Thanks very much to all of you for the excellent feedback here. I suppose ASHA and MFi will both become obsolete with Bluetooth LE Audio / BT 5.2 … But for now it seems like they are good options for those who primarily want to connect to a compatible phone and don’t need accessory-free hands-free calling. BTW, my understanding with Phonak’s latest is they can pair with up to 8 Bluetooth devices and have 2 active Bluetooth connections… so perhaps it’s better now than when you tried Marvel 1.0 @darylm.
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Can you confirm if the Marvels that originally supported one pairing and one connection now support eight pairings and two simultaneous connections via a firmware upgrade? If so, I’m truly impressed.
To put the BT 5.2 support into perspective, the iPhone 12 and Google Pixel 5 support BT 5.0 and the Samsung Galaxy S21 supports BT 5.1. Who knows how long it will take before any phones support BT 5.2, including support for hearing aids and how long it will take before hearing aids that natively support BT streaming audio are available. I won’t be holding my breath for this.
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I’m not sure if this is a Phonak exclusive if you have an Apple Watch and use the microphone on the watch, which is surprisingly good (vs. the thread "Handsfree is the Achilles Heel of the Marvels…), and, unlike Phonak on your ears, you can actually hold the microphone on the watch right up in the vicinity of your mouth. One of my daughter’s father-in-law had an LTE version of a much earlier Apple Watch and said he was like Dick Tracy with his watch and everyone else in the family said the quality of his voice in calls was quite good. Since I’m only using my iPhone 6S as an “iPod,” I haven’t tested out my Apple Watch 6 in this capacity but I would imagine you could set it up so that the incoming call audio goes to your HA’s, your own voice audio goes out through the Watch microphone. I may be wrong. The watch may insist on playing the incoming audio on its own speaker, which is also surprisingly decent for such a small device. Perhaps someone with a fully functional iPhone and a recent version Apple Watch with or without the standalone LTE capability can comment on how well you can use the watch for handsfree audio in phone calls. I’m too lazy to switch my sim card out of my Android phone to experiment.
My understanding is that Phonak Paradise supports 8 pairings and 2 connections but that Marvels support 2 pairings and one connection.
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I think before your time here, “hands free calling” (without any other device) was the holy grail. I too have read of the issues with it, but I always err on the side of brevity. There are LOTS of hearing aids that can do “hands free calling” with another device–even my old KS7 with a SmartConnect.
I think Signia, Widex, Starkey and Resound also offer a device that will allow Classic BT streaming to their hearing aids. Signia’s looks just like Oticon’s ConnectClip. Even my old KS7 had a streaming device (SmartConnect) that would allow this.
The one point I would add is that call reliability, call quality and connection speed override any or all extra features or benefits offered by any of these standards. Even a slight delay in connecting, random interference or occasional dropped calls makes the solution unusable for those people who depend on streaming for business. I use MFI hearing aids (Quattro’s) because they connect instantly with high call quality and I rarely experience a dropped calls. Any of these new standards must meet or exceed the MFI reliability standard or they are useless.
Just my 2 cents…
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I think the tipping point in handsfree calling is whether you have to use an accessory device that’s a bother to wear and that you always have to remember to charge and take with you, etc.
The advantage of the microphone option being on the HA’s is that naturally that mic is always with you and you’re committed to keep your HA’s going with plenty of charge available, no more than a battery change or a short recharge away.
I think the thing that makes the Apple Watch different than any other accessory devices is that most wearers are always going to have the device with them and always worry about keeping it charged for other reasons besides HA connectivity. They don’t have to remember to carry it with them since they go out the door naturally wearing their watch (I wear mine 24x7 except for brief charging periods). So in that sense, the Apple Watch is a step above and beyond any other HA accessory.
Samsung, Google, and everyone else in the Android sphere really need to get their acts together on wearables and on accessibility. You don’t have to worry with Apple, as you do with Android, is my preferred phone OEM implementing ASHA?, BT LE Audio? Well, when?!, and how good it that customized implementation compared to anyone else’s?!
BTW, as an off-topic aside here(more Android vs. iOS), one reason that I particularly love Android on my Galaxy Note 8 is the S-pen, e.g., hover over an Inbox e-mail listing in the Outlook app and read the opening paragraph of each e-mail in turn without having to open any. And I just found out that the script writing in Google’s Gboard keyboard/writing pad is far superior, surprisingly enough, to the built-in Samsung keyboard. So for anyone using a Samsung Note device, I highly recommend trying handwriting with Gboard. Although Apple was smart enough to go against Jobs’ advice on pens and introduce the Apple Pencil for iPads, I doubt that sort of writing/drawing implement is going to come to the iPhone soon although one could put a pen to good use with an iPhone Pro Max, given its large phablet screen size.
Jim the Apple Watch doesn’t work with hearing aids. I have all 3 of the items and I was hoping that it would all work together as you are suggesting. I have the Iphone 7, Resound One 9, i watch.
The Resound Ones work well with the ipone 7.
The i watch works well with the iphone 7.
The i watch works through the iphone 7 to control the Resound ones.
The i watch doesn’t work direct to the resound ones so the mic in the i watch will only work back to the iphone but not to the hearing aids.
If you answer the iphone from the watch it works only between the watch and the iphone, not connection at all to the hearing aids at all, not even the sound to the hearing aid.
If you answer the ipone the sound comes through to the hearing aids and work very well but you need to speak into the iphone.
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Hi, Kevin
You answered most of my questions about how the Apple Watch works with MFi HA’s and the iPhone. One thing I’d still like to know: when you’re using the watch linked to your phone, does the caller’s voice come out of the iPhone speaker or the watch speaker? And what do think of the caller’s audio quality and, in turn, what do they say about your own voice quality through the watch microphone? I imagine if you hold the hand wearing the watch up in half a fist salute with the watch about neck high and the fist almost in front of your mouth, the watch mic will be close to your mouth and the watch speakers, although they’ll be facing away from you, pointing towards the floor, will also be closer to your ears and perhaps easier to hear. Or is there a better way to employ the watch as a “handsfree” calling device - can you keep doing whatever with the arm that has the watch and still hear and be heard OK? Your analysis has motivated me to swap the sim card into my iPhone and give it a try myself! Thanks!
Edit_Update: One further suggestion. On the iPhone, in Settings, Accessibility, Hearing Devices, Audio Routing, have you tried changing the call audio to Always Hearing Devices while leaving the Microphone on on the watch? I’m wondering if there is a difference in the choice of the audio routing for Hearing Devices between “Automatic” and “Always Hearing Devices” with the “Automatic” allowing the caller’s incoming audio to go to the watch and perhaps the “Always Hearing Devices” choice forcing the incoming audio to go to the HA’s? (probably not, but wouldn’t hurt to try and I will give it a shot myself).
The voice all comes out of the watch and nothing from the iphone when you answer the call from the watch.
I naturally just have my arm bent at 90deg out in front or across the body and it works well enough. I do lift my hand up to chest height if there is a hearing problem.
The sound quality from the watch is good but obviously from a very small speaker so lakes depth of sound.
No complaints from the person on the other end of the call.
I have just tried setting the audio routing to allways to hearing devices instead of automatic but it makes no difference at all. Fail.
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Thanks for the update, Kevin. Thanks to your previous post, I switched my sim card to the iPhone and I really like the Apple Watch as a device to answer phone calls. The best part is the calling number is displayed on the watch screen and the identity of the caller (at least if that person is in your contacts, haven’t checked about Caller ID yet). The other neat thing is with the watch and the iPhone you have a number of options to deal with the call. You can answer it on your watch or from the watch you can switch it to your iPhone and your HA’s as receivers (or vice versa - from iPhone to watch). And with a tap, you can handle the call with a number of options including sending a prepared canned text message reply like “Call you back in a few minutes.” or reply with a new text from your watch. Too bad one can’t use the watch microphone to speak and one’s HA’s to listen. Maybe someday! Thanks for checking!
It’s been a huge let-down, Bluetooth doesn’t always stay connected and even when it does voices are frequently unclear. The Phonak program doesn’t work on my phone which is disappointing because it should based on the software and technology requirements it should work. My audiologist disappeared with Covid and now I’ve moved and I’m basically stumbling around on my own trying to find support.
When using the “Maps” complication on the watch for GPS driving directions, the audio is routed via the iphone to the hearing aids. I’m at a loss to understand why the audio from incoming calls answered on the watch (non cellular) can’t be routed to the hearing aids and the watch microphone be used in place the iphone microphone.
I have the iphone SE, Apple watch SE 2020 and Resound Preza aids.
I think the issue is that the watch has no way of directly connecting to the hearing aids. Only the iPhone can connect to the hearing aids. When you answer a call on the watch, you are then stuck with the functionality of the watch. I think answering calls on the watch was just supposed to be an occasional/convenience thing.
JordanK, Thank you for the quick response.
I may not have expressed my question very well. As I understand it, the “Maps” app on the watch turns on the corresponding app on the iphone which sends the gps directions audio to the hearing aids. It would be great if the audio from a phone call answered on the non cellular watch would also be routed to the hearing aids the same way. But I realize this is wishful thinking.
I think another ~related problem that I was just reading about is that the Apple Watch is not MFi-capable. So if splitting were possible, you’d have the “schizophrenic” tech situation that the incoming call audio to your ears was handled by MFi whereas your outgoing voice in the call would be handled by the watch by classic(?) Bluetooth. I wonder if to coordinate two different broadcast channels using different protocols would be a big unmanageable can of worms? And when and why not will Apple bring MFi to the watch? (intentionally mangling English, rather than accidentally as usual!).
Response to Daryln. This is a very well constructed response and exactly what I do. I have the connect clip paired with my work laptop and my opn1 connected to my iPhone and the connect clip. This works beautifully with the connect clip automatically connecting to my computer and my HAs when I switch it on. There is one very annoying situation that occurs regularly. If I am working away on my computer and the phone rings, I can hear the phone call from the iPhone directly into my HAs. However during the call from time to time an email may come into my laptop and play the new email sound. This switches my HAs back to the computer and cuts off the incoming call. It does come back but it takes a few seconds. When this occurs I switch my iPhone to speaker to continue the call. The only way I have been able to stop this is to prevent the new email sound occurring.
But you can…while walking the dog this morning I answered the phone on my apple watch. Used the apple watch to speak and my HA to listen.
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Interesting to hear. I’d love to know what settings of yours enable this to give it a try. TIA!
Maybe just for a point of comparison for anyone else who wants to try this (including me), would be good to mention Apple Watch and WatchOS versions, same for iPhone and iOS, too.