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Hearing aids that can have more than one Bluetooth connection

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As someone with mild to moderate hearing loss, I’ve only had hearing aids for about 18 months and am still on my first pair of (Starkey Genesis 24).

One of the downsides I’ve run into is that as I’ve worked with my employer to replace my Windows PC with a MacBook Pro, I still have to constantly turn off Bluetooth on my personal iPhone and my work iPhone to get my HAs to connect “natively” to my MacBook Pro. Even with a successful connection, occasionally I’ll still have to reconnect throughout the day.

Are there any HA brands that will allow two Bluetooth connections without all this workaround? Or am I just out of luck? I’m in video conference calls constantly at work, and I’m still having to use my backup Shokz headset when I don’t have time to mess with fixing the issue jumping from meeting to meeting.

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Costco has the Sennheiser Sonite Rise, which can have 8 connections total and 2 simultaneously. I just ordered mine, so I don’t have any experience with it yet. I’m hoping I can have my phone and tablet connected without having to play games changing from one to the other. It will be a few weeks before I can test the feature.

Phonak (Paradise, Lumpy and, now, Audeo Infineo), Kirkland KS10 (at Costco) and Sennheiser Sonite R and Rise (now at Costco) can have two Bluetooth connections simultaneously. And, yes, it is nice not to have to play “games” disconnecting from an iPhone to be able to stream from my computer or IPad. I have a 4-5 year old pair of KS10s with weak batteries. I’d seriously be looking at Sonite Rise if they would have AuraCast activated, but they don’t just yet. I tried the Costco Jabra 30s and the Philips Hearlink 9050s from Costco and returned them both because, while they are great , the fitters at my local Costco could not make them sound nearly as good as my old KS10s. While manually switching between my iphone and computer was a bother, it wasn’t a complete show stopper - the lack of being able to hear some and understand a lot of voices sure was.

You could consider Starkey Edge or Omega, as both support multiple Bluetooth connections (iPhone via / Android / PC via FlooGoo FMA120/121).

For example, if you use an FlooGoo FMA120/121 (our dongle) to connect your Mac with the Edge AI, you can play music on your Mac, and when a call comes in on your phone, the playback will be interrupted and the call will be routed through the hearing aids. After the call ends, the music will resume automatically.

If you’re already in a Zoom or Teams call on your Mac, an incoming phone call will not interrupt it.

We’ve also covered this behavior in the following post. Please note that the latest firmware for our FlooGoo adapters is 1.1.7 at the time of writing.

Bluetooth dongle with Auracast support - FlooGoo FMA120
We’ve just released a new stable firmware version 1.1.3, which adds support for hearing aids that can maintain multiple connections with both a phone and the PC/FMA120. We tested it with a pair of Starkey Edge AI, and it works well in the following scenarios: For iPhone: When media playback starts on the iPhone while streaming from the PC/FMA120, the iPhone audio takes priority. After playback ends, streaming from the PC/FMA120 resumes automatically. Streaming from the FMA120 will pause and r…

If you have any specific requirements, feel free to reach out via email (support@flairmesh.com). We’ve had in-depth discussions with Starkey engineers about the multi-link features of these models and would be happy to help.

Edited

You don’t have to turn the Bluetooth off when switching Apple devices. You select the aids the same way you use AirPlay.

If you want to use aids with the Mac, go to audio in the upper right corner and select the aids .

If you want to switch to the iPhone: within the app you are using, click on the AirPlay button and select the aids .

What you cannot do is have two active connections at the same time . For that you need a Sonova device. But again, switching devices is extremely simple in the Apple ecosystem. It’s so simple that you only need to pair the aids to your phone and they will show on your Mac, iPad , etc .

Another cool thing : if you are streaming from your iPhone , you can manage the aids from your Mac without transferring your audio

If you need more info , google “switching AirPlay devices in macOS “

Thank you.

I forgot one key piece of information - I can’t sign into my work MacBook Pro using my personal credentials. The Starkey app is on my personal iPhone, and I’m doing video conference calls on my work MacBook Pro.

I am looking forward to being able to use this functionality once I replace my personal Windows laptop with a Mac Studio, though.

My Phonak iSpheres switch seamlessly between classic sources. For example, I was switching between my Pixel 8 phone and my Lenovo Tab Pro streaming a movie, simply by pausing the movie last night. But that’s not Apple stuff.

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