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Pairing Mac Mini M4 with Oticon Real hearing aids

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When I first tried to pair the with my new Mac Mini M4, the left aid was recognized and was able to pair. The right HA wasn’t recognized and never paired so I shut down both HAs and tried again.

Since then, both HAs are recognized as “hearing devices” in System Preferences - Accessiblity but the option to “connect” is grayed out and I can never pair them. (Using Connect Clip to make the connection between HAs and Mac Mini M4 works perfectly).

I have turned off on all my other devices while attempting to pair the Reals with the Mac Mini. No luck. And recycled both the Mac Mini and HAs multiple times.

The BT either in my HAs or Mac Mini or both seems confused. As a next step I was going to restart the blue tooth module in Sequoia (via a terminal command) and see if that helps. Is there an equivalent way to “reset” BT in the Reals through the Genie software? Do I need the latest firmware on the Reals? Any other thoughts here?

I know I can just use the Connect Clip but native pairing is supposed to work so this is frustrating.

And and all ideas are appreciated!

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Hi,

Yes, I’m using a brand new Mac Mini M4 on the latest version of Sequoia (V15) with Oticon Real hearing aids.

Is there a way to reset Bluetooth in the using Genie? My guess is the Bluetooth is messed up in either the Mac or the Reals since I did initially get the left HA to pair correctly. But I’ve never been able to replicate that.

I haven’t yet reset the Bluetooth in the Mac via command line as I only have a keyboard and am waiting on a wired keyboard and mouse to arrive.

Good question, but I donno if Genie2 has that option, but if you hold the power button down for 30 or 45sec that “resets” the so that may help ( for rechargeable) but I can’t see how it’s the HAs that are the problem, you can still connect to your phone and the App? Just not the Apples right.

Yes, everything else works fine – ipad, iphone, Oticon TV Adaptor, ConnectClip. It’s just the native access to the Mini Mac with M4 chip that isn’t working.

I didn’t realize that depressing the power button for 45 seconds does a reset. I’ll try that. If that doesn’t work, I’ll reset the bluetooth module in the Mini Mac once I get a wired keyboard.

Thanks!

In reply to @mdboy

I wanted to add a comment about how this problem was solved in case anyone else runs into it in the future.

The Mac Mini appears to have issues with wifi and Bluetooth transmissions as well as the protocols used by older Mac BT mice and keyboards. Eventually, I shut down everything in the room that spoke BT or wifi and was able to connect my Reals to the Mac Mini.

I then turned the BT and wifi devices back on one at a time to see if I could break the connection to the Mac Mini but couldn’t break it.

To be safe, I then replaced my older Apple Magic Mouse and Magic Keyboard with newer versions. Actually, I switched to a USB dongle and Logitech mouse but did buy a newer Apple keyboard since their touch can’t really be found anywhere else.

Since I was able to do the initial pairing between HAs and Mac Mini, the connection has been flawless. The only caveat here is that Mac holds onto the iPad BT connection first for audio in / out, then will go to the iPhone connection, then will go to the HA connections. That’s the preference order. So, I need to go into System Preferences and “release” the iPad and iPhone BT connections for audio and then my HA show up as the audio in and out.

I’ve tested the connection on YouTube, Skype, Zoom, Google Meet and it works flawlessly and people tell me the microphone on the HAs works perfectly.

I’ve found the advantages of using the HAs for conf calls huge since free versions of Zoom, Skype, Google Meet, etc don’t allow user to use mobile phone for participation in web meetings (you have to use the mobile version). And no more squeezing headphones over bte hearing aids.

Any questions, please let me know. Anyone who uses a Mac with an M2 chip or later should have this capability. My understanding is the M1 chip will allow HA access with some Mac computers but not all.

Thanks!

Hi @mdboy I have th exact same problem. Did you find a way to unpair the partially installed ? Or were you able to pair using the process you described without unpairing the partly installed device? Thanks!

In reply to @DMM

Sorry for late reply. Just seeing this now. Most of the time the Mac Mini gives up its connection to either the iPad or iPhone when the latter two devices establish a connection. On a couple of occasions I manually forced the Mac Mini to give up the connection by either shutting down the Mac Mini or going into System Settings and changing the output and input of sound setting to use other choice. But mainly the Mac Mini seems to have a lower precedence in holding the connection versus an iPad or iPhone.

In reply to @anon33641277

I switched to a Logitech mouse which uses a USB dongle so that connection doesn’t use . That leaves just the BT keyboard which functions perfectly.

Although I haven’t tried it, I suppose I could also just plug the keyboard into the Mac Mini with its usb cable (used mainly for charging) and still have keyboard capability. That would let me turn off BT in the Mac Mini to release any connection without losing mouse and keyboard.

In reply to @mdboy

Your reply of Feb 27 was helpful in allowing me to connect my Oticon Reals to my Mac mini M4 today and no longer require a TV Connector on the Mac. But the Bluetooth precedence of the iPhone is a nuisance. After I make a phone call, or listen to a podcast on the phone, I have to toggle the phone’s off-on in order to get the Mac’s hearing devices Oticon status to change from “Connected on [name of iPhone]” to “Connected”. In the former state I don’t get the Mac’s audio output into the .

Anyone have a solution?

Using System Settings to put a Sound mini-icon in the menu bar, and using it to choose the from the list of available outputs when wanting to stream from the Mac is probably more reliable than toggling Bluetooth on the iPhone. When done with Mac streaming, choose the Mac’s speakers as output to restore full ambient hearing from the HAs.

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