The issue might be mis-configured software on the Hearing Aids or not properly installed drivers, What OS might be another one.
I think I have a solution, which I may send to Phonak, regarding choppy streaming outdoors. Once I get my firmware update next week, I should be able to pair my Marvels to both my iPhone X and an old Series 3 Apple Watch. Then, I simply attach the watch to the back of my baseball cap and stream music from the watch … when the distance to the Marvels is only a few inches. Problem solved and very sheik looking too
!
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I think the basic problem with the Marvels is that they use a 2.4 GHz carrier frequency to communicate with each aid. It does not go through your head well, and if outdoors there are no hard surfaces to reflect off. Another solution may be to use an aluminum foil umbrella to reflect the signal to your ears!
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And avoid alien influences or other nefarious forms of mindreading at the same time! 
, i.e. the tin foil hat!
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O.K. I got the firmware update to my Marvels today and am happy to report that the Bluetooth outdoor streaming did seem much better … although not perfect. I would guess that on a 15 minute walk I only had two brief cutouts that were a fraction of a second each … and I can live with that.
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Problem SOLVED … at least for me. The three steps were:
- Get the Phonak 2.0 firmware update at my audi’s office.
- In my iPhone Bluetooth settings “forget” the pairing for the aids.
- In my iPhone Bluetooth settings re-pair with the aids.
Two days (so far) of cutout-free audio outdoors
I hope the same works for all of you!!
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I’ve tried this fix on my Oneplus 3T running android 9 and it doesn’t solve the issue for me. I already had my firmware update for the hearing aids and now have “forget” and re-pair to the hearing aids. Almost as soon as I went outside it started cutting. Albeit not as much, at least now i can actually hear what im listening to but still has quite a bit of cutouts.
So the problem is still ongoing at least for me.
And if you are streaming outdoors, forget having your phone in a pants pocket … I find that distance to the aids is much too far for uninterrupted Bluetooth. When outdoors I always have to keep my iPhone in the shirt pocket closest to my primary aid (so that the distance is no more than 10 inches). I have also noticed that wearing a leather jacket over my iPhone in a shirt pocket always interrupts the streaming, so the iPhone has to be moved to an upper jacket pocket!
I haven’t experienced any issues with my Marvels and my Galaxy S10+ being in either side pants pocket front or back. My left ear is the primary.
I have the same issue with my android phone. Except I don’t have a leather jacket lol. Phonak isn’t ready with their bluetooth streaming capabilities just yet. Feels like I am wearing a prototype of the hearing aid more than anything.
It’s funny you are having so many complaints when so many others are very happy with their Marvel aids. I wear the Audeo M90 RT aids with no Bluetooth problems. I do only use my Samsung S9 phone and a TV connectors for two televisions.
Early on I did have a few Bluetooth issues before switching from Bluetooth adaptive bandwidth to fixed bandwidth. All good for me after that.
Well then this just shows me that Phonak isn’t exactly consistent. Since I’ve had the issues with 3 replacements, and the trial ones that were supplied to the audiologist.
There are a lot of users who are having these outside streaming issues.
Can you explain that a little more?
The setting is in Target under device’s Bluetooth.
At times I would hear distorted sound and sometimes nothing. Once the bandwidth was changed to fixed the problems went away. This is with Audeo M90 RT aids and a Samsung S9 phone. My wife has the Costco KS9 aids and a pretty new iPhone. Her aids are set on adaptive bandwidth and never has problems. Don’t understand why but that is how it is.
I think I saw the same settings under Bluetooth settings for the HA on the phone itself. Didn’t try it though.
More likely than your carrier it may be the phone. It has Bern my experience that some phones have more reliable Bluetooth than others. It may be that the problems are not so much the aids as they are the phone used.
My phone is a Google Android Pixel 3 XL. Pixels run pure, unadulterated Android. Some phone makers, Samsung comes to mind, modify the Android OS extensively. Perhaps that could account for why my experience is excellent and some people experience just the opposite.
I’m pretty tech savvy, a fairly early adopter of new technologies over the years. This being my first pair of hearing aids I did want to get something as advanced as I could afford. I did end up with Phonak Audeo Marvel’s. I made the switch from Android to Apple about a year ago, a whole other story of pros / cons.
To me the bluetooth is a bit underwhelming on the hearing aids. On a pair of consumer earbuds the technology seems to be lightyears ahead whether they are apple airpods, bose noise cancelling, or a Jabra headset. At this point it’s a nice to have, and nice not to have to have an external device to use bluetooth, but I think there is still a good amount of room to develop, enhance what hearing aid wearers want as far as connectivity. I hope, and am guessing in 3-5 years the technology will have jumped enough that I will look forward to added functionality on my next pair.
Currently I have very little issues actually streaming from my iphone for calls. The biggest pain point I see when I’m connected to my phone is that my sound will cut in and out while I am in a web browser, depending if there is embedded sound / video to the point I end up disconnecting bluetooth, or holding down a button on my HA to switch out of BT streaming. From my computer, sometimes if I connect via bluetooth and am watching a video on youtube, that will randomly cut in and out, especially if I have walked away and come back to my desk a min later. I end up having to disconnect from windows and re-connect.
My wish list for my next pair is growing and probably will continue to do so. Maybe some can be fixed in the app / firmware to the device So far:
More reliable bluetooth connections to PC
A way to control / toggle what device the HA is pairing via BT to via the app, thinking it could be done because the controls are being done via BT LE. It would be great to lock onto one device but be able to pivot without going into the streaming device, disconnecting and then going to another device and connecting.
An iphone app and an android wear app. I get it the Phonaks are some of the first to be able to directly to an android phone, that’s great I’m still a huge fan of android devices. I also understand that the BT LE is paired to the phone and wouldn’t be paired to your watch, but if you could at least have a watch app to fire up to basically relay commands to the phone app to make adjustments, like volume EQ, program, paired device etc, that would be super nice. Less conspicous than pulling my phone out at a restaurant.
Connectivity to digital assistants. I’m not really the paranoid type that worries about an Amazon, Google or Apple listening to my conversations. Besides some sort of physical wakeup command could be utilized, like a double click on the hearing aid to activate. Would be nice to be able to ask a simple question or since I have Alexa and Google Assistant tied into my home automation, would be great to open the garage door, set my alarm, turn on and off lights etc.