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Why Is Phonak Proud Their Hearing Aids Are Not-Made-For-iPhone?

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In reply to @capaz

Apple have a very good reputation for catering for the disabled with accessibility features, including being much more friendly to use for those of us with hearing loss. Phonak are essentially saying that their users do not deserve the opportunity to avail themselves of those features. No one is saying that a hearing aid cannot be made for a range of phones. We just want a version which allows us to use those great made for iPhone features. Of course if Phonak could make all those features available via any Phone no one would object. But the problem is the lack of standardisation in any other type of phone OS. And of course many basic or old phones would not have the technology needed for the features.

Phonak users are charged a premium price for hearing aids. So switching to an iPhone is also not out of the question for most. Some android users have an objection to doing so but that should not mean the rest of us are denied the best features and forced to cope with clumsy workarounds.

At worst Phonak could make a separate version made for iPhone but I suspect it would be so successful that they would not bother with the current line.

I’m a huge Apple fanboy (iPhone, iPad, AppleTV, Apple Watch and MacBook Pro) but after wearing Phonak’s Lumity hearing aids for 8 months, I can honestly say that there are some major advantages of Phonak’s Bluetooth Classic implementation over .

The biggest one being that the Lumity hearing aids connect to ANYTHING with no extra streamer required. This is huge for a deaf person who uses technology. Good example happened today. I just bought an inexpensive Hisense 50" Google TV off of Amazon for our bedroom. The TV comes with Bluetooth. I put my Lumity hearing aids into pairing mode and they immediately showed up on the TV setup screen and I was listening to the TV through my hearing aids (with no streaming device necessary) in less than 2 minutes. The TV even had a Bluetooth sync feature to calibrate the sound with the lips, etc. I have my Lumity hearing aids also connected to my Peloton Exercise bike, my three year old MacBook Pro, my Dell work laptop, iPhone, iPad. Added bonus…the connection is always solid and I’ve had zero issues. My only complaint is that Classic Bluetooth does chew through the batteries on your hearing aids faster vs MFi but being able to connect reliably to any type of bluetooth device is a game changer for me.

Don’t get me wrong…I’m never giving up my Apple devices but don’t knock Phonak’s version of Bluetooth. MFi isn’t better…it’s just different and may not suit everyone’s lifestyle.

Jordan

In reply to @Psocoptera

@Psocoptera said:

Apple have a very good reputation for catering for the disabled with accessibility features

They got into trouble with regulators some years ago for dropping support. Their excuse was their newly minted proprietary mfi protocol. “Let them buy iphones” basically. will bring accessibility features that we’ve barely dreamed of. Apple are uniquely placed to promote it and bring product to market. Unfortunately, it’s an open standard, so they can’t keep it to themselves. Not a peep!

@Psocoptera said:

But the problem is the lack of standardisation in any other type of phone OS

The problem is the lack of standardisation in Bluetooth protocols. The current Bluetooth audio standard was designed before Phone OS’s were even a thing.

@Psocoptera said:

At worst Phonak could make a separate version made for iPhone but I suspect it would be so successful that they would not bother with the current line.

Phonak have been very successful with their current line I believe.

@Psocoptera said:

Phonak users are charged a premium price for hearing aids.

Aren’t we all? That’s why many of us don’t have $2k left over for iphones.

Edited

In reply to @Psocoptera

[edit: sorry for not using the blockquote tag in composing this. my formatting is awkward and harder to read as a result. -tom]

I understand your frustration, but do take issue with your characterization of the situation and the choices available to manufacturers and users.

Phonak (and all the other manufacturers) have real technical and business constraints in play here. They’re really not making decisions based on what certain users deserve or don’t deserve.

A few of those constraints:

  • “…lack of standardisation in any other type of phone OS”: (as @ssa points out…) all those other phone OSes are standardized in this arena – bluetooth is a standard, and accessible to any phone manufacturer. MFI is proprietary, which is actually the opposite of standardized, and accessible to only Apple.

  • “…many basic or old phones…”: nothing to do with that. This all applies even to the newest fanciest non-Apple phones. (this should also be considered in regard to your earlier comment re: assumptions about older people and the technology they choose, use, or can understand. lots of older, very tech savvy, folks use non-Apple phones.)

  • “…if Phonak could make all those features available via any Phone…”: again, MFI is proprietary Apple tech so for Phonak or any manufacturer, that’s out of the question.

  • “…a separate version…”: I suspect that’s probably not a viable option due to the dramatically increased cost, in engineering and support, that would be required… return-on-investment and all that stuff that stockholders care about, for better or for worse.

  • re: Android users switching to iPhone: There are myriad real reasons (incl. technical, business, and personal) involved in why people choose/use a particular device. Whatever the solution is, it’s certainly not as simple as: All users should use an iPhone.

As for the idea that someone, in choosing to use a not-iPhone, is denying something to somebody else, or forcing anything on them… That’s just a baffling way to frame it.

For what it’s worth… I could also be called a huge Apple fanboy, like @JordanK. I use iPad, AppleTV, MacBooks, Mac Studio, etc. :blush: No anti-Apple biases here – I just recognize that MFI ain’t the answer.

Some similar issues here, on Resound Quattro’s, found the app far quicker connecting generally and for calls it worked better to as mic on iphone was used. Now on these Nadia M70, that is hands free used mics on aids, but they pic up to much back ground noise and need to turn up louder and every call make, other caller says sound is poor.
I tried to use on teams in office to but they just pick up to much back ground noise still a shame as connect to any device.

Depends on the phone. Needs to be compatible. In general, recent phones from Samsung and Google work. Oticon should have a compatibility list. If it’s important to you, try it out before your committed to a hearing aid or phone.

I see what you’re saying. Looks like they didn’t make Xceed compatible. The More and Real are. Still can’t do handsfree calls with Android though. Buying a used iPhone can make them more affordable.

In reply to @ssa

Your reply makes no sense. The Classic headset and headphone profiles used by Phonak are ancient. If you “hate” and , then you clearly have never used them. I had a pair of Phonak Marvels and the connectivity was so terrible that I returned them. (The sound quality was also terrible.) I switched to hearing aids that supported MFi and the connectivity with my iPhone was much better. My current hearing aids support both MFi and ASHA and I use them with my iPhone and my Pixel phone. They both work much better than the BT Classic profiles used by Phonak.

In reply to @darylm

@darylm said:

f you “hate” MFi and ASHA, then you clearly have never used them

I have tried both and MFI. I can say the same thing about these 2 protocol. they have terrible audio quality and even poorer link quality. the ASHA protocol audio quailty is bad in music.

Too many limitation, even bimodally.

ASHA has sync issue when streaming to both ears…

MFI requires you to have an audiologist write the sound processor id to the hearing aid and vice versa.

Also, there is no bluetooth multipoint in the protocol between 2 different protocol. the ASHA and MFI can’t coexist so once one is connected, it stay connected, the other protocol can’t connect

Also ASHA does not support multiple devices connected with ASHA

With Low Energy Audio, companies are required to run the audio protocol to a test suite to make sure there are no interoperability bugs and other complete testing they did to validate it to run on that hardware.

You are thinking of this moment while i am thinking in the near future

I having hard time understanding your claims because my experience is so different.

I have found that both and sound much better than BTC and I have not noticed any sync issues in either.

Also, there is no requirement for the audiologist to do anything for MFi to work. You pair the hearing aids like any other device, at least with Oticon Opn, Opn S, More and Real. (I have owned all four models.)

I don’t find it a limitation that I can’t use ASHA and MFi at the same time. (For that matter, the ConnectClip.) I only listen to one thing at a time.

Low Energy Audio should be an improvement over both MFi and ASHA, but the reason MFi and ASHA exist is because of how long it has taken the Bluetooth SIG to develop the standard. was introduced in 2009 and here we are in 2023 and there are still no LE Audio devices.

BTC was never intended to be used in hearing aids, which is why you have the kludgy design where the primary hearing aid has to stream to the secondary hearing aid. You are complaining about a claimed sync problem in ASHA, but BTC by definition introduces latency between the hearing aids because the primary hearing aid has to retransmit to the secondary. Not to mention that the primary hearing aid uses more power to transmit to the secondary and it’s radiating through your skull.

@darylm said:

I having hard time understanding your claims because my experience is so different.

I have a cochlear implant and which use resound/Cochlear’s HW/SW stack, i had nothing but bad experiences.

I am aware of the history in LE audio and i’m not defending Bluetooth classic.

I’m only saying that classic is better in interoperability and link quality at the cost of high power consumption…

Sorry to hear that you had such a bad experience. It sounds like your devices have some problems. I’ll be the first to agree that neither nor are anywhere close to perfect, but I think your experience is atypical.

Edited

I have no experience with any Apple products and my hearing aids, so I can’t speak to that portion at all. I did have a trial of Oticon Reals as an option to replace my then-current P90s and took for a spin and compared it to BTC.

For my particular use case of doing most of my phone calls in the car, BTC won hands down over ASHA. Phone call audio would default to the hearing aids with no way for me to switch it to the car speakers/microphone without just disconnecting my ’s from my phone. Given the number of calls I take in the car and that I had to do that every single time, it was a hard no-go for me.

Zero issues with Phonaks letting the car take the phone audio.

Besides that, I didn’t notice any streaming sound quality differences between the ASHA and BTC HAs, and Phonak battery life is satisfactory for my use case, so I passed on ASHA to stay BTC for now.

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