The TRUTH about Hearing Aid Bluetooth Issues

The TRUTH about Hearing Aid Bluetooth Issues. Dr. Cliff Olson, Audiologist and founder of Applied Hearing Solutions in Phoenix Arizona, discusses the reasons behind why Hearing Aids seem to ALWAYS have Bluetooth Wireless Connectivity issues with your Bluetooth Devices.

[JimFlanneryDRONES]

I've had BT issues in the past, but I've never had a problem between my Phonak Virto P90 and my iPhone 13 Pro Max. As a matter of fact, I've been REALLY enjoying MUSIC for the first time in years. Following a severe mountain biking accident that destroyed my shoulder, I've been going to our local Therapy Pool every day for an hour's heavy water therapy, wearing my Virtos, and BOOGYING for an hour while "running in place" in the warm water. The music from my iPhone comes to me from a metal locker about 80 metres distant, with no dropouts. I couldn't be happier! My previous hearing aids (Phonak P90 BTE's) had Bluetooth issues, but not the Virto's! In case you're wondering, my Virto's did NOT fly out of my ears when I flew off the cliff that destroyed my shoulder (and other injuries). The Virtos stayed in my ears and all I had to do was clean off the blood when I took them out. de KØUNX, Jim, in Jefferson County Colorado.

[kellieknight]

THANK YOU for this video!!! My latest iOS update is all I could think of as to why I was suddenly having intermittent phone call connectivity issues. Starkey just came out with a firmware update so I didn't think it was my aids, and I KNEW I wasn't going crazy! Love how you break things down and explain them for us!

[Sashazur]

My current and previous HAs both are MFI (made for iPhone) Bluetooth compatible. My experience over the 5 years I’ve used them is that the connection is reliable if I only connect my HAs to my iPhone. But if I try to take advantage of Apple’s Handoff feature that’s supposed to let me also connect my two iPads and automatically switch the HA connection between all three devices, that’s a mess; about 1/3 of the time something goes wrong. The most common problems are the connection won’t switch, or playback will freeze or stutter, or audio will only stream to one ear. This is not a new issue and it’s persisted over several years of major Apple software updates up to the current one (iOS 16). I’ve emailed Apple accessibility support several times over the years to report the problem; they always reply sympathetically, suggest the usual useless un-pair/re-pairing, and sometimes promise a fix is coming, but nothing changes. I’ve also contacted the HA manufacturer a few times about this issue and they blame Apple and recommend not using Handoff at all.

[tharrylock]

Yes, this is what I've found. I've used hearing aids nearly 60 years and could tell stories about the box on the chest aids I wore as a kid and what I have now. As an engineer and fairly proficient with technology, I have been absolutely delighted with what I have available to me through my aids. At times I feel sorry for those without all this tech as I am able to get some related bionic benefits as a result even though I can't normally hear anything quieter than 60-70db in the vocal range. A recent Android update gargled the connectivity and Starkey walked me through various options and we determined that an available firmware update might resolve the issue. After meeting with my HCP and having the firmware updated all was resolved...."and at the end of the day it is still totally worth it!"

[danev]

This makes sense. I don't think the firmware in my hearing aids have changed. But the firmware in my smart phone changes frequently. Often resulting is Bluetooth issues.

[cliffcorder]

I’m having awful Bluetooth connectivity issues with my heating aids. My provider is working on resolving. Why is this only with hearing aids?? I’ve used multiple Bluetooth devices from several brands and never had an issue. Until I started using hearing aids. Seems like they aren’t technologically sound to me.

[David-Field.Stuff]

Great video as always.
Last Spring I had a Samsung Galaxy S10+ running Android 10 and bluetooth streaming reliability to my Resound Linx Quattro hearing aids was terrible.
Now I have a Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra running Android 13 and Bluetooth connection reliability and quality to my Resound hearing aids is vastly improved.
I'd recommend that everyone update to the latest version of their preferred phone and operating system, if they can, for improved performance.

[stevecarpenter]

I have a pair of Signia Pure Charge & Go 5AX devices. Recently on a checkup visit my Audiologist performed a firmware upgrade on the devices. Shortly after the upgrade, I started noticing Bluetooth disconnecting one side or the other...and the sound was horrible. Sometimes a reboot of the devices would resolve the issue for an hour or two; other times it required me to go into my phones settings, uninstall the devices and reinstall them. After a week of this I took them back and my Audiologist re-flashed them with the original firmware. Issue solved...they haven't lost signal in 2 weeks since.

[JeffEngle_rvbuiltfortwo]

I can confirm these issues with my Oticon and my IPad, but no problems with my IPhone (both only a year old). Submitted a bug report and spent hours on the phone with Apple. That was a year ago and no fix in the updates over the past year. The issues is garbled connectivity every 90 Seconds like clockwork. But it only happens with the IPad, and most noticeable with audio books. I have the latest Oticon firmware.

[watermain]

Thanks Dr. Cliif. I'm one of those people who has been blaming my HAs for the problem and not Verizon or Apple...

[tlbfarm]

I'm listening to this video via BT on my Oticon Mores. Lifesaver!

[boomerrangerron]

Thanks Cliff, I just turned my AUTO update button OFF! I used to rely on the IT department where I worked to give me the green light on the software update for our iPhones, but now that I'm retired he's no longer available! Having trouble this week with connectivity once again, and with the microphones on top of my PHONAK 50, it's impossible to talk on the phone unless you use speaker phone (and that's worse in most cases)! Thanks for sharing

[haroldlindqvist]

Thanks Cliff. I went to Samsung with my device running A12, as I had been having constant issues just as you describe.

They swapped my phone over to one running A13, pleased to say the issues are 95% gone.

All those running A12, see if you can get an update to A13, it's a gamechanger.

[edwengler]

I have Oticon hearing aids, while they do work ok with my iphone, connecting them to my PC with LE bluetooth does not work. I have the Windows 11 latest update for bluetooth. Can you do a segment on PC, LE Bluetooth and hearing aid compatablity? Thanks. I enjoy your segments.

[lcd]

You explained what was happening with my hearing aids BlueTooth. It was very helpful. Thank you.

[Josh_L-HA]

Thanks for making a concise video to help substantiate what I've been telling our patients after every major mobile operating system update! Of course, nobody has pin-pointed the exact cause of all these problems. I've theorized some of the intermittency issues could be directly related to Bluetooth LE (low-energy) being pushed that otherwise helps improve battery efficiency with mobile devices, but perhaps some of the protocols that help it be more stringent on power usage also compromises consistent re-connecting to paired hearing aids.
The story is always the same, they initially pair up nicely in office, which makes sense because you're essentially forcing them to acknowledge each other with a strong handshake. The problem is every time they reconnect on their own, it doesn't always complete like it should. I've further been suspicious this may ultimately be a simple time-out issue that neither an end-user nor an app developer has the ability to adjust. Often one side will repeatedly be the one that doesn't connect, although the system may claim that it is. The usual successful trouble-shooting method is to close all open apps then toggle the Bluetooth off and on. This clears out anything in the background that could be sapping performance, then toggling the Bluetooth forces the phone to re-attempt to connect to the hearing aids while the phone is focused on just doing that. The fact that this usually works, tells me that phones are literally "giving up" on connecting to the second side because reduced performance is causing it to take too long relative to a pre-programmed timer for that operation.
Catch is, every other Bluetooth pairing is only a single device to reconnect to. Even if they're stereo true wireless earbuds, you connect to one ear that acts as the master that broadcasts to the opposite side. Hearing aids however are unique as they use a Bluetooth signal to communicate, but the operating system acknowledges them as specifically being hearing devices as opposed to any other Bluetooth device and subsequently connects to both sides individually in the "Bluetooth Devices" list while yet still addressing them as a single paired entity in the "Hearing Devices" list. Which leads me to think there's a tiny oversight in the protocol for connecting to them in that they're still being treated like they're a traditional Bluetooth device, and the phone is only really allotting the reasonable amount of time to connect to ONE device (again possibly a result of trying to be more power efficient, it won't keep churning on attempting to connect to a single paired device if there's an issue). Upon timing out on the second, no further attempts are made to retry connecting to the other side, as the phone detects that yes, it did successfully connect to a Bluetooth device! It fails to acknowledge there's another half of the set that isn't connected as that's not usually the case for Bluetooth devices and apparently it's missing a provision to check for that. You can see this confusion particularly on an iPhone when you check the hearing aid status in the Device menu, you'll see it shows both sides "connected" but one of them will just be a spinning circle for the battery percentage estimate. That's because it's falsely reporting a complete connection for the pair again due to having success with the one side, but in reality it is not hooked up to the other.
Frustrating, because regardless what the core issue is, it's very difficult for hearing aids manufacturers to compensate for things an operating system is doing at such a base level, they cannot touch patching how the system connects to a Bluetooth device with an update to their app or the firmware of their hearing aids. While, of course, hearing aid connectivity is just an auxiliary feature to the phone manufacturers and no doubt is not a top priority to develop software/firmware fixes for, certainly not redeveloping a protocol that overall was a benefit to the phone otherwise. They'll get it figured out eventually... when they get around to it, and with no reassurance it won't inadvertently be reversed when trying to push future updates! Meanwhile it's advertised that phones work with hearing aids because they've technically made a provision for it, and of course hearing aid manufacturers advertise they're compatible with select phones because they really are doing everything they can to be, the goal-post just keeps moving arbitrarily. Only natural that patients see the hearing aids as the issue as they're typically the newest thing added to the mix unfortunately, and the phone was being a phone just fine prior to these confounded hearing aids the fitter has attempted to connect to it.

[gwgrappler]

I really doubt this is why mine are having Bluetooth issues. I have Beltone Amaze, less than 1 year old. I had my left hearing aid adjusted several times to increase loudness. The last time they found that the mic filter was clogged and then it was real loud. I also think they said there was a firmware update they applied. Anyway, they adjusted it (lowered its volume) and all seemed well. Note: they have the music mode set as my default. Now when I try to stream anything in that mode like phone calls or music, Roku etc the balance is WAY OFF. It’s loud in the right ear and quiet in the left. I have to use the iOS settings to move the balance to the left A LOT. I’ve NEVER had to do this before and never had to do this with 2 sets of Resound owned. I’ve been back to my audiologist 3 times and they still do this. I’m also getting different results in different modes, it’s like it works correctly in a couple modes but incorrect in 2 modes. Lately my right hearing aid seems to not be loud enough in regular hearing mode (non streaming) I have to increase it somewhat. These worked fine when I hit them.

[albertjagt]

Yes, having Bluetooth connectivity is a live saver for me too. However, I am so disappointed at the lack of advances between this set and the last set of Widex aids. I am missing the ability to control the volume of the 'room mic'!

[dalezastoupil]

I have Resound One HA, and Android 12 phone. I would loose connection to one side or the other multiple times a day. I had to restart aides, turn off/on BT all the time. I went to Android 13 this weekend on my phone. My problems have almost totally gone away. So Android updated something in the BT protocols with version 13.

[DavidHolmes-sy]

Lower-end cell phones do not get regular system software updates so it is hard to blame these intermittent but recurring connectivity issues on phone software updates. My mother experiences severe problems with bluetooth connectivity and even after the audio folk update the hearing aids to the "latest version" the problem will return shortly after leaving their office.