Phonak Marvel Bluetooth connection issues

Hi, I am trialling Phanak Marvel 70 (non rechargeable batteries) and have found that after I changed the battery the hearing aids no longer connect with my iphone 6 plus. It was ok for about 3 days and once I changed the battery it would not connect. I have tried the various things recommended such as removing the device, reinstalling the phonak remote app, opening and closing the battery door but nothing works. In my settings it connects for about 5 seconds and then the connection drops out. Any ideas? Many thanks

I am not sure the Marvel HA’s are MFi or Made for iPhone? If they are what I would do first is go to the iPhone Settings, General, Accessibility, and MFi Hearing Devices. Make sure they are paired in the Device option, or unpair them and pair them again.

I use the KS8 (Signia 7Nx) HA’s and having the pairing lost to the Smart Direct App is fairly common. The easiest way to re-pair that is to just close the app and open it again. Occassionally you have to re-pair them within the app. I have almost never had to do the re-pair in the MFi app built into iPhone.

Changing the battery should have no effect. Is it possible it paired with a different device? Maybe an iPad or something? If so temporarily disable Bluetooth on that device and try the iPhone again.
Remove connected HA from the iPhone first. No need to remove the app, or the Bluetooth connections to the app. You do however, have to identify the 2 connected to the app (learning process from experience) in order to only remove the hearing aid connection.

After having these aids for at least 6 months, a new problem surfaced relating to bluetooth connectivity on Phonak Marvel using #13 batteries. Connectivity to bluetooth drops, get a connected then not connected status from the iphone 8 after repairing… I followed Phonak troubleshooting instructions of "delete remote app, reinstall app, pair aids, aids connect visible from both the remote app and iphone settings/ bluetooth. After about 15 seconds both aids revert back to not connected from connected. Hearing aid batteries were changed out, executed repair process again, issue did not change, still reverts to “not connected” from connected. Got a call into the audiologist to see if anyone has reported this issue.

Phonak Marvels are not on Apple’s MFi HA list (see link below). In fact, no Phonak models are on that list. AFAIK, Marvels support only Classic Bluetooth A2DP and HFP only for phone connection. (They have other wireless protocols for other wireless accessory devices.)

I haven’t had any problems keeping my Marvel M70-R’s (rechargeable) connected to my Android Galaxy Note 9, even when the rechargeable batteries have completely run down to the point where the HA’s are dead.

My Marvel M90R aids have never had a connectivity problem. My bluetooth streaming for phone call and listening to music has been outstanding since last December. With the new 2.0 MyPhonak app they connect much faster and stay connected. My bluetooth range on phone calls and with the TV Connector is about 25-30 feet from the iPhone 7Plus. Have had a few people comment on my voice on the phone when I’m in a windy situation outside but they can still understand me just fine.

1 Like

Jnance49,

Marvels are not MFi AFAIK so my guess is that you should have three Bluetooth pairings (if your BT connection configuration is anything like Android, which I have).

Do you have 3 BT pairings, probably 2 for the R and one for the L?

Also, in your sequence of events to fix it, I didn’t see “delete BT pairings”. After deleting the app, you should make sure the pairings are deleted in the wireless/BT settings.

The non-connection of two of them is not surprising. Only one of the R pairings should be connected (for phone call and audio streaming). When you open the Phonak Remote App, then and only then will it connect to the other two R and L pairings (which are BLE control pairings). Normally these two R and L pairings will show not connected.

Restart your phone.
If this does how resolve it jump into your Bluetooth menu you might have to repair your hearing aids.
Are you just streaming audio? Or are you also using the Remote or MyPhonak app?

Did the iphone restart, deleted Phonak Remote app, reinstalled, went through steps to pair aids on app, app saw and paired aids. Did a test phone call, aids did not sense the incoming phone call. I gotta a feeling that the IOS 12.4 update did something. I just got the update notification of 12.4.1, installed that prior to trouble shooting this issue. No change. Also I saw that Phonak Remote updated their software about a week ago. Gotta a feeling there is a bug in that update.

Other people correct me if I’m wrong, but do you even need the Phonak app to get BT call streaming to work?

I would do the following.

  1. Remove the HAs from the Phonak App.
  2. Uninstall the Phonak app.
  3. Check your BT settings on the PHONE and make sure the HAs are unpaired.
  4. Restart the phone.
  5. Turn your HAs off and on.
  6. Go into BT settings on the phone and pair the R HA only.

Don’t mess with the app. Don’t install any other BT devices.

Let me know if the pairing of the R HA works. Then let me know if BT connects to the R HA (do you know the difference between “pairing” and “connecting”?). And then let me know if you can hear in a call.

2 Likes

Yes, of course it should work that way. The Phonak app has never been required in order to stream calls (or music, for that matter).

1 Like

ISSUE FIXED:
Contacted the audiologist, said new app called MyPhonak to replace Phonak Remote. Met with audiologist to complete the install. Bluetooth issue resolved.

The MyPhonak app has more control features, but requires the assistance of audiologist to install.

Thanks to all that contributed.

1 Like

Sorry, but no. The myPhonak app does NOT require the assistance of an audiologist to install. Please stop spreading misinformation!

1 Like

He may have had to get the firmware update from the audiologist in order to make the app fully function

1 Like

I’m not making that up. Go read the MyPhonak user manual from Phonak.

Nope. Unless you’re referring to the NEW version of the app, which requires a firmware update from an audiologist; still, the app itself can be installed by anyone at any time.

Yes the app can be installed but if you haven’t got the update it’s severely limited.

1 Like

I followed the above steps as listed 1-3

  1. installed new firmware
  2. downloaded myPhonak
  3. paired via the application (as the phonak instructions say)
  4. check, everything working (2 new pairings with iPhone LE-L and LE-R)
  5. no streaming.
  6. restart phone, no streaming.
  7. Come here and find Haggis’ instructions and start at #5 (this was the process before the update)
  1. streaming! yay! Why wouldn’t phonak just place that in the instructions with the new app or did the app’s version of pairing not complete something on my iPhoneX
2 Likes

Bluetooth devices sometimes get errors in their pairing. I have no idea why, but they have to be completely unpaired and re-paired. As near as I can tell, you may have been forgetting to un-pair the HAs from the phone’s BT manager (an thus, un-pair completely from the phone’s BT chip). Perhaps the Phonak Remote software does this when you removed them from the app? Or perhaps it didn’t do it properly?

Anyway, it’s great you’re finally up and running again.

There is a major blue tooth problem with iOS 13 that was not corrected with iOS 13.1 and the Apple engineers are working on it. The KS 9.0 aids connect and after several seconds show “not connected”. Phonak Marvel aids have the same problem so I am sure that Phonak is also working hard to get this problem corrected. In the meantime we have no streaming with phone calls or music but everything else on my KS 9.0 aids works fine. Streaming worked great on my iPhone 6+ but I upgraded to the 11 Pro Max that will only work with iOS 13 and higher so with the upgrade I lost streaming. A senior tech in the Apple Accessibility support department is supposed to call me tomorrow night to give an update if there is one from engineering. If they have a fix or know of one I’ll pass is along.