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Can ReSound hearing aids connect directly to TV via Bluetooth?

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Edited

Maybe I didn’t ask enough questions…
Got Resound hearing aids about 3 months ago. Had older TV.
No problem Bluetooth pairing to Iphone.
Got new TV and paid a little more to be sure it had Bluetooth. It pairs with a speaker and ear buds just fine.
After trying everything to have it pair to HAs I am told I need a ‘streamer’ at $300.
It was my understanding that the HAs would pair with any Bluetooth device…what’s up?
ALSO - I see ‘streamers’ at BestBuy for $30.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
I’d like to have sound to HAs as directly as possible.
Thanks!

13 people in this conversation3 min readJump to latest

If you were told that they would pair to “any bluetooth device,” you were mislead. They will pair with any Made for iPhone device and any compatible device. For any TV, you’d need the streamer. So, either buy a Resound Streamer compatible with your hearing aids, or take them back if you’re still in the trial period.

As @MDB says. You can’t pair Resound hearing aids with just any Bluetooth device. They will pair with iphones because the Resound are Made For iPhone.

The main reason for this is that it would kill the hearing aid batteries in an hour or less if they tried to work with ordinary Bluetooth. You need very low power Bluetooth and that’s how MFI works.

I too have seen them on eBay for under $100. But you can get a new one at Costco for $150 or so, unless the price has gone up. I concur that you cannot pair the aids directly with a TV Bluetooth.

Even if you could connect your to your TV, you probably wouldn’t be happy. The audio would lag the video resulting in lips being out of sync with voices. Most, if not all, TV streamers for HAs do not use bluetooth.

I didn’t do a thorough search, but looked at specs for a yet to be released Samsung 8k TV. It uses 4.2.

In reply to @duanekinsman

There will always be latency. One of the advantages of a streamer is that it is possible to turn the mics off through the streamer. By doing this you eliminate the echo effect that latency produces from hearing 2 sources of the same sound.

I have a Widex beyond and this works very well. The only problem is that you vane no control over volume. Some newer TVs give you options to control the volume through the remote for secondary speakers (the streamer)

Thanks to all. Kinda funny I guess…My old TV would have been easy / new one not so much.
I’m going to start a new thread “Resound Streamer to new Samsing TV”

With the release of Bluetooth 5.3 & 5.4 and the creation of newer TVs won’t need streamers. Seems slow to be adopted but hoping for a quick ramp up once it catches fire. The newest Samsung 8K TV. Supports Auracast. https://www.techradar.com/televisions/your-samsung-earbuds-and-4k-tv-are-getting-a-huge-bluetooth-upgrade21
Check out the interview with Laurel Christensen of ReSound at https://youtu.be/EGv1kUz8JDo?si=vopAWnlTqEY6NPHm29

Auracast will have adjustable latency among other features.
As of October 2024 I have not heard of any smartphones, computers or other TV manufacturers supporting this, but hope and expect this big advancement in Bluetooth technology will be here (everywhere) soon.

I had the same question back 6 years ago or so when I bought my Phonak and had to buy the TV Connector (BTW, much cheaper than the analogous Resound device). Fast forward to February 2025. I have a modern 65" LG TV that has built in BlueTooth, but I have yet to find HAs capable of direct connection. An engineer friend tells me, as best I could understand, that BlueTooth has frequency variants and compatibility is not universal.

Edited

I also use the Resound units TV Streamer 2 and Streamer 2+ (with audio and ) with TV Sony and PC Windows
It work very, very well.

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