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Pairing hearing aids with Bluetooth Ham Radio

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I might like to buy a HAM radio receiver with and am wondering if anyone has successfully paired such a radio with their BT ’s? To be clear my current HA’s don’t have BT but might in the near future.

Thanks!

With most of today’s hearing aids, bluetooth pairing doesn’t connect directly to the . Instead, you use an intermediate device. I have Oticon OPN hearing aids, and I have the matching device called a ConnectClip. It is rechargeable. I have used it to send sound successfully from my Android phone, Android tablet, Windows laptop computer, and Windows desktop computer. I haven’t tried any ham radio gear, but I would expect it to work fine.

There are a few relatively new hearing aid models that can stream audio from generic bluetooth devices. I know of two: the Phonak Marvel and the Costco Kirkland Signature 9 (aka KS9), which is made by Phonak. With these you don’t have to bother with the intermediate device, or worry about running its batteries down.

It will be a while before the is implemented, but I think this will be the best solution. I think the first implementation for an audio source might be a dongle which plugs into any audio output and produces the LE Audio stream. It probably will take another year or two for manufacturers to adopt this Codec, but it offers significant advantages over current
Bluetooth especially in terms of battery life, sound quality, and broadcast functionality. The new standard was just finalized this year. For more info just Google “LE Audio”.

If this is important to you, I’d encourage careful research and look for the ability to confirm it works before you’re committed to the purchase.

With your hearing loss differences between your ears, the OPN aids are not the best for you, but I would have a long talk with your Audi about the aids you need.

I don’t have a single magic answer, just some advice as a hearing aid user and a ham radio operator.

First, there are some aids that claim to pair with standard bluetooth devices without an accessory dongle. I trialed Phonak Audeo Marvel M90s which claim that, although I couldn’t pair them with my MacBook Pro. Other users have been successful. So you should confirm that the device(s) you want to pair with and the aids you buy work together before committing to purchase either one.

Aids that are Made for iPhone (MFI) use a special Bluetooth connection and, as far as I know, will not pair with standard Bluetooth unless an accessory is available. Except for trials, I have only used MFI aids (Oticon opn 1 and Widex Evoke 440).

The ham radio devices I have seen with Bluetooth (I own a Yaesu FT3DR handheld transceiver as an example) are all transceivers, not receivers, and have Bluetooth to connect to headsets comprised of both earphones and microphones. I’m not sure what happens if you try connect a transceiver by Bluetooth to hearing aids as earphones with no mic. Even though Bluetooth is supposed to be a standard,Yaesu states that they don’t guarantee the radio will pair with non-Yaesu devices.

To make a long story short, there is a ton of uncertainty and lot of cost involved so check that whatever combination you want actually works before committing!

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