Phonak Marvel, Paradise and KS9 and Zoom--microphone

Hearing Aids Manufacturer Support
#29

Thanks! That was informative on several key points:

  • That you talked to a “Lab tech” is great news, in that even if he was just tech support, he sounds as if he gets to at least influence, or talk to the engineers. I know that in my company, we “forced” engineers to do first line tech support for at least an hour a day. That led to customers driving engineering that no manager could ever match. They could see first hand, the implications of their decisions, and that drove engineering much better products.
  • I’m not at all sure I buy that BT is different on PCs, vs phones. Generally, a spec like BT is a spec, regardless of which OS or device it is on. We pioneered SCSI devices for all OS’s, all SCSI devices, and all hardware hosting. So, I have a bit of experience with device drivers, OEMs and software distribution. They could have “done it wrong”, but I doubt it. To maintain as much compatibility as possible, they should have only supported what they had to. Once you try to do exotic functions that only exist in x hardware, or x OS, then you not only limit your market, but you generally will break and make fragile what you do “support” i.e., it becomes unreliable.
  • Again, if someone talks to support or engineering:
    ----- >> Please lobby for more than TWO BT pairings that can be saved.
    That alone would clear up most of our problems. The alternative of requiring a dongle is not good. They then cannot “talk to the HA” from any app or application. Think of “programming” your HA — think you are going to do that through an ANALOG audio port?? I don’t think that’s possible. (Or, it hasn’t been since TRS-80 Radio shack days when you stored programs on audio cassette tapes!!)
  • Eventually, they, or someone else, will open up an API that we can control our HA with our devices. That can’t happen unless and until we can always have a DIGITAL wireless connection from our PCs and phones.
#30

Upgraded my HP laptop bt 4.2 to 5.1 and connects really consistently. Cannot connect any other BT devices to my laptop or Ha will not work such as a bt mouse. It seems as though the ha will only allow one bt device to connect to the laptop. It seems strange that the ha will not allow a bt mouse connection but I’m happy that I have a consistent connection with the laptop.

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#31

Bummer, upgrade to bt 5.1 connects consistently but cuts out. So back to my Asus windows 10 table and not cutting. Remember the Marvels works best with mobile devices and seems to be true here. About thirty min later my aids automatically connected to the laptop and no cut outs. Not sure what happened. Good thing, right?

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#32

Same experience here. Updated BT on my Windows 10 desktop. KS9’s pair & connect but consistently cut out. I didn’t want to spring for the pricy Sennheiser dongle (about the same price as the Phonak TV connector at Costco) so I purchased a knock-off dongle (<$20USD). I’ll let you know tomorrow if it fixes the cutting out issue. Fingers crossed!
-kate.

#33

Streaming to my KS9s connected to Dell Windows 10 desktop with BT 5.2 drops in-and-out. I just tried a BT dongle (not the recommended $100+ Sennheiser) – it may have been a slight improvement, but did not make the connection usable IMO.

#34

I am running on a desktop pc with only a BT dongle so I didn’t have to disable any other BT device. Hope this helps.

#35

Wondering if your Desktop pc had bt before you added the bt dongle?

#36

My pc never had bt before. I used to have a HP laptop for work and the hearing aids were intermittent with the onboard bt. I then moved to a usb bt and connection was fine.

#37

I have new Phonak paradise HA’s. Everything works pretty much as expected. I have the paired to my iPhone and MacBook pro. Streaming from the Macbook works fine. Until I connect to a zoom call. Then, it disconnects the Phonak Bluetooth. If I try to reconnect, it spins and lights up like it’s going to connect, then disconnects again. I can’t seem to get it to stay connected.

Does anyone else have this issue? If so, how did you fix it? Right now, I have to dial into the zoom and would prefer to use computer audio (like I did before HA’s).

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#38

As you know I’ve made several comments regarding connecting my Marvels to my Windows 10 and Zoom with very little success. I have a android phone and I install the Zoom app on my phone. It works pretty good when I’m within the router range. When I connect to Zoom it asks me whether I want to dial in or internet and I choose internet. The phone is a little inconvenient because I don’t have a bigger screen but I really don’t have any complaints using the phone when connected to the internet and within range of my router usually twenty feet.

#39

What I do is use my computer for my video and call in from my Android phone. It works well for me. With this combination I get the larger screen and and the great audio from my phone. The only thing that is a pain is that I have to manually put in my meeting ID and my participant ID for every meeting. But that is the only inconvenience. you can even mute and unmute the phone mic using the keyboard shortcuts.

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#40

Thanks I will have to try that next time I log into Zoom.

#41

I think you’re looking at wrong direction. Marketing department. Otherwise, what would they offer with next line (paradises) :rofl:

Also, afaik you don’t need to ‘forget’ HAs on some device, you just need to pair to new device, the old pairing will be forgotten in aids automatically, no?

Nope.
LE is used for remote control, and each aids has own LE connection.
For streaming BT classic is used, master aid connects to the source, and slave aid will get the signal through the master as a proxy.
Then this BT connection has 2 protocols - handsfree (headset = the one with mic), used for phone calls, and media streaming (headphone = without mic). In some devices you can actually choose which BT protocol to use, like my smarthphone can be connected to one, both or none, depending on what I want - notifications kicks media stream, so if you don’t want to hear them ,you have to shut down media stream.

Also, headset is common name for headphone+mic :wink: no matter if one or two ears, and most popular headset is voyager legend, and you’ll notice that this thing is single side, whereas marvels are binaural :smiley:

Or you put something over them when you’re streaming, or even on the canal like this
https://smile.amazon.de/gp/product/B003H4T0YS/

I think main reason are the different drivers. Those from dongles seems to cover something better than those for built in BTs.

#42

Yeah, I suspect you’re right about drivers. I think how the OS is designed is also an issue. I read somewhere that “anything with an OS” will have problems which I believe is inaccurate as I believe everything has an OS, but perhaps the more complex the OS, the more likely problems are? I know Zoom works well with my Chromebook, which I think has a simplified Linux OS and relies on the browser? I read that Jabra supplies a dongle with their earbuds that is designed to work well with more complex OS. They won’t guarantee their product to work other BT

#43

When log in to Zoom on your computer and call in on your phone are you registered as two participants? That is what happen when I logged in to Zoom with my computer and then on my phone then I’m registered as two participants with one video. No big deal just wanted to verify you got the same results.

#44

No. When you log in on the computer it gives you an option to call in, and it gives you a meeting id to input and a participant id to input. if you don’t input the participant id then it will log you in as 2 different participants.

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#45

This is precisely the problem that brought me to this forum. Paradise connects with MacOS pretty well, but the instant Zoom is launched, it spins & fails. Hoping someone can suggest a fix for this. It worked a few days initially, but no longer.

#46

I use the phonak paradise but if i enable the mic name hands free AG audio I lose sound completely.
This happens whenever I have the mic active on a windows 10 PC and laptop in zoom or discord. Even when gaming if the input device is set to hands free AG audio I lose all sound.

I am forced to install a USB mic and disable the hands free AG audio or nothing will work. Yet when connecting to my android mobile everything works fine.

Anyone have any idea why if I have the hearing aid mic enabled windows wont play sound?

#47

It is the same in my configuration. Hands free does not work with laptop. I use the laptops mics instead. The HA as headphones only. I found no other way, I think we have to live with that.

#48

Thanks for the response, I spoke to Phonak support and they said it should work with zoom no problem and they are not aware of any issue. I paid +/- 4000 euro for them so hope they can figure it out.
I think i will give them another call though I do not think its a phonak issue but more a windows/driver issue because it works fine on android.
It was the same with my previous phonaks and a compilot 2.

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