I first turned the aids OFF, then back ON again to pair them up to my MacBook Pro (with macOS Monterey). Then I connected the aids to my laptop, surfed up to Youtube, found some smooth jazz and VOILA!! Beautiful music streaming with NO TV CONNECTOR needed at all!

While listening to that soothing jazz, I asked hubs to call me on my cell phone. He did, and I was able to override the music to take his call streaming into my aids. WOW. Life is GOOD!

That inspired us to get my Astell & Kern portable music player and see if I could pair/connect to that, too. I typically take this, a TV Connector, a portable battery pack, cables and yada yada on all flight so I can stream music. Well, imagine my surprise when I was able to pair and connect the Life aids to this player, too!

I feel LIBERATED! I’ve seen threads here on the Oticon ConnectClip and Bluetooth multipoint, so now I can CROW from the rooftop that the Phonak Lumity Life aid has Bluetooth multipoint capability. If you are wearing these aids - check it out! Just pick TWO (and only 2) devices to connect & pair with. Then have someone call you on a cell phone and see that the call overrides that other device.

I will shoot my audi an email about this, cuz I think it’s another great incentive to buy these aids! They may not be waterproof as claimed, but nowhere on the website do I see Phonak making a big deal about its Bluetooth multipoint capability.

Of course, I could just be late to the game, and others here have known of it for a long time?

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Edited

Yes, I Paradise is 2 concurrent connections, 8 pairings. I’ve been doing something analogous for well over a year. I use the tv connector on the macbook for zooms. I could do youtube or whatever regular streaming direct via . Of course, you also burn more battery juice on the aids with BT vs the TV connector.

WH

Edited

Yup. It works fantastic. During the workday, I keep my Lumity’s connected to my work laptop (Dell) and my iPhone 11 Pro Max. I also have the Lumity’s connected to my Peloton Bike+ exercise bike and my Steam Deck portable video game…haha. The only thing you have to remember is that it can be paired to 8 devices but only connected to 2 at the same time. This means you have to keep the bluetooth connection on the others off. When I finish my workday, I just turn off bluetooth on my work laptop and then keep the iPhone connected. When I want to use another device, I just turn on bluetooth for that device and it connects. Works really well and the connection is more stable than the connection from my Resound Quattro hearing aids.

The only big negative is that classic bluetooth chews battery faster on the hearing aids vs MFi. The other thing I have noticed is with Phonak’s bluetooth implementation, one hearing aid connects to your bluetooth device and then transmits to the other hearing aid. The connection hearing aid definitely uses more battery than the passive hearing aid so when you get to the end of the day, you will notice the paired hearing aid is at 20% and the passive hearing aid is 10-15% higher (30-35%).

Jordan

@JordanK said:

The only thing you have to remember is that it can be paired to 8 devices but only connected to 2 at the same time. This means you have to keep the bluetooth connection on the others off.

This and many other truths in your post! Yes, that is a bit of a boondoggle that this morning I only had THREE devices paired with my Life aids: cell phone, laptop and Astell & Kern. Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but when I had the laptop and music player paired, I didn’t get any incoming phone calls as hubs was testing that out. So I would never have known if anyone was calling me.

I would rather that among all 8 devices paired there would be an algorithm to allow the CELL PHONE to take precedence over all others. Did I get that wrong tho? I think further testing is needed so I’m completely comfy with this as you and WhiteHat are.

As for battery life, you SAID IT. By day’s end my RIGHT aid dies (only get 13 hrs MAX use), but LEFT aid still has about 20% power. I thought maybe Bluetooth multipoint may be one of the causes - even tho I’ve only had JUST my cell phone paired with the aids up to this morning. Now I want to keep the laptop paired, too, for instant streaming of news and music.

So now if someone could clarify: altho we can PAIR our Life aids to multiple devices, but only be CONNECTED to a maximum of two of them, if one of those two isn’t the cell phone, we won’t know when a call comes in, right?

I guess in the perfect world, the cell phone pairing would be KING PIN, but the reality is that the aids don’t know which device is what - it only detects the TWO devices in “connected” mode, right?

So I should always make sure that ONE of my maximum of 2 devices connected is the cell phone so I never miss a call. If that’s correct, say “YES” (followed by 17 words to achieve a minimum of 20 words for posting), If not, tell me how you get more than 2 devices paired/connected and still stream phone calls if that is the 3rd one.

@1Bluejay said:

So now if someone could clarify: altho we can PAIR our Life aids to multiple devices, but only be CONNECTED to a maximum of two of them, if one of those two isn’t the cell phone, we won’t know when a call comes in, right?

Yes exactly the same as Paradise Aids.

:laughing:

Paradise and Lumity can be paired to 8 devices but only connected to 2 at once so 1 of them, must be your phone so you know when it’s going off, unless you don’t want to know when your phone is going off.

OK GREAT! Thanks for crystalizing that in my mind, cuz even the terms “paired” and “connected” can be confusing.

I will now have JUST my cell phone and laptop paired & connected. If I travel, I’ll dis-connect the laptop, then pair + connect the Astell & Kern music player. It’s just SO great not to need the clutter of the Phonak TV Connector for streaming phone or laptop.

@1Bluejay said:

“paired” and “connected” can be confusing.

I get confused as well.

The 2 at once is connected to the Bluetooth and can be used.

The 8 is where the Aids remember the devices you’ve paired too. Or you could say the other 6?

It’s actually a little better than 2 connections…. If one device is the Phonak TV connector it will connect whilst your phone and another device is also connected e.g an iPad.

This because the tv connector is not a blue tooth device exactly… it is a “custom modified” protocol proprietary to Phonak so does not count as a Bluetooth device. I do exactly that with my Android phone, iPad and tv connector.

I was afraid about where you were going to go with this, but you are correct. Same applies to Roger.

WH

In reply to @Hooby

@Hooby said:

the tv connector is not a blue tooth device exactly

Hm. Very interesting! The TV Connector requires us to pair up with it like it’s a device, but is a breed of its own.

I find the sound quality better when it is streamed right to my Life aids, so if I can do away with the TV Connector, so much the better! :slightly_smiling_face:

I’m very surprise that phonak lets you do this on a hearing aid battery.

I have to warn you but having 2 devices connected and 8 pairs in memory will drain the battery faster than with someone that paired / connected 1 phone .

@ssa said:

I’m very surprise that phonak lets you do this on a hearing aid battery.

Just to clarify, it’s a rechargeable hearing aid battery. But I have found that the battery drain is pretty fast no matter what. Even so, I’m now only paired & connected to my cell phone - thassall! I still get no more than 13 hrs of use from that rechargeable.

It is what it is, and while it’s not ideal, I’ll live with it till Phonak introduces a Lumity Life that requires a size 13 battery.

Will that day ever arrive? I have my doubts, cuz rechargeables seem to be the way of the future. It kinda leaves us CINDERBLOCK ear-folks out in the cold tho.

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