Hey biggar,
Thanks for your message. Interesting information!
This sounds like good confirmation.
I’ll have to try on my Mac laptop but I have a suspicion that it will work right out of the box. Mac seems to have a more flexible BT integration.
~ Ken
I use a cheap Bluetooth Dongle bought on eBay on my Dell desktop. Every morning when I take my KS10s out of the charger, with the computer turned on previously, they connect automatically.
I have no idea what is in the dongle but this may be a clue:
member6,
Well, that is exactly the behavior I’m looking for as well.
I’m glad to know that. Maybe I received a defective adapter because it just won’t reconnect.
Thanks ~ Ken
BTW, I tried on my MacBook and it is rock solid!
So, this is just Windows 10 issue.
Ken
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There are other stories on the forum of people struglling with MacBook connections.
Maybe useful to know that the KS10 HAs will connect two BT protocols to your phone and pc. The A2PD is a high quality stereo one way connection for listening to music/youtube etc where the mic is not active. The other is HDP [? or something similar] which is a communication connection. This one is a mono 2 way that includes the mic but has much lower sound quality as it covers just voice mainly.
When you connect up to a pc you should see 2 sound options when selecting speakers:
KS10 Audio
KS10 hands free ag audio
or something like that.
You cannot mix the two protocols, so either you just want to listen to music or you want to use the mic in a call and have lower quality music. The change over used to be automatic in Win10 just like on a phone but since the last update in July I have had problems getting the change from audio to communications.
Still looking to fix this and a dongle may help but wanted to get the concept out there as it took quite a bit of research to figure this out…
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This is a very interesting update that would explain so many complaints about Bluetooth streaming with these aids.
Thanks for sharing.
My ks10s connect to old hp laptop + win10 with latest version (NB), with little problem. In my travels to understand BT, I found many perspectives in w10 – Control panel, both sound and hardware, and Sound settings.
My ks10s show as both stereo receivers and as mono 2-way. The link below is comprehensive in looking at another BT problem, which might give you clues for your particular issue.
I am returning to the initial query: will the KS 10 pair to Window 10 as an Audio device?
Advice in the KS 10 portal is specific to Windows 10 mobile not to PC’s or laptops from other manufacturers. Unitron states that on the Windows 10 platform, Bluetooth HA’s “only support(s) phone calls through programs like FaceTime, Skype or WhatsApp. They cannot be used to listen to audio books, music, videos or other streaming multimedia.”
I was therefor pleasantly surprised that Ubuntu 20.04 installed on my dual-boot laptop pairs with the KS 10 as an audio device, allowing audio files and CD’s to stream directly to the HA without use of an intervening audio->BT dongle.
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if someone wants to connect windows PC with hearing aids. Try this, this is a cheaper solution if you don’t want to buy a usb bluetooth dongle which is usually expensive if it has to be compatible or phonak tv connector.
This saved me money. I use my old android smartphone, when I want to connect hearing aids to a pc. i just turn on bluetooth on it and click on that app to connect. It only takes 30 sec. But this is just one-way sound, there is no use of a microphone for skype or anything else.
Regarding the compatibility of windows with hearing aids from the Sonova group (Costco ks9, ks10, Unitron BLU, Phonak Naida paradise, Phonak Audeo paradise, etc.)
i think support can be done if Microsoft were to work on solving the problems because the problems are mostly software and not hardware.
Can we launch a Petition that we would all sign and send to Microsoft to fix this problem? What do you think ?
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I now have a fairly new Dell desktop and no dongle is required for Bluetooth connection to my KS-10 hearing aids:
As a Microsoft systems engineer (and Paradise p90 user) my impression is this is not an MS problem. The individual manufacturers of the various dongles and Bluetooth chipsets are responsible for writing and fixing bugs in their drivers and firmware.
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Encouraged by your example, I deleted the L and R paired HA devices, put my R-aid in pairing mode and this time I achieved the same result as you! I repeated pairing with my L-aid and found, as originally, that it pairs but NOT as an Audio device. That didn’t seem to matter since the R-aid handles audio as stereo!
(I used the same Headphone (not Handset) setting as you have.)
Thankyou.
I am glad it worked.
To be honest, I didn’t choose the settings. That is just the way Windows 10 connected to my KS-10s.
As far as the KS-10 settings, they are what they were when I walked out of COSTCO with the new aids.
My Bluetooth phone setting is also “R-KS hearing aid - Connected for calls and audio”. I did make that setting.
Sir, you, as an experienced person, understand this topic. So I would love to hear your answer. I tried ubuntu linux and it works great there, no problems. But I can’t use ubuntu because I need windows because of applications that are only compatible with Windows.
The question is, is it possible via Virtualbox or Vmware workstation, so I create a virtual machine and install ubuntu. Is it possible to add a usb dongle (bluetooth) to manage it.
So I would set it to start the virtual machine automatically just so I could listen to the sound I run on Windows. I hope you understood what I mean. I’ve tried Virtualbox and Vmware but I don’t know how to add a usb bluetooth dongle to my hardware list so they can manage it.
If you think it’s possible, we can start a separate topic and try to make it possible.
Even if you got the Linux image to connect you would only hear sound generated by the Linux image.
WH
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Re: Use of a USB dongle
I, and I believe others, have (or in my case had) been using a phono-plug to Bluetooth streamer of the sort used for private listening to TV audio.
I connected My k10 to Acer spin with
windows 11 Bluetooth without a problem.