GN Resound Omnia Bluetooth issues

Hearing Aids
#19

You are indeed a man after my own heart Jim. I will await your further results with interest.:+1::disguised_face::thinking:.

In case anyone reading this wonders about the microwave oven that Jim mentions, the reason it works is that although Bluetooth and microwave ovens use different frequencies, they are not that different. A microwave oven is designed to not let microwave radiation out of the oven for safety reasons and that’s why it works highly effectively to stop your phone talking to your hearing aids using Bluetooth. So ideal for the test Jim describes.

#20

consumer ovens work around a nominal 2.45 gigahertz (Wikipedia), i.e., ~the same frequency range as BT and Wi-Fi.

1 Like
#21

Exactly. There is a world of meaning in that word “nominal” and that other word “range”. But they are close.

#22

I also tried “iPhone separation tests” of 10- and 30-min duration with my iPhone shut up in either a microwave or a HON steel filing cabinet. Three trials at each time duration.

In one out of three trials at each duration, an HA failed to reconnect. The results were similar to the 5-min isolation test results I described in a previous post above. Waiting one minute, shutting off BT for a minute, or rebooting the phone failed to make the HA reconnect, but rebooting the HA did.

I found an Apple Watch could be used to test the “goodness” of a Faraday cage. When my Apple Watch is set to communicate with my iPhone via BT only, I can’t ping the iPhone via the Watch Find My iPhone button in the watch Control Center (swipe up from the bottom of the watch face in WatchOS 9.x). However, strangely enough, if I switch to communicating with the iPhone via Watch Wi-Fi and cellular, I can ping the iPhone shut up in the microwave. Not sure what’s going on here, especially as the iPhone is in Airplane Mode, operating on Wi-Fi and BT frequencies only. I also found my HON steel filing cabinet does not make a very good Faraday cage by the BT-only or the Wi-Fi/cellular pinging tests if I’m in the same room with the filing cabin. It seems to be a leaky Faraday cage.

Maybe both HA’s reconnecting fully in two out of three separations sounds like an improvement, but I don’t think anyone in the past did statistics on disconnection/reconnection. It could be with iOS versions prior to v16.6, the same relative rate of reconnection held, and we only noticed the reconnect failures. The only real improvement, IMHO, would be when reconnection is always 100% and fully automatic with no special user effort required.

#23

This morning neither hearing aid reconnected after I left my phone downstairs for half an hour and I had to reboot the hearing aids, so it doesn’t seem to be better here either.

I’m planning to get an iPhone 15 Pro when they are released late autumn and of course we will have IOS 17 then too. But I suspect this is a hardware issue in the Omnia and probably not one that can be fixed with firmware, or Resound would have done that already. We may have to wait for the Omnia replacement, which I guess will be summer 2024 (as they seem to be on a 2 year cycle these days).

#24

I don’t have a lot of statistics yet but in 3 or 4 tries, turning off Bluetooth via the Control Center for TWO MINUTES OR MORE seems to work 100% to restore connectivity. Give it a try the next time you lose connectivity between your iPhone and your HA’s. Earlier I was only waiting ONE MINUTE before turning Bluetooth on again, and that doesn’t work very well. TWO MINUTES OR MORE seems to be the charm.

My Costco experience with the Jabra Enhance Pro
App to reboot hearing aids?
#25

Well I tried that @jim_lewis but it didn’t work. Both aids were disconnected to the iPhone (not just the app) and I turned off Bluetooth on the phone for 2 mins, but they didn’t reconnect. I had to restart both aids and they reconnected normally then, including to the app.

#26

Perhaps when it worked for me, I was only away from my iPhone for a short time. On trial #5, two minutes didn’t work for me, either, and I had to reboot the disconnected HA. I will just keep accumulating numbers and see how well it works on average. When I intentionally disconnected my HA’s by putting my iPhone in a microwave “Faraday cage,” the disconnected HA’s would reconnect ~two-thirds of the time without a reboot. If that sort of probability obtains on average the chance that I could reconnect without rebooting 4x in a row as I reported is ~(2/3)^4 or 16/81 or ~1 chance in 5! I should have thought of that before I enthusiastically posted my “solution!”

2 Likes
#27

I believe there is no chance to solve the problem with omnias HA, Resound had chosen the cheap or smaller bluetooth antenna which have a very small range for this model. On the other hand, mobil phones producer apple chose now smaller antenna for bluetooth, too. You will be not able to increase the range of bluetooth if you have class 3 antenna.
Maybe the only chance is to wear mobile phone always on your body, for example in a bag on your belt?

#28

There is a new firmware that came from microphone repair recently.
the version is 7.39.2.1 Which is a lot newer than a year ago with launch firmware. What phone do you guys have? It makes a different if you are running an android or iphone.

#29

Yes that’s the firmware I have. I’m using an iPhone 12 Pro on the current version of IOS (16.6) but @jim_lewis who is also looking into this is using an iPhone 14Pro I believe.

#30

It seem like all the problem are from iPhone users and I have no problem with my Android phone…

#31

Yes I think it’s incompatibility between Resound’s and Apple’s Bluetooth implementation.

But it was fine with the iPhone and the Resound One. It’s just the Omnia that is the issue. I suspect it’s a hardware problem that Resound can’t easily fix and can’t correct with firmware.

#32

No, actually the omnia and one have the same radio hardware. II think it is apple… there seem to be a perception that Apple is perfect…

#33

They use nRF52840

#34

Yes but what I am saying is that the Resound One doesn’t have this problem whereas the Resound Omnia does. Same iPhone in both cases.

#35

@david.hendon. I’m only on 7.29.2.0, according to the Smart 3D app. I checked both via the app and Smart Fit within the past couple of weeks. I’ll check again with Smart Fit as in the past I’ve gotten a firmware update or two that way as opposed to the smartphone app.

Edit_Update: No Omnia firmware update for me is available through Smart Fit as of today. Smart Fit also says my firmware for the Omnia 962s is 7.29.2.0 (sorry for the typo previously in 1st para of this post). The Smart Fit version is 1.16.291.0 and said to be the latest. Perhaps the difference between 7.29.2.0 and 7.29.2.1 is a firmware update issued only for a specific model Omnia and my 962s are not eligible for some reason?

#36

Yeah, i think they are revision specific update or just minor bug fixes…

#37

it could be differences in firmware revision to support bluetooth 5.2 in one vs 5,3 in omnia. Anyways blame resound for breaking MFI in omnia HA.

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#38

Not seeing issue with iPhone SE 3rd gen ( based on iPhone 13 ) running developer beta of iOS 17. My configuration is a bimodal and it changes how the hearing aid operate because it is tied to the Nucleus 8 sound processor.