A very important observation: the microphone on our hearing aids performs significantly worse when handling phone calls compared to even the cheapest built-in microphone on a mobile phone. Both in noise reduction and clarity, it falls short.
Phonak hearing aids have consistently used classic Bluetooth to connect to mobile phones, which does have a big marketing advantage by attracting users who want to connect to any Bluetooth-enabled device, such as phones, computers, and transmitters. However, this setup has limitations. With both Android and Apple devices, when using classic Bluetooth for calls, the system does not allow hearing aids to use the phone’s built-in microphone during a call. (Using MFI or ASHA protocols would allow using the phone’s built-in microphone, but currently, all Phonak products only support classic Bluetooth.)
Because Phonak only supports classic Bluetooth, phone calls use the hearing aids’ speakers for listening and their microphone for speaking. While using the hearing aid speakers is the best solution for users with hearing loss, the microphone quality is so poor (a limitation of hearing aids in general, regardless of brand) that it can often cause the person on the other end to struggle to understand. This can be very frustrating, especially when the other party may not realize they’re speaking with a hearing aid user. If you’re someone who relies on stable phone call quality, what seems like a convenient hands-free feature can actually become a big headache. From a user’s perspective, though it may seem less convenient, using the phone’s microphone actually offers the most stable call quality.
Since the release of the Marvel hearing aids, Phonak has not provided a solution that uses the phone’s built-in microphone. You can refer to the following article: Phonak Marvel: Nobody can hear me on the phone
While Phonak has made some improvements in call audio quality in the Paradise and Lumity models, it’s still not up to standard for stable use. It doesn’t compare to a phone’s built-in microphone or even a cheap wired earphone microphone. I’ve also suggested to Phonak’s audiologists that they consider a software setting to allow the use of the phone’s microphone or even provide an accessory for stable audio capture (such as Jabra’s phone clip accessory, for example): Phone Clip+ - Jabra Enhance
After five years, it seems Phonak hasn’t made much progress on this issue. Perhaps this flaw is not a priority for most Phonak users, and Phonak has instead focused its R&D efforts elsewhere.
Currently, the only potential solution may be if the new Sphere model supports LE audio, which might allow the phone’s built-in microphone to be used for calls.
Phonak’s products are excellent, but because of this flaw, I’m considering hearing aids from other major brands.
How does everyone else feel about Phonak’s performance on calls? Could it be that we overlook this flaw since we’re not on the other end of the call?