(Almost) Hands-Free calls with Widex hearing aids (especially Call-Dex)

Hearing Aids
#1

Hi all, my grandma’s got old Widex Passion HAs (bought in 2017) and I’d like to know if there’s a way, I mean an accessory for her old Alcatel 20.08g phone, to make and receive phone calls just by using phone buttons and nothing else, I mean I don’t ask for a 3rd party accessory with buttons. Due to that I’ve written “almost hands-free”, in the sense I know I need a 3rd party accessory but I need it to be buttonless to work.

I tried with COM-Dex accessory for first but she’s got a bit of dementia and hand arthritis and the problem with that com-dex was she always pressed its one-button for too much time and this meant she always stopped all the incoming calls!

Now I see this very old Widex phone accessory: Call-DEX. It has no buttons, only a 3.5mm jack to be plugged to phone output and it’s supplied by a size “10” battery, so I think it’d be nice. I only have 2 problems with call-dex: 1) her old alcatel phone is not present on its compatibility list and 2) I can’t find any place where to buy it, not in Europe!

I’ve tried to understand what’s “special” about phones in call-dex compatibility list but I can’t understand and I ask your help. I don’t think the “special” feature is the bluetooth because this accessory is physically connected to the phone, maybe something about chipset? We can see very old phones in that list as the nokia 113 that is from 2012 so I don’t think this accessory need a recent phone chipset to work :slight_smile: Even if I could buy it I don’t want to waste my money in a non compatible accessory.

Where could I try to see if this old call-dex is still for sale?

Anyway I ask you for every kind of phone accessory that is buttonless and Widex-compatible :slight_smile:

#2

Talk to your hearing aid provider or audiologist. There should be a way to either use t-coil or perhaps a proprietary method to hear telephone through hearing aids and avoid using COM-Dex.

#3

Unfortunately I had already asked my audiologist for solutions and he answered the call-dex was out of production so he suggested me to try the com-dex but it was a failure as I told.
About t-coil, consider this widex “unique”'s family comparison scheme where you can find the passion model as well. The first column (“style”) is about features and you can see “telecoil” and:

  • passion → “Via DEX”
  • fusion → “Yes”

Now consider the passion’s user guide: you can’t find neither t-coil nor telecoil. On the other hand consider fusion’s user guide: at pag.41 you can find “T-DEX for connecting hearing aids to mobile phones via a telecoil”.
Definitely I think passion model has no t-coil inside while other models, such as fusion, have it. Passion has bluetooth for sure but it’s useless for my case.

#4

Have you tried eBay or similar? I had it, bought a brand new on eBay, a few years ago. I googled, and found literally in 5 seconds: Widex CALL-DEX Streamer - Discounted at HEARING SAVERS. Call-dex is actually not that old technology, just not sure that you understand how it works, and what benefits will it bring for her.

#5

I had found that link too but I don’t know if they ship to Europe. The first result I get from google is this, I guess because I’m from Europe and google knows it. As you can see it’s out of stock but the most interesting information is its cost: 59 euros (about 66 US$). I don’t know if it’s worth 160 AU$ (109 US$) + custom fees + shipping or not though now it’s quite impossible to find out.

Tell me what I misunderstood.
My goal is to get a phone device that automatically bridges [these widex HAs]<->[phone] without any “action” by the user but accepting the incoming call by pressing the phone button.
The only drawback I red about this call-dex comes from some of its amazon’s buyers, eg.:

  • you gotta keep them real close to your head (about finger length) to get a lock on your signal otherwise you wont hear anything
  • at times it would switch out of the call-dex steamer back to the HA (i.e. “universal”). At this point since the device is plugged into the jack output, the phone’s speaker and receiver for normal use is unavailable.

so I guess its bluetooth antenna has a very narrow range. Can you confirm that or not?

#6

Have you looked into a Widex Phone Dex? When I was using Widex aids I purchased a Phone Dex and it automatically paired with my Widex aids. There is also Phone Dex 2.

#7

Hi rgilbert, phone-dex is a cordless for landline but my grandma lives in a resthouse and she only can use her personal cell phone so I think this device is useless in this scenario.

#8

Sorry for the misunderstanding on my part. I hope you can find a helpful solution for your grandmother. It must be very frustrating for her and for you.