I am excited about losing the intermediary connector device, and as soon as I confirm that this will work with Oticon I will buy a Pixel phone, as it makes sense for me convenience wise. I have had the ReSound clip (two generations), and also the Oticon one, and they both have kinda sucked. In the case of the Oticon one, the fact that it doesn’t support multipoint (be connected to a phone and a computer) is really a show stopper for me.
That said, as someone who has used my Oticon HAs with my iPad using the native (no clip) connnectivity, direct streaming to “open” HAs is not exactly great, even on iOS. This has more to do with nature of open HAs then the streaming technology.
Two gotcha problems with direct streaming 1) you don’t get full fidelity (e.g bass) 2) there is the microphone problem.
I have found that I can’t really get the audio loud enough, especially if there’s other noise (e.g. the car), and while turning off the HA’s mikes helps, it still weak compared to what one might hear with over the ear headphones. If I stick my hands over my ears, I hear much better in these situations, but not a great solution.
While cumbersome, high quality wireless headsets built for office environments (Jabra) beat direct streaming hands down from a user experience and audio quality standpoint.
Regarding the “mike” problem, to be effective for voice calls in noisier environment in the direct streaming situation, one has to literally hold the smartphone up close to your mouth to give the person on the other side a decent experience without a ton of noise. I have wondered why there is not yet a good noise cancelling array BT microphone that’s small enough to clip to a lapel.