So far in the public beta trial of ios14 and above. I find that the iPhone has much more compressed audio than the iPad. I haven’t had the chance to complain/give my feedback yet (I’m covering another teacher whole timetable while he is on long service leave). So bad that 2 mins, in I can not understand the music or singer clearly. I am suspecting (and only IMO) they are trying to push people onto their proprietary headphone/earbuds, which most of us can not wear.
BlueTooth uses 2.4 GHz signals and they are attenuated by walls and other stuff inside your house. Outside the signals are not attenuated by as much stuff and will reach much larger distances.
Here is a web site that can be used to see the difference in distance in different environments.
My Samsung S21 Ultra (and most BlueTooth devices) should be outputting in the Class 2 power of 2.5mW (4dBm) and reach 10 meters in open air.
Normal BlueTooth should not have any issue reaching from one’s pocket to the HAs located behind your ears unless their BlueTooth antenna has very poor gain and it probably is very small and this may be the real issue.
My streamer will pick up my phones BlueTooth signal outside up to about 30 feet while it is in my front pocket.
I have a BlueTooth unit for my Arduino that is mounted outside and it has an 1/8" x 1/2" antenna and it will transmit and receive from ~ 50 feet including going through a three layer window.
I think the problem with the HAs BlueTooth has to be related to the antenna size and low noise amp in the HAs.
No I don’t think so, the issue is outside, no issues inside, so in your situation you have line of sight, as in straight line no issues good for 50 feet which is nice, so no it’s a interference issue, like when in a box (room) works prefect, but when in a large open space you get these issues (not always…but there you go) so if it was the antenna in the HAs it would happen all the time.
I suspect Phonak has an issue with their buffer management and/or adaptive bandwidth code for the Bluetooth. If you ignore the breakup it does recover after a while, suggesting the code is ‘just’ very slow. As is the highly variable 4-15 second (sometimes needing an app close and reopen) connection time to the app. Agonising sometimes. Their inability to fix it is ‘documented’ by their addition of the blue pop up notice on the app saying connection may take ‘some time’.
My ‘on the fence’ was resolved yesterday. They went back. I walk daily and having to hold the phone to stream is just not good enough. I suddenly had a moment and realised I was being daft accepting such a limitation for £2.5k when my free NHS Oticon Engage (Opn 2) from 2018 have no such issues.
I agree with you returning them. I did the same and am back using my old set of Oticon Agil Pros with the Oticon Streamer 1.3. Not good stereo sound, but no drift to one side and a good BlueTooth connection.
I am not sure about the signal bouncing inside since it is at 2.4 GHz. Most web sites talk about signal attenuation from the walls, ceilings and floor. I will do some more research about reflection at 2.4 GHz.
Do you suspect your body blocks the signal from the phone to the HAs?
It sure does!..here is a plot:
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The thing here is, although the Streamer Pro is bluetooth the Agil Pro are not, so no bluetooth streaming to your HAs so this is why you get a better connection, all those older accessories use a different type of connection to the HAs.
I actually find the streamers are better because they are bigger so the Bluetooth antenna is bigger.
I tried 3 x Phonak ComPilot Air II and they were rubbish in terms of connections compared to my Phonak ComPilot II that I have.
Actually the antenna is the neck loop, so yes I totally agree with your statement, the air was terrible as it’s antenna was built in, the compilot worked perfectly, as with the Streamer Pro which also works with a neck loop.
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I’m wondering if it holds true that the receivers act as the Bluetooth antenna for RIC HAs.
I believe I read somewhere that the 3rd wire in the Phonak 4.0 receivers is in fact the bluetooth antenna. Previous to Phonak Marvel receivers only had 2 wires.
Great information…Thanks
i think the neck loop is the antenna for the HAs and they work on a different frequency. I think the BlueTooth antenna is in the actual Streamer. I opened up my old Streamer (the battery had died and I got the newer version) and noted a large coil of wire wrapped around a square block of ferrite that maybe part of the to the neck wire circuit. I tried to pick up a signal with my 45 MHz O-scope and could not find anything so it probably is higher than 45 MHz.
With the wire unplugged from the Streamer it still picks up Blue tooth from 30 feet or so. Without the wire the streamer drops connection to the HAs unless it is very close to them and it has to be centered or one will drop out. Here is a picture of a typical BlueTooth antenna (~0.25" x 0.5") and the ferrite with the coil in the Streamer.
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Do you have a screenshot of your settings? This is driving me mad right now.
I am sorry, I returned the HAs because of the Bluetooth streamed sound kept shifting to my left ear. This was very noticeable with books on tape.
I have changed audiologists because I was not satisfied with her helping me with this problem. I suspect you can fix the issue if you could have a program that shuts off some of the directional features of the HAs.
I am looking into the new Phonak Lumity HAs or the Audicon More HAs to replace my Audicon Agil Pros that are ~10 years old and are starting to get flaky.
Please let us know if you find a fix for the issue! Thanks
My Audiogram falls off much more compared to yours… more like 70 to 80 dB down above 3000 Hz.
Audiologist swapped the dominant hearing aid and it now drifts to the other side instead. Pixel 7 + Phonak Audéo M70-R . Still looking for a fix. Started about a month or two ago but uncertain as it was hard to identify. Happens on TV connector as well.