iPhone XR, bluetooth 5.0 and Phonak Audeo Marvel

Hearing Aids
1

I was told by a techie friend I should look at upgrading to a newer iPhone with bluetooth 5.3. Are my Phonak Marvel buds so old they won’t pick up any benefit? Maybe? My phone works great, Marvels work great, but heck if I might be able to pick up some kind of performance I don’t mind upgrading my phone. Thanks from a barely capable tech dummy.

2

I can’t see what improvement you’d get. Did your techie friend explain what it would do for you over and above what you already have?

Remember, the older Phonaks use Bluetooth standard.

1 Like
3

He didn’t say what I’d gain other than i should look into it since newer iPhones have a newer bluetooth version. I did not know my buds had older tech. No matter I’m happy as can be with them. Thanks for explaining.

4

There has been discussion here about the confusion around the various Bluetooth standards. Apple state that their latest iPhone has Bluetooth 5.3 but they have not implemented LE Audio which is the full feature set. Because it is confusing I asked Claude (the Anthropic AI) to explain. Here is his answer:

Bluetooth 5.3 is the core specification that includes both traditional Bluetooth Classic and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) capabilities. Think of it as the foundation or complete package.

Bluetooth LE Audio is specifically a feature set built on top of BLE (Low Energy) that focuses on audio transmission. It was actually introduced with Bluetooth 5.2, but most implementations came with 5.3. The key features of LE Audio include:

1. LC3 codec - A more efficient codec that provides better audio quality at lower bit rates compared to the classic SBC codec
2. Multi-stream audio - Ability to send independent audio streams to multiple devices simultaneously
3. Broadcast Audio - Allows one device to broadcast to multiple receivers (like sharing audio with multiple listeners)
4. Lower power consumption for audio transmission

So while Bluetooth 5.3 is the complete specification including all features (both Classic and LE), LE Audio is a specific audio-focused feature set utilizing the Low Energy part of the protocol.