Because Android is only an OS not a whole phone. It is implemented in hundreds of different forms. It is dependent upon all those phone manufacturers and what bits they see as important. Don’t hold your breath waiting for Bluetooth five to be universally adopted and the technology in all those phones to be similar enough for all of them to offer the sort of benefits already available to iPhone users with made for iPhone HAs. Have you actually used them? The find my HA feature alone has the potential to save you from losing your HAs. There are people out there who keep their phones for 6 or more years and they won’t be able to use your idea of an Android system without upgrading their phone. Some HA manufacturers are unwilling to embrace the technology because they believe HA users are not interested in or able to cope with technology and they want a one solution fits all. I think those manufacturers are going to be left behind. The manufacturers who have gone down the made for iPhone route have a base of phone users, to cater for, who all use the same or almost the same OS on every phone with very similar hardware. That is why it works. Anything but a basic connection is going to be very hard for HA manufacturers to work out so it works the same on lots of different phones.
Ok. I’ll buy the model whose manufacturer thinks that hearing aid support is important.
If there’s a standard and they conform to that standard and test against that standard it will work. Bluetooth 5 will be universal because… well, it’s better. The core hearing aid profile code will be supplied by Google. The semiconductor manufacturers who supply bluetooth modules will include supporting code as a matter of course. Why wouldn’t they? I think you’ll find that every phone out there- including Apple- uses Bluetooth hardware from just a few suppliers.
That’s the nature of the market place isn’t it? We all have to buy new hardware to get the latest features. Your Apple phones should continue to support your mfi aids indefinitely. Why would Apple deliberately alienate their customers? I would expect Apple and everyone else to move their cutting edge to the better bandwidth of Bluetooth 5 and a new generation of aids will be designed to take advantage of it.
I have Phonak V90s. That is probably why I find it so frustrating that Phonak chose such a lame solution to their connectivity woes. The Resound Linx aids were uncomfortable in my ears and the LiNX² had microphone noise which drove me crazy. There was no rep to see if anything else could be done when my audiologist had exhausted all her ideas. The Phonak aids work very well as hearing aids but I really miss the made for iPhone advantages. All this insistence on Android solutions just feeds the myth that the HA companies do not need to do made for iPhone versions. Unfortunately my best hearing result was with Phonak and they are hell bent on not bothering to supply the one feature I really want. It will be years before enough phones are Bluetooth 5 and Phonak will still want their aids to be backward compatible so they will probably take even longer to switch. They will then not supply the other features that come with iPhone compatible aids. I hope I do not need new aids for a long time because I am not willing to make such compromises again.
Back in time, I had an IMSAI computer with small floppy disks and upgraded to a Tarbel controller for larger disks. But, it still needed a driver that I then got. I revised it in assembly language and assembled it placing it in the operating system. Not something today’s users want.
Since the IBM PC, standards came about making all this transparent. From that point standards committees came along to maintain the simplicity. The cost is time. The benefit is ease of use.
BT came along in 1994 without standards. Erickson introduced it as a wireless alternative to RS-232. It became popular and the industry went to a standard. A lot of products evolved in such a manner. In the Erickson era, what worked with what was iffy. Today features are evaluated. HA are coming late to the party. It is a minority feature that wasn’t promoted until Apple made it happen. Like Erickson, they saw a niche they could market too. Now, it is being integrated into the standard.
You can complain about how it is taking too long rather than being appreciative that it will soon arrive with a standard. Invariably some of the hardware won’t work as well as it should but that will improve.
The anger about something taking too long or not working to its potential quickly enough isn’t just with aids. It is everywhere but doing it a different way brings more chaos than success.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light sounds.
Well, yeah. I’m complaining. I’ve got aids that are well past their use-by date. I should be trialing the OPN1 or whatever right now. But here’s the problem. I just know in my waters that the day after my evaluation period runs out that the shiny BT5-based aids that I really want will be released and I won’t be able to get them. Or the other possibility is that I’ll still be using my crappy old-tech aids this time next year (if they don’t break down first) with another year of sub-optimal hearing under my belt.
Don’t know where you’re from, but if you have a US Costco available to you, you could do a 6 month trial and see where things stand then. (I would think Resound Forte or Bernafon Zerena would be most tempting) BT5 HA could come out within 6 months, but my suspicion is that we’re talking another 18 months to 2 years. Heck, it took Oticon what, 18 months to come out with their Connect Clip? (I think it’s now available, but haven’t really heard anything definitive.
I agree. That would be the perfect solution… if we had a Costco. I live in pretty much the only place in Australia without one. Yet another thing to whine about. Re timing: Who knows? The Bluetooth Hearing Aid Profile was supposed to be ready by the end of this year. I found the email address of the Chair of the Bluetooth SIG Hearing Aid Working Group somewhere. I’m sure he would tell me to bugger off if I asked him for an eta.
I would think there’s a good chance you’d get a useful reply if you wrote a polite email. Worst case is that you don’t and you’re no worse off than you are now.
I asked my question in the comments section of one of his blog posts. We’ll see.
Got this email from two-pi.com:
The Bluetooth profile for hearing aids is still not adopted by Bluetooth consortium. The schedule is not announced to public, but in case it will be adopted in 2018, then the first products using the profile might be available in 2019.
Regards,
Tarik zukic
Not want people wanted to hear, but seems plausible to me.
Well done. I think they’re probably a very good source. Unless my guy responds and says something different, I’ll source some aids by the end of the year. Streaming Bluetooth is one thing. Communicating with my children is another.
When the finalization approaches, many chips are already ready. I guess you could call 4+ or 5-. Some of those chips may miss slightly while others meet the full spec. We saw it with routers when WiFi got a new standard.
The previous months, the iPhone X went public,i get a method to transfer Android phone to iPhone X ,A few days ago, I was still not used to the touch of the iPhone, because there were no buttons ,
Apple owns the patent for low energy bluetooth, and they are not fond of other people infringing on their rights. So until android can either work out something with Apple or design their own version of BLE you probably won’t see ha’s that connect without using intermediary device.
I’ve got a Starkey remote to use with my ha’s and it works pretty good. I can stream music, use for phone calls, and also set it down for extra microphone. I don’t use these features a whole lot but they are nice when you want it.
What about the other 1000 or so BLE patents?
You are right.
What I initially read was wrong, however, apple is still the company that has put BLE to use and android is lagging in that department.
Yes, A-click, A-click, AP-click, APP-click, APPLE did get MFI to work first, click.