Costco Signature 9 wacky iPhone connection

Hearing Aids
1

I’m writing for my mom. My own hearing aid situation is fine. I am somewhat HA savvy, but my hearing and Oticons are a different realm. I haven’t seen her since before the pandemic so I haven’t been able to help her in person.

Her hearing loss is quite severe. Just before the pandemic we managed to encourage her to upgrade her ancient HAs. She went to Costco and got Kirkland Signature 9.0, and then the pandemic came down hard. She never went back for a follow up, and she doesn’t want to go into a costco now, due to health vulnerabilities.

So the problem is that it seems the Easy Line Remote app that Costco set up on her phone has a mind of its own. It will randomly turn the HAs up and down, maybe changing the settings. This seems too weird to be true, but it seems to be what she is experiencing. It also gets disrupted when anything happens on her phone. She seems to say that she needs to have the phone nearby or the HAs won’t work, but then she also has said that they will work fine until she goes near the phone. It seems to be a very bad and complex relationship with the phone!

I walked through the iPhone with her a little bit. It seems that the Signature 9 is not a MFi device. It seems to be connecting with regular Bluetooth. Her left HA she said wasn’t working at all, and indeed we found that Bluetooth was not connecting with that one at all. She of course has tried changing the battery. So that HA would be a Costco return issue I guess. She tried calling the audiologist there and didn’t get through. I think that given the state of her hearing it’s hard to even communicate with an audiologist. Given that the pandemic is raging out of control in her area, the ideal solution would be to return that HA by mail.

But the “working” HA — I wonder if the Kirkland Sig. 9 would work with the apparently newer MyPhonak app? She seems to believe that Costco did some setup of her HAs in the Easy Line App that is essential. I told her that seems unlikely, but things are obviously different. With my Oticon OPN the programming is in the HA. The iPhone app is completely optional, which seems to be the only way this should work.

I guess she has to negotiate the possibility of dealing with a replacement or repair of the one HA that is not working on her own, but I think it might be unlikely that she will gain a clear understanding of what’s going on with the iphone and her HA by her attempting to talk to Costco.

Can anyone shed any light on the relationship of the Signature 9 to the iPhone?

Thank you!

2

KS9 does work with new MyPhonak app.
Try turning notifications off on the phone. That should help connectivity issues.
The phone only streams to the right hearing aid and then wireless communication gets sound to the left ear so showing BT connection only on the right is as it should be.
Let us know how it goes.

1 Like
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To add to MDB’s fine post, make sure there is only one Bluetooth device connected to her KS9 aids. More than one with created conflicts for Bluetooth connection.

4

Thank you for the replies. I called her and suggested she try the newer app and delete the old one. She is convinced that there is programming in the app, and I hope I got her to believe that the app is just to control volume and settings and won’t change whatever programming the Audi did. I also suggested she make sure only one device is turned on while testing — but I didn’t consider the possibility that a computer might be connecting as well. A computer will not connect to my MFi Oticons — I wonder if she has computers connecting to her KS9s, or if that’s possible.

5

Yes ks9 can connect to computer. Be sure she turns off notifications

6

Turn off all Bluetooth connections except the one she wants to use.
The KS9 aids only connect to one Bluetooth device at once.

1 Like
7

I will tell you what I have experienced with KS9, yes the programs do change sometimes often and it sucks, sometimes it’s only a few times a day sometimes I notice the change way ore often depending on the setting surround me. I have experienced different issues some related to the Bluetooth which in my opinion is un fking stable, sometimes with programs too, just happened today, the person I spoke to occasionally could not hear me. The MyPhonak APP sucks, it doesn’t seem to stay connected and just doesn’t work right. Otherwise, yeah KS9 are ok.