I have had The KS9/Phonak ($1,500 per pair) hearing aids since December 26, 2019. I am generally satisfied with them when used just as a hearing aid, but I have a few peripheral issues. One relates to Bluetooth use.
I use BT both for telephone and listening to books (iPhone 11 Pro) Telephone connectivity is inconsistent and unreliable. I can initiate or pick up a call via Bluetooth, but the BT connection will generally fail after a few minutes I have to put the phone to my ear (which works just fine). I thought perhaps it had something to do with interference from other devices in my residence, but I have tried it in several places in my house and the issue is about the same all over.
I use BT for other purposes (for example, connect my phone to my Apple Watch 5, connect to my car, a Subaru Forester, connect to headphones) so I pretty sure it is not the phone, but rather the hearing aides.
Any ideas about fixing this issue? Hands free connectivity is very important to me, as I need to have my hands available to type while conversing. Thanks.
Welcome to the forum.
How many devices do you have paired to the aids?
I have found that only having the Bluetooth turned on one device at a time fixes a bunch of drop outs and issues. If two devices Bluetooth are turned on the aids fight over the connection and have issues.
I use Bluetooth on multiple devices to connect to multiple other devices. I never turn Bluetooth off. What you must do however is DISCONNECT your hearing aids from the BT on one device to properly connect them to BT on a different device if you are having interference problems. You can use the Phonak app on multiple devices without interference but must have BT on on all devices.
Just got KS9. Works great with my Chromebook and phone. Canāt get it to work with my desktop. Desktop works great with my bluetooth speaker. I can make the bluetooth connection to the R hearing aid but I donāt get any sound. My only thought is that the computer is on BT 4.0. Think thatās it, or am I just doing something stupid. Have unpaired hearing aids from other devices. Made sure I did have audio on. one thing I noticed is that after I pair the R hearing aid with computerās bluetooth is that it ends up in the category of āother bluetooth deviceā instead of audio. This is definitely not critical, but curious if anybody has any thoughts.
I had a similar experience with completely different equipment (hearing aids and computers).
I have Oticon OPN S 1 with a work MacBook Pro and a home iMac Pro. I have to use an Oticon intermediary device (ConnectClip) with the computers but not with an iPhone as the aids are MFi. The ConnectClip just worked with the MacBook Pro and failed miserably with the iMac Pro (both have Bluetooth 5.0 according to Apple). Oticon had sent a Sennheiser BTD 800 USB bluetooth dongle with my ConnectClip - Oticon Tech support told me to use that with the desktop. Works with that - I do have to make sure the BTD 800 is selected as the audio output device. They told my provider and I that many desktop Bluetooth implementations were either buggy or incomplete and the Sennheiser was the fix. Sennheiser provides firmware updates (has to be done in Windows) for the device and, for me, it ājust worksā unlike the built-in Bluetooth in the iMac Pro. According to Sennheiser, the dongle supports audio only and it implements the various Bluetooth profiles that would be useful for streaming audio and operating as a headset. They provide it with their higher end headsets for use with PCs in teleconferencing and call centers, etc.
Good luck - Bluetooth can be a mixed bag and frustrating at times
Thanks. Pretty sure #3 is the issue, but I donāt see any way to change things. Connects to Bluetooth fine, but doesnāt recognize hearing aids as audio device. Iām guessing because of this, theyāre not an option to choose from in the audio devices setting. I looked for the Sennheiser dongle and it seems like itās no longer available. Can anybody recommend an alternative? Almost seems like this is more of a Windows issue rather than hardware. If it recognized hearing aids as an audio device, Iām guessing it would work.
The only option is something like āRealtek Speakers/headphonesā (I think Realtek is the āsoundcardā chip. My wireless bluettooth speaker shows up twice, both as a speaker and a headphone! I sent a message to Phonak. Have no idea if Iāll get a response
There is a TaoTronics $15 dongle that works great but you really shouldnāt need it. I would just keep playing around until it works. Disconnect the BT speakers. Turn everything on/off a few times. Sometimes this stuff is just quirky.
I think Iāve done all of that (except playing until it works!) I think itās a Windows issue. Since the hearing aids show up as an āother device,ā they donāt show up as an option in the sound settings. I canāt find anyway to change the classification to an āaudio device.ā
A company called Provantage seems to have a number (66) in stock. We have used that vendor at work for various things like high quality UPS for servers - their service has been good.
Not inexpensive but sometimes paying a bit more reduces irritating issues, especially with computer stuff.
Good luck in finding a solution. Bluetooth can be āfunā - Iāve had nothing but frustration trying to use the standard Bluetooth interface in an expensive portable spectrometer ($75K). Bluetooth was a disaster - wired ethernet worked perfectly after we got that option. Sometimes the vendors (including big names) actually deliver buggy software/drivers and those devices can be hard to deal with.
Thanks. I agree fully about wired connections. I have everything hard wired that I can. I think by nature wireless (Bluetooth and WiFi) is buggy. Iām guessing this is some sort of drivers issue. Iām curious what Phonak will say. Thanks again for link to Sennheiser dongle.
Heard back from Phonak. Their only suggestion was a Sennheiser dongle, either BTD 500 or 800.
I guess tech support is expensive, but I was hoping for a more thoughtful response. This was a very canned response suggesting that they hadnāt even read my message.
Tried again with new batteries. Same thing. So guess Iāll try a dongle. Looked at drivers and it doesnāt use any. Just uses Microsoft Bluetooth enumerator and is considered a generic bluetooth device.
I bought the KS9 because of its features & cost. I had no problem pairing it to my Samsung Galaxy Note 20 5G. I then used the Bluetooth settings on my phone to disconnect the KS9s. I opened the hearing aid battery compartments on both L & R units. On my Surface Pro 5 running Win10 pro I went to Settings > Devices > Add Bluetooth or other device > Bluetooth then closed both battery doors on the KS9s.
THIS IS THE CRITICAL PART: After closing the battery doors, the computer saw the hearing aids in the āOther devicesā area. I waited and waited. After about a minute, it gave the option of pairing them as āR-KS hearing aidā in the Audio section. Then I clicked on the new R-KS device and hit āConnectā. Next, I went to the Task Bar & left-clicked on the speaker symbol and the ^ symbol to open up audio device options. The hearing aids show up in two different options: āStereoā or āHands-Free AG Audioā. I selected the Stereo option and was immediately disappointed. The audio would play for 1 second then go silent for 1 second then playā¦ I deselected the Stereo option and selected the AG option. VoilĆ ! Clear streaming audio in both ears.
