Philips 9040 streaming from Apple-silicon-Mac a bust

Hearing Aids
#1

I’m an experienced HA wearer – 8 years – and I like these 9040s after my first ever REM five hours ago. I recently upgraded my Mac to one with an M2 chip, so it has the feature of direct streaming to MFi aids. I was looking forward to streaming youtube audio from my Mac without a TV Adapter.

But while the 9040s can pair with two devices, they can be connected to only one at a time. I use my aids with my iPhone for podcasts and phone calls. So if I’m listening to a youtube on the Mac and I get a phone call… --Not to mention the inconvenience of having to turn off Bluetooth on the phone in order to listen to the Mac…

And even with Bluetooth off on the phone, the MFi connection on the Mac is intermittent. They pop in and out of the “Sound” tab in the Mac’s System Settings.

I guess I could get a TV Adapter, $2xx. That’s what I was using with my previous aids.

#2

Yes it is a drawback, but I still find it much better compared to previous bluetooth to bluetooth LE dongles (Oticon Connect Clip in my case).
Just in case you are not aware you can toggle Bluetooth on your phone with top right diagonal swipe (To open control panel) and select Bluetooth on/off. This helps me, and I find swapping between Mac and phone not difficult (When I select BT on phone, it will auto re-connect with phone and drop Mac.

I have not seen the intermittent MFi connection on my Mac. Well not since the very beginning when I didn’t realize you could not pair both at same time - with BT off on my phone the Mac MFI connection is sound for me.

It is a drawback though, will BT LE audio change this (Not been able to find an answer to that.)

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#3

My fix was to increase the price of the 9040s from $1500 to $1740 + tax to include the TV adapter.

#4

I have – not on my Mac, as I’m now using the TV adapter there, but on my iPhone. Especially with the left aid. Don’t know why. Just a minute ago, after toggling BT on the phone didn’t work, restarting the aid worked.

#5

I think Apple may have made changes to handoff of BT MFi between iPhone and MacOS in the latest 14.2 release. I now do not need to turn BT off on my phone, I just need to select the hearing aid as sound source on the Mac and it takes over, when I close the laptop the pairing with the iPhone is resumed.
I still don’t think it can pair to both at the same time, but this is moot for me now, as any phone calls are automatically directed to the Mac if I am using it anyway (I think this is default setting in iPhone/Mac as I don’t recall changing this).

#6

Terminology note: “pair” in the context of Bluetooth means something like “register”, usually done only once. For HAs they must be in “pairing mode,” which they are for a little while after being turned on. The word “connect”, or its -ed or -ing variants, means to have an active communication channel between the devices.

The 9040s can pair with two devices but connect to only one at a time.

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