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I can’t believe that Phonak still doesn’t support the Apple Watch!

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Seems like many manufacturers have a companion Apple Watch app, but Phonak still doesn’t. I would love to be able to switch programs or change volume without having to pull out my phone or repeatedly press a button on my aids. I wonder what their reasoning is?

It’s because they did not adopt the Apple protocol and instead use Bluetooth classic .

One of classic advantages is being able to connect to almost anything without an accessory. It has the disadvantage that it is not included in Apple’s MFi (MFI: made for iPhone framework).

This may change (or may not) when Apple includes in their portfolio + Phonak with LE Audio.

Unlike Android , Apple is a closed system and you either do things their way or they won’t include you in the ecosystem. Phonak decided that Bluetooth classic was better for the customers than using Apples rules.

I think it relates to LE for the control, and I don’t think you can do LE from the watch. I’ve streamed from the watch to my Phonaks so that works, just not command & control. I doubt the existing watches will ever be able to do it. At some point if Apple decides to do from the watch, there might be a parallel ability to do C2 with the watch. But that’s all educated guess on my part.

WH

My engineer husband says the Apple Watch supports both Bluetooth Classic and Bluetooth LE. he says Phonak just hasn’t seen the need to create the app to do it.

I’d love such an app too. And to enable the now.

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