Phonak Marvel Bluetooth range

Hearing Aids Manufacturer Support
#1

Hello. Im new to hearing aid’s and got a set of Marvel MR
I like them but im not that impressed with bluetooth streaming.
It works great when im in my house but if i go outside i looses signal from my phone real easy. I got my phone in the pocket and if i turn my head so my body come between the phone and aid the sound is gone. Just fore a sec or two until i turned back. I think inside, walls and celing etc reflects the bluetooth signal but in open areas it needs to be nothing between the hearing aid and the phone.
I tried diffrent phones with exactly same result. Anyone else experiensing the same issue?

The sound is not that good either. Very thin/no bass if i turn up the volume some. At low sound levels its realy good sound. I have open dooms and bumping the bass on the phones equlizer helps a little but cant find any good setting.
Thanks

#2

I have the same issue with the BLE on my KS8. If I carry my iPhone in my shirt pocket it is much better. If I carry it in my pants pocket and put my hand over it, that kills the signal.

With respect to the weak bass when streaming, that is likely caused by your open fittings. When there is natural sound the receiver sound is supplemented by sound coming in through the vents. You lose this assistance when streaming, and actually lose lower frequency sound out the vents. The programing software for your aids should provide a streaming program equalizer to counter this effect. With open fittings it is often necessary to both boost the bass but to also cut the midrange. See this screen from Connexx. It also provides the option to boost volume if background noise increases (Adaptive Streaming), as well as to cut the background sound from the microphones by an adjustable amount.

Ask your fitter.

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#3

From my experience Bluetooth only seems good for about 15 feet line of sight, not through walls, and especially not through water, glass, or metal.

#4

My Phonak Marvel 70 Bluetooth is a wee better, 22’. Walking into another room with one exception it chokes. When I stream to my iMac 3’ away the video/movie the sound cuts out for 6 seconds and plays for 25 seconds. Disconnecting and repairing does nothing. Playing the sound through the iMac speakers is perfect, so the problem is the HAids. anyone know of a fix if any?

#5

Bluetooth is a very low power signal. Your body is a very good attenuator of low power signals. Bluetooth will propagate much farther line of sight than it will through your body, so unless there is a straight path between your phone and your HAs, the signal will degrade.

#6

I understand its a weak signal, but i don’t experience this with headphones. But then again, i guess they got bigger antenna’s and are standing further out from the head, so think it’s harder to block the signal. Just wanted to know if it was normal behavior for the Marvel’s :blush:. And if it is, its kind of useless outdoors. Anyway of working around this issue witout taping the phone to my head?

#7

The HAs should not be useless outdoors and you should not have to tape your phone to your head. Try holding your phone in your hand while you’re on a call. If that doesn’t work, then perhaps there is a problem with your HAs or your phone. What type of phone do you have? Is the firmware up to date? If you can’t get this to work, I recommend you go back to your audiologist.

#8

I engineer wireless devices with Bluetooth and other RF signals and antennas. I also have Marvel M70-R’s. The Blueooth performance is as good as one can hope for in such a small form factor and so close to the head (with a BTE version). Inside the ear canal, forget about it. The head is a very good absorber of 2.4GHz so if your head and/or body is between you and the phone you’ll get poor reception.

But as Darylm says, just keep your phone on your right side, out of your pocket, and it’ll work fine.

And all that being said, it’s not impossible to design a BT antenna to work better under these conditions, but it’s difficult. A friend of mine designed an excellent antenna system to work in a very low-profile earbud, even passing through the body, but the company folded before it was released. And it took a lot of very good engineering work.

I just have to improve the BT Handsfree quality for phone calls with my system. I’m going to the audi in a week or two and try out some of the ideas I’ve encountered on these forums, like fixed bandwidth and feedback control.

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#9

On another Topic on this forum there is a wee discussion on those small portable rechargeable BlueTooth transmitter/receivers which, being a big bigger than hearing aids, would have a larger antenna I imagine. Indeed, some claim 30 feet range, one I have seen claims 55 feet and yet this one I found on Amazon, which its own external antenna claims 164 feet range.

Defeating the object regarding the OP’s posts but I wonder if such a device could be used to extend the range if it were possible to find one that would act as a repeater. That is, to receive and then retransmit. Could use two such devices linked together I suppose, one to receive, feed the audio to another and that device to transmit to the aids. They are still small enough not to be “too” bulky but could certainly help theoretically extend the bluetooth range of hearing aids. :laughing:

#10

Ok then i know this is a normal issue. No problem picking up the phone for a call. But was hoping for it to work from my pocket so i could listen to audio books while working. I allso need to use hearing protection so that’s allso kills the signal. A Bluetooth repeater if it exist would be great. I shall experiment with having the phone in a pouch around my neck, see if that helps. I always got blutooth in my hearing protection also, so no big deal but a universal solution would be better. How about smart watches? Will they stream to the hearing aids? Beeing out on the arm it shouldnt block so easy.

I have tested with Sony and Huawei phones snd and a Lenovo tablet. All androide.

#11

Sadly, I couldn’t find one but I could make one.
Unfortunately, I’m unable to experiment until I (hopefully!) get my Marvels next week.

#12

Marvels connect directly to a phone using HFP (Hands Free Profile) and A2DP (Advanced Audio Distribution Profile). BT transmitter / receivers act as one OR the other at any given time. You could use a BT transmitter to stream analog audio to the Marvels, but there is no way you could use such a device as a BT repeater between a phone and the Marvels.

#13

I have the first generation Phonaks w. BT released a year before Marvel model. (called Audeo Direct.
Had (stll have some) problems you get w. any first gen. tech device.
BT does work well. (Didn’t until 2nd s/w update.) Carry phone in shirt pocket - which is always on left. My BT HA is in my right ear! No problem. Guess it would make more sense to have had it in left ear. Before that wore an over-the-ear BT headset for 10+ years all day. Got first HA 7 years ago. No trouble using BT headset w. them.

#14

Sure you could. As I explained in my original post…

Transceiver

#15

Bluetooth repeater would be a nightmare of pairing problems and bandwidth/channel issues. Bluetooth rarely works reliably with a simple connection. You’re just going to compound the potential problems. Sorry to be such a pessimist but there’s a reason people don’t do this.

Just the same, I’d like to hear what happens if you try it. :grin:

#16

I’ve only got one transmitter/receiver (Taotronic) but I’ve got several receivers. I’ll set the Tao to Transmitter and rig a receiver to it. I’ll have to use my CM-BT2 Neckloop for now as i don’t have Marvels but it’s the same end result. Watch this space…

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#17

Well what can I say? As I expected, it worked perfectly for me. I paired my receiver-only bluetooth device to my Smartphone and plugged its output into the Aux of the Taotronic set to act as transmitter. I then paired the Taotronic to my CM-BT2 bluetooth neckloop. With my aids set to Tcoil, I could hear the music from my Smartphone. Of course, I could have just paired the CM-BT2 directly to the Smartphone but the object of the exercise was to see if we could increase distance owing to the bigger antenna in devices such as the Taotronic.

It got me thinking though, people talking of connection issues, bandwidth issues etc. Bluetooth operates on the same frequency range as 2.4Ghz WiFi and yes, some people report issues without knowing or understanding that it could in fact be their WiFi Router that is the problem. If you are able to set and use the 5Ghz WiFi instead of the 2.4, it is recommended that you do so if you rely on Bluetooth a lot. If you suffer Bluetooth connection problems, you can try temporarily turning off the 2.4Ghz channel on your Router (or just turn your router off if you don’t know how) and see how your Bluetooth fares. There is a setting in most routers called “Bluetooth Coexistence” which can be set to Enabled/Disabled. Default is usually Disabled and Enabling this can help your Bluetooth signals coexist with your 2.4Ghz frequency band.
Other things that can upset Bluetooth (and WiFi) connections are Microwaves, Christmas Lights, Dect Telephones to name but a few. Try repositioning your Router/Bluetooth devices etc. If using Bluetooth outside in the open, there shouldn’t be any problems connecting and staying connected, providing you’re not walking around a busy town bustling with WiFi connections.

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#18

I have one of these: Bluetooth 5.0 Transmitter/Receiver, TaoTronics 2-in-1 Wireless 3.5mm Audio Adapter (aptX Low Latency, 2 Devices Simultaneously, for TV/Home Sound System). I bought it for using on the airplane. The latency from one of these devices is bordering on being unusable. The delay between the video and audio is noticeable. I would think the latency from two of them back to back would be really bad.

The other thing about this unit is that it is very flaky about remembering pairing. I have to re-pair it almost every time I use it.

#19

What you are proposing only works for streaming, not as for the headset profile.

#20

Why some people assume when I use one without problems myself? :roll_eyes:
As I explained elsewhere, I use mine for hotel stays with my CM-BT2 with my hearing wife laying next to me. She can’t hear any sync issues between what she hears on the TV and what she would hear from my hearing aids with our Tao. We have had systems in the past where she could, and as you can imagine, she found it very annoying, like hearing an echo. Not so with our current setup.

That said, remember that the original topic was about Bluetooth range and phones/music. Sync issues wouldn’t be a problem.