DEAR Ranson
Because many hearing aids perform very poorly when using their built-in microphones during phone calls, the person on the other end often cannot hear clearly at all. Although hearing aid manufacturers promote “hands-free” functionality as convenient, the essence of a phone call is to clearly understand each other. However, using the hearing aid’s microphone often fails to meet this basic requirement reliably.
The smartphone’s microphone is definitely the most cost-effective and reliable option for capturing sound, as it’s designed for millions of users.
I’ve been looking for a way to use a traditional Bluetooth connection with PHONAK hearing aids on an Android system, so that during phone calls, I can hear the other person through my hearing aids, but my voice is picked up by the phone’s built-in microphone.
Thank you for your help!
Would you like help finding a specific solution or setting for your Android phone and PHONAK hearing aids?
Thanks for explaining the microphone performance issue.
I’ll do some testing to see if it’s feasible with the FMA120. If all goes well, I’ll share a link to a test firmware. We’ll test with a similar setup and assume it will work with Phonak, but since we don’t have any Phonak devices on hand (we only have some LE audio hearing aids), you’d eventually need to try it out with an FMA120 yourself.
DEAR Ranson
Phonak hearing aids typically use the SBC codec for audio transmission during phone calls, utilizing the Bluetooth HFP (Hands-Free Profile) mode.
Perhaps you can use any Bluetooth headset that supports SBC and HFP to test whether, during a phone call or voip app call, it’s possible to use the phone’s built-in microphone for audio input while using the Bluetooth headset to listen to the other party.
thank for your kindly help!
jack
Voice from mobile phone to HA’s via BT is problem when you are in noisy environment . It is due to interference from surrounding sound. The caller might not be able to hear you clearly because the HA’s also pick up the surrounding sound. If you are in a quiet room and Telco signal is strong, the caller will be able to hear you better.
Try to get your friend to call you when you are in a room versus when you are outside the house/street. It is different when the mobile phone near your mouth and ears.
Thanks to everyone who has provided feedback and comments on our product — I’ve just started a new thread introducing the dongle’s new Auracast receiver mode.
DEAR danka
Thank you for providing a great solution to improve the performance between mobile phones and hearing aids during calls.
In my humble opinion, the best approach would be to freely choose between the phone’s microphone or the hearing aid’s microphone during a call.
However, if only one option is allowed, prioritizing the phone’s microphone would be better for call stability.
Thanks again!
Jack
Here’s the firmware prepared for your specific Phonak requirement. It has been tested on a Samsung S23 Ultra, with audio routed to the connected Bluetooth device and the microphone remaining active on the phone.
Please note that priority is determined by the mobile operating system (iOS or Android); the dongle itself cannot control which audio interface the OS selects. While we can offer some workarounds, achieving a seamless solution would ultimately require pressure on Phonak, Apple, and Google to make this functionality available to users.
As an accessory, the dongle has no control over this behavior — even on Windows, it’s the user who selects which microphone is used.
DEAR Ranson
Thank you very much for your help. I would like to ask you a few more questions:
1.In the past, I have used some apps to modify microphone routing. During VOIP calls, it was sometimes possible to listen via Bluetooth while using the phone’s built-in microphone to capture audio. However, unfortunately, in the case of cellular phone calls, Google never really intended for any app to have system-level control over these things. For cellular calls, Android seems to communicate directly with the Bluetooth device, completely bypassing its own audio routing system.
I’d like to ask: with this new firmware, is it possible during cellular phone calls to listen through Bluetooth while using the phone’s built-in microphone?
2.You also mentioned that priority is determined by the mobile operating system. In this case, can this version of the firmware operate stably?
3.When I plug the FMA120 into my phone, does this firmware route all calls (VOIP and cellular) to use Bluetooth for audio output and the phone’s built-in microphone for input?
The new firmware disables (removes) the microphone interface on the FMA120, so Android/iOS only detect it as an output device — no input channel is presented. As a result, the operating system has no choice but to use the phone’s built-in microphone. This has been tested successfully on a Samsung S23 Ultra.
Because the OS normally defaults to the USB input when one is available, we intentionally disable the FMA120’s input so the phone is forced to use its own mic. With this setup, even during calls, your Phonak operates over A2DP using SBC (likely at 48 kHz — though I don’t have a Phonak device to confirm this; you can check the rate using FlooCast on a PC). Please note that this introduces slightly higher latency, but it provides better audio quality.
Can anybody confirm that Rexton Reach / Signia IX HAs work with FlooGoo firmware version 1.1.2?
After powering on the Signia IXs and clicking the ‘Add device’ button in FlooCast, they simply never show up as recognized devices. My Jabra 20s are work just fine with the FMA 120.
And the Signias are recognized by my LE Audio capable laptop.
The Signia firmware has been upgraded to the latest version 25.5.1039.3.
I only recently got the FMA120 and immediately upgraded to firmware 1.1.2, so I don’t know if older FW versions work. I tried downgrading, but it seems that the FMA120 does not allow that.
I find I have to turn off Bluetooth on my phone and tablet then power cycle the Rexton Reach aids then remove and reinsert the dongle then I need to get very close to the dongle with my aids, sometimes several times. Once the aids start to receive they remain stable, you have the correct firmware on both
Should have mentioned it above - yes, I did turn Bluetooth off on my phone and I’m power-cycling the Rexton/Signias.
I don’t think this is normal - my Jabra 20s get recognized immediately by the FMA120 and the Signias get immediately recognized by two other LE Audio devices I have.
It’s the combination of Signia with FMA120 that’s troublesome for me.
Thank you for the confirmation. If you’re using the special 1.1.2.1 firmware, could you also confirm whether the phone’s microphone remains active during a call?
You can downgrade the firmware using the same procedure. Just make sure to unzip the firmware file into a local folder (not a cloud-based one like Microsoft OneDrive), and avoid placing it in a directory with non-English characters in the full path.
Also, is your Jabra device detectable by the two other LE Audio devices you mentioned?
I started to suspect that the Bluetooth name of the Signia HAs might be too long: Signia automatically sets the Bluetooth name of the hearing aids as
“[customer first name]'s hearing aids”.
ReSound sets it to “[customer first name]'s HAs”
My first name is 8 character’s long, so the total length of the Signia Bluetooth name is 23 characters.
I tried truncating my name to 4 characters and it worked for the first time ever! Then I went to 6 characters, then 7, and finally back to 8. It still worked!
Hmm…
It’s also notable that the first name gets shortened (the HAs might be doing that, I see the same thing on my other device), but also the last two characters also get truncated by the FMA120:
@wtolkien We impose a 20-byte limit for the device name (with the last byte always being 0 as a terminator). I’ll check if there’s an issue with this. The device name is captured during the pairing process and isn’t used afterward, so it shouldn’t impact the connection.
