I wear a pacemaker.
I’ve trialled Siemens Pure, Unitron Latitude and Phonak Auseo S and Solana aids. In all cases my bluetooth experience has been less than OK apparently due to interference caused by my home’s proximity to a shortwave radio broadcast relay station. As soon as I leave the immediate area, bluetooth works fine. My wife tried wearing my aids and had no trouble getting bluettoth transmissions through the Tek/UComm/Icom. Is this problem a known issue with pacemakers, as nobody I’ve spoken to has heard of it?
Freq L R
250 05 10
500 10 15
750 12 20
1000 15 25
1500 25 25
2000 30 25
3000 50 50
4000 65 65
6000 75 70
8000 70 60
iCom manual says it should not be used if you have pacemaker?
Sorry, but that’s not correct.
What the instructions say is that you check with your pacemaker provider before using either iCom or Tek TV link.
Both manufacturers tell me that this is because of the possibility of interference with the proper operarion of the pacemaker, not the other way round.
My iCom User Guide states at page 57 that " Persons using medical devices such as pacemakers are not permitted to use this device. "
I do beg your pardon sir-garnet, I’d not been shown that “user guide”.
The guides I was given were the Unitron uCom one and the Siemens Tek one, both of which said as I quoted earlier.
Nonetheless, I have spoken directly with Phonak Tech service and been advised that the only concerns Phonak have relate to the possibility of the iCom interfering with the efficiency of the pacemaker, and not the other way round.
My heart specialist has told me that they have no problem with my using the iCom as long as I don’t feel any interference in my heart rhythm (I don’t).
I guess it’s because most people are warned off by what you’ve quoted that this issue hasn’t been highlighted so far, but I had hoped that in the world at large there existed some brave soul who’d come across the issue and found an answer.
Thanks for trying to help and I hope you weren’t offended by my earlier reply.
Phosieuni, here is the link from Phonak US for the iCom user guide. http://www.phonak.com/content/dam/phonak/b2b/C_M_tools/Accessories/iCom/Documents/029_0692_02_User_Manual_iCom_V3.00.pdf
On Page 57, you can see the warning that sir-garnet quoted. The warning is plain that you should not be using the iCom.
Did you trial a new iCom, or was it a few years old? When I trialled Phonak, they let me trial an older iCom. I was told they redesigned it a couple of years ago, giving great performance improvements.
I do hope you find a solution to your situation.
Thanks for your contribution prodigyplace.
The Audeo S units I trialled were brand new and so was the iCom. In fact, when I first encountered the problem Phonak replaced the iCom thinking it might have been faulty.
My dilemma now stems from the fact, that Tech Support at Phonak have expressed no such prohibition, only the desire that I obtain clearance from my heart specialist before using iCom.
As stated, I got that.
Personally I have no qualms about using the iCom as I now believe the performance of that unit is way better than the Siemens equivalent.
However, to get back to my original post, my problem is that the iCom appears to allow interference from shortwave radio transmissions to interact with the pacemaker to prevent the signal reaching my instruments.
When I discussed the problem with a local audi, he told me that he was aware of this type of interference being an issue with some (non pacemaker)clients of his, but as I was not consulting him, we didn’t discuss it further.
It was after that encounter that I approached Phonak. Their national senior technition told me that mine was the first instance of a person wearing a pacemaker reporting interference from shortwave radio and his answer was to recommend use of FM rather than bluetooth. As I want to buy the Audeo S aids, this would mean locking myself out of the bluetooth option and before doing this I came across this forum so am trying to find a way through the problem.