Phonak Infinio sphere - Not really that appealing (after all)

Hearing Aids
42

I’ve been having similar problems with my Spheres. Connection is completely unreliable – a real problem when I want to make or answer a phone call (I’m on iPhone) and discover that there’s no streaming. And that is easily 80% of the time. I can force connect them, only to have it drop an hour later.

I’ve also twice (in a month) had the experience of a dead battery at the end of a work day. The first time, my audi suggested that I might have inadvertently put them into Sphere mode. I suppose that is possible, as I had played with volume more than usual. But there was no warning or alert. The second time, a couple of days ago, is unexplained. I’m losing my trust. I guess I should develop the habit of checking, but I hate having to be so dependent upon a phone app.

43

Usually this is because I have walked away from my phone too far and its dropped the connection and then when I come back to them something else hijacks it like my iPad or my Mac.

Easiest way to reset is to just turn them off and on again and connect in Bluetooth on the phone.

Usually tho mine is rock solid.

Battery sounds weird. I’ve never ever ever had mine go below 30%

44

I do not have problems with the battery, I put them on at 5:30 am and take them off around 10 pm. But I am mostly at home, podcasts, video. I have an air purifier in the room I sit and the program that is marked 'automatic" makes the fan noise go on and off continuously, which is annoying. I manually set it back on a program I created that allows more noise, but every time the Phonak app disconnects, I have to put it back. I am thinking of replacing them with Nexia 9.

45

Happens to me when the phone is sitting on the desk in front of me!

I usually only have to open BT and tell it to connect. But it’s a right royal pain to have to fiddle with them so much.

46

I’ve ordered a pair of Oticon Intents. We’ll see! The Phonaks are on trial for another couple weeks.

47

Sounds like they aren’t right. I’ve had 4 pairs of Phonak aids. Never been like this

1 Like
48

Out of interest when you answer the phone are you sliding to accept or pressing the button or tapping your hearing aids to answer?

If you are sliding then that action is telling the phone to use the phone mic.

When a call comes in you should wait to it rings in your ears and then answer the call on the hearing aids as this tells the phone to route to the hearing aids rather than sliding which means pick up on phone.

Thankfully you can change this default behaviour

  1. Go to Settings > Accessibility > Touch > Call Audio Routing, then choose an audio destination.

Bluetooth Headphones in this case.

This is an IOS17 onwards feature I believe

49

I always answer my iPhone by clicking on the bottom button of either hearing aid. Using this method, the hearing aids always connect and grab the call. If you answer the call from the iPhone, it will route to the iPhone.

Jordan

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50

You can change the slide behaviour, see above but I agree answer using the button and saves even having to get the phone out your pocket :smiley:

51

You know you can have the app never disconnect?

In the App, Devices and Connection Management, toggle stay connected.

Will only disconnect then when you move away too far from Bluetooth Range for the phone but is pretty good at auto reconnecting with BLE

There are three BT connections for your hearing aids (note names are default - You (or your Audi) can change this in Target)

LE_L-Phonak Hearing Aid
LE_R-Phonak Hearing Aid

These are Bluetooth LE connections for the App.

The one that streams sounds is R-Phonak hearing

You need this connected for calls and streaming from an iPhone

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52

Thank you! This had been really bugging me!

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53

Well, mine is toggled to stay connected, but it still disconnects. I carry the iPhone over my head(!) and it still disconnects. Just a matter of time when!

54

This shouldn’t be happening. There is a fault for sure.

55

You mentioned that you use iPhone and iPad with your Infinio Speres.
Do you disable the Bluetooth on the iPad if you are not streaming from iPad?
You should only acivate Bluetooth on the device you want to stream, in general it is your iPhone.
Only activate the Bluetooth on the iPad if you want to stream form them.
So you should always check, if you disabled Bluetooth on every other devices which are not in use.

Antother test you can make:
Could you test the connection with another smartphone ?

2 Likes
56

One of the problems is that audiologists are not trained to be IT experts or musicologists. Reading these threads here, if you are not interested in becoming such an expert yourself, you just pay for inferior usage of a sophisticated product.

57

Yes, I disconnect BT from one or the other. It is not consistent, random problems. For example I had set my iPhone to read me messages from the message app, and it worked with my 2023 Resound Linx. It does not work with the Phonak Infinio Sphere. Or it did once on it own for a couple of hours and then it gave up! I think it may be my apple watch!

58

Getting the iPhone to read messages if you have Phonak Aids, won’t work as it’s a MFi (LE Bluetooth) set up and Phonak don’t use LE Bluetooth.

I couldn’t use the feature with my Phonak Aids but I can with my Oticon Aids.

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59

You can make it work using Siri (and its much better now with Apple AI) but yes the bottom line is Phonak are not MFI and if that is important to you then these are not the aids for you.

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60

Sorry but when someone post’s there twelve year old aids still work perfectly - all “post” credibility is lost. And I’m sure your hearing level hasn’t changed in twelve years (unlikely), so those antique 2012 Phonak aids that no longer can be serviced put Phonak Paradise aids to shame. Yea when pigs fly.

61

@SayAgain3 , there is definitely a possibility that a well-fitted old hearing aid could work better than newer ones…

See my post below:

1 Like