I picked up the new Signia BCT IX7 hearing aids which now includes Classic Bluetooth to allow me better access to more enabled devices. They also include which I have been a long time fan having in my back pocket. Last month I had just wrapped up my trial with the Pure Charge and Go Signia IX7 which utilized Bluetooth LE and standards. Overall everything was pretty good for me except some devices including a couple of lower end Android tablets and the AvanTree BT Relay Transmitter for 2 wireless BT headphones (to listen to and share video watching for 2 people from one device, ie. airplanes) was not able to connect directly w/o the use of the Signia Streamline Mic system. This device basically transformed any Classic BT signal into the ones the Signia IX aids could pair up with. I also grew to like the Streamline mic in restaurants to increase speech understanding of my wife while dining.
Just after I thought I was all set, I learned about the new Signia BCT model which supports classic BT which would potentially solve some of my issues. My audiologist was able to quickly get me one to test it out and we copied over my settings from the IX to the new pair, although IMO, it wasn’t exactly a 100% clone. Not sure if a mistake or as support told me they are not technically the same aid model? It was a little confusing because now you have to connect your aids on the android device as two connections. One is for controlling the Signia App and the other is for pairing for streaming from the phone and/or making truly handsfree phone calls which use the mics in your aids for the other party to hear you. I am not really a fan of having all the audio sounds from my phone (text alerts, calendar reminders etc.) streamed to my ear constantly since I am able to hear them just fine directly. It causes the aids to cut out the external mics briefly which I find annoying so I don’t typicallly leave it on all the time.
On the plus side, the BCT aid was now able to connect to my other tablet devices more easily using Classic BT. However I am no longer able to utilize the Streamline mic since it won’t pair anymore with the BCT aids only having Classic BT. For most cases its not really needed anymore with the BCT version except as I said before I grew to like the for eating in restaurants. The aids also do not seem to pair with with the Avantree BT Relay which I still wanted for dual streaming to a pair of BT headphones. I contacted support and they basically told me that it won’t pair with any device that doesn’t have a User Interface to select “Pair”. Not sure if this is true, but in my experiments so far it seem to be the common thread. I will say with my Samsung S21 phone (which supports dual media output streaming), it works just fine, but the screensize just don’t compare for watching movies. I believe it will also work with the higher end more expensive Samsung Tablets as well.
So right now I am in a bit of a conundrum, the BCT works more directly with BT devices which is a plus, but right now with a sacrifice of having no support remote microphone option. Support didn’t say if/when a new version would ever be created by Signia. I’ve been looking for other vendors perhaps having a BT microphone, but skeptical if they will pair to Hearing aids without any UI available. Other the hand, the IX was technically working for all my use cases but I just had to employ the extra layer of the Streamline mic device which sometimes involved pairing at 2 levels. Not a deal breaker necesary, but just more to carry around and connect up which being a techy is easy enough for me, not sure about others.
If anyone knows of remote microphones that work with BT Classic hearing aids and/or BT relay for dual streaming I’d be all ears so I can hopefully make a decision soon on which ones to keep.
You’re ignoring this member’s posts.
