Google just released the second Android Q beta for all three generations of Google Pixel smartphones, but they also released system images that will allow for any Project Treble-compatible smartphone to flash Android Q! This is good news for a variety of Android phones. If your Android phone is not scheduled to receive the Q OTA update, if it is Project Treble compliant you can flash the system image for Android Q to your phone, This applies to the Q Beta 2 and later releases. Google required all phones that were released with Android 8 (Oreo) and later to be Treble compliant. That doesn’t mean that if your phone was released before Oreo that it is not compliant, just that it wasn’t required. There is a GSI (compatibility test) that can be run on a phone to see if it complies but requires an unlocked bootloader to flash the image. A GSI not requiring this is in the works. If you are interested you can take a look here.
https://developer.android.com/preview/gsi-release-notes
@jtoxx Question! You mention the Q flashing requiring an unlocked bootloader. After flashing, can one go back to a locked down Q or will the phone be forever unlocked (and more vulnerable after that?). I have also read that some highly sensitive apps, e.g., banking apps, refuse to load from Google Play on an unlocked phone. And, another ignorant question, if one has flashed to the generic Q, does that forever take one out of the Samsung update line if Samsung should relent and choose to offer a third Android OS update (Q) to the Galaxy Note 8 line?
Sorry for the stupid questions but your post is most interesting as I got my Quattro’s in part because of the promise of MFA but then had a big letdown in slowly realizing that it was probably going to be Android Q, not P, that got MFA.
@jim_lewis. He said the compatibility test requires the unlocked bootloader, not the Q beta itself. A compatibility test not requiring an unlocked bootloader was under development.
@jtoxx. Apologies for asking this again, but there are legions of OPN1 users out there who would love to know that their aids will talk directly to a future version of Android. So, could you tell us whether the aids you’ve been using with ‘Q’ are the original OPN1’s (more than a few weeks old) or the latest just-released ‘S’ OPN1’s. Thanks
@jtoxx If I understand you correctly, you can essentially use your phone and aids together as a Bluetooth headset. You could even pair your phone to someone else’s phone and listen to music that’s playing on their phone. Is that correct? Where does this happen in the UI? Accessiblity settings? General audio?
Yes, I read that, too. My question was, if you use an unlocked bootloader, does that mean your phone is forever unlocked after that? If after loading an Android Q beta one could go back to a locked state, that would be less of a security risk. But perhaps what I don’t understand is that once a bootloader is installed, it’s always there in unlocked state, ready to be taken advantage of by malware.
Accessibility, but you have to enable a flag to see it. See this link.
Then scroll down to this section - System Feature Flags - and note the third entry down.
Now scroll down to this section - Accessibility - and check the screen caps and text.
I tried to pair with Quattro and nucelus 7. It didn’t work with Android Q running on pixel 3.
ASHA protocol isn’t available yet in the firmware…
I really don’t think direct streaming works with Opn family. I noticed that he goes off topic and talk about other things like someone has something to hide. . Generic System image (GSI) is only generic to capture a wide hardware range. Project treble GSI does not have hearing aid accessibility enabed. No you don’t need to unlock your bootloader to install the beta. A lot of what jtoxx is saying is incorrect and you really need a Pixel device unless your phone manufacture starts making a Q image with Hearing aid bluetooth HAL support in /vendor partition
Thanks. That takes care of the pairing with the aids. I was interested in where you enable pairing with and accepting audio from other devices.
Note: replying to @teejayess, not jim_lewis
A good primer for dummies like me on the implications of installing an unlocked bootloader on an Android device. I like the part about hacking a phone by putting it in a freezer for an hour or two!
I think I’ll just be happy with PC+ streaming or using over-the-ear BT headphones, hope Samsung faces up to the competition and puts Q on the Galaxy Note 8 within the next year, or otherwise buy a Pixel somewhere along the line.
I do not know. I had been shopping HAs for six months, I waited four months for Android Pie to enable hearing aid pairing. At the point last fall where it became obvious that it would take months if not years to actually happen, and my current HAs would not work and I would have to buy new ones. I switched to an iPhone as my main device.
Here is the article that got my hopes up.
I got my Costco hearing aids in August 2018 with a trial until February 2019. I was willing to return them for something that would work with Android, but the price of Marvels or Quattros was to much for me compared to what my Costco ReSounds cost.
I keep my Pixel 2 XL update and watch the evolution of Android direct HA pairing closely. I might go back to Android when I need new HAs or if my current ReSound Forte 8 can pair when “Q” comes out. Right now “Q” looks more like the Star Trek character to me.
Even if you get Android Q booting. you still need to add the HAL for BT Hearing aid support to vendor partition.
Source: I am a software engineer specialized in embedded OS and I worked on Android Pie recently.
Thanks! In the past, being a dummy in the days of Windows CE and Windows Mobile, I flashed phones lots of times with custom modded ROM’s not really knowing what I was doing and trusting the source of the modded ROM’s. My excuse was that in those days I didn’t do anything “sensitive” on my phones (except possibly compromise my work network by having a possibly insecure device on it!). So now that I’m a lot older (but not a lot wiser) and do sensitive stuff on my phone, I’m more cautious but I’ve probably lost too many brain cells in my old age to learn enough about Android to keep my phone secure if it were rooted and/or had an unlocked bootloader.
@teejayess. I know where you’re coming from. I delayed getting badly needed new aids for a year 'cause I was sold on Bluetooth 5 as the harbinger of world of wonders in the realm of hearing assistance. I had my phone stolen recently and I bought a cheapish second hand phone to replace. My reasoning was not to invest too much in a device when a new round of technology might be just around the corner. That decision might be a good one. My point? Chasing technological improvements based on company press releases is a frustrating exercise.
With ASHA, we were expecting a mfi equivalent. jtoxx’s description goes well beyond that. I’m curious as to how it’s handled in the ui.
The UI just takes you to the pairing section but it is pretty basic stuff, once you are paired it takes you to previous page with not or is connected. obviously a terrible design from a UX standpoint but i don’t have a compat hearing aid /cochlear implant’s sound processor to test with.
I wish there was a straightforward answer to these questions. The true answer is “who knows”. We only know what was in place in the past . Almost every phone is different! If you have a Samsung phone, that was supplied by AT&T it contains software both loaded in ROM and installed that is different from the same phone supplied by T-Mobile or Verizon of from a phone bought directly as an unlocked phone from Samsung. This applies to all brands. Some carriers allow their phones to be “re-bootloader locked” some do not. Some carriers will disable OTA updates to phones that have unlocked bootloaders some carriers may not. In the case of Samsung the phone, regardless of carrier additions, contains a security platform called KNOX. Among other things this platform will trigger a KNOX count of 1 if you unlock the bootloader, root the phone and the Knox count goes to 2. Almost certainly a single Knox count will void any warranty on the phone. How a carrier respond to KNOX counts is hard to determine and can change. HTC and Motorola both don’t seem to mind you unlocking the bootloader as they provide a “factory” mode for unlocking. A carrier is, however, free to react as they see fit. They go to great lengths installing BLOAT they really don’t want removed and they don’t want to cause themselves and addition problems with users that have messed up their phones.
There are just so many unknowns you just have to decide if you want to unlock or root and possibly face the problems.
@jtoxx you are avoiding the single most important question… Does it work with Opn from 3 years ago? you clearly write junk information which has no relevant info to the hearing aid streaming feature.
You know Samsung bootloader is totally locked down, only the international model allow you to flash custom ROM. KNOX has nothing to do with hearing aid.
Thanks for the advice. I read the article that I link below (same link that I used back in 2011 to decide whether to root my Galaxy Nexus! - decided “NO” then). Seems from the article that if I were going to get another phone that a future version of a Pixel would be my best bet for its future potential modding friendliness. But for now, it seems best just to wait and see how Android Q and MFA turn out - and look forward to further reports from you all. 
BTW, I have a carrier-unlocked Galaxy Note 8 - haven’t check whether AT&T in providing me a prepaid plan SIM card did anything to screw that up.
Don’t know how many times it is necessary to say it. Android Q Beta works on Pixel phones. The original, the Pixel 2 and the Pixel 3. I have a Pixel 2XL and a Pixel 3XL. They both have the Q beta 2 software and stream audio to my OPN 1 hearing aids.
I do not have a Connectclip. My hearing aids are not the latest ones as they are a year old. You say you don’t believe that the OPN family hearing aids can stream using the Android Q Beta software. Do you have a Pixel phone and OPN aids? Have you installed the software and tried it?
The Knox explanation was in reference to the question if you can re-lock the bootloader after it has been unlocked. The question was not in reference to hearing aids!
Yes, you can unlock the bootloader on a Samsung phone, it’s quite simple.
Check here to see how. 2 step process.
https://www.aiseesoft.com/how-to/unlock-bootloader-samsung.html
The statement about being able to install the Q operating system on other brand phones is news for the FUTURE, if your phone is not scheduled to be updated to Q by your carrier. Naturally it requires a system image from Google or another developer to be released. Google has released several images at this time. You are, obviously, not reading all of this thread or not understanding it.
No, you cannot unlock the bootloader on the S7 or higher. Believe me, I tried.
Stop giving people false hope that Android Q will solve the streaming problem. It depends on the driver/HAL/firmware to support Android Q streaming.
You can boot Android Q on a device that didn’t come with Q but the problem is that it is not using Q drivers for Bluetooth HA streaming feature, and it will not work.