Phonak Paradise - Bluetooth lag, any solutions?

Hearing Aids
#1

Here’s a difficult question but there may be a whizzkid here that can give me some clever ideas…

I thought I had cracked the TV problem with bluetooth hearing aids. We watch films etc. on a big iMac screen and the only way I found for my wife and I both to manage was if I wore bluetooth headphones and she listens through the normal speakers (you can output 2 channels simultaneously.) However, it’s a bit anti-social wearing over the ear headphones so I’ve tried it with my Phonaks. The problem is that I now hear part speaker and part HA and the lag in the Phonak bluetooth makes it unworkable. I never used to hear the two sources with the headphones so didn’t hear the lag as an echo.

Can you think of a way of improving the lag on the HAs or introducing a tiny delay into the speaker output? so they both match perfectly?

#2

I suspect part of the issue is that your hearing aids likely have open domes and let in more outside sound than the headphones did. Regardless, Are you using a generic bluetooth device or the iMac’s bluetooth or a Phonak TV Connect? I suspect a Phonak TVConnect would solve the sync issue.

#3

Try changing the sound settings on your phone. Mine are all turned off and phone is set to vibrate. I don’t need aural alerts from my phone. I also wear a smart watch to compensate for that

#4

First of all, are your HA’s microphones ON when streaming?
If so, it might help to turn them off, although this could also be anti-social as you describe it.
How to turn them off depends on how your Audi has programmed the HAs:

  1. the HAs toggle switch is used to change the mix ratio of the two sources: Up: -> streaming louder / microphones quieter. Down: -> streaming quieter / microphones louder.
  2. long press down: -> microphones are off.
  3. microphones are always off when streaming.

Second, look for something like lip sync delay in the TV settings. This will allow you to adjust the delay between picture and sound. If you’re lucky, this won’t affect the Bluetooth output. Only the speaker output.

Third, try to get your hands on a Phonak TV connector. Phonak has developed the wireless connection with the lowest possible delay.

#5

That’s exactly the issue. Especially as the headphones are noise cancelling and yes, I do have open domes. I am waiting for some vented domes to arrive so I’ll see if they are better at stopping the leakage. I will look into a Phonak TVConnect. I’m using the iMac’s bluetooth but I might also try a bluetooth dongle.

#6

This is only for watching movies etc. on my iMac.

#7

@sterei All good ideas, thank you. The microphones are going to be off because I’m streaming the output from the iMac. The problem is that the ambient sound (from the computer speakers is getting in past the open domes. I don’t believe there’s a way of changing lip sync delay, we don’t have a TV, its a Mac computer. I’ll have a look at the Phonak TV connector.

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#8

@e4andy
Oops, I didn’t realize, you are using a Mac. It won’t work with the TV connector either: since the speaker output will switch off as soon as you connect the TV connector to the Mac’s headphone-output. Unless the Mac povides a Toslink-output (optical) as well. This I don’t know.

#9

Ok, here’s an outside-the-box idea (probably silly). If you can get a second Bluetooth connection out of the iMac and if you had a spare Bluetooth speaker lying around, you and your wife would both be getting roughly the same audio delay.

If the iMac only has one Bluetooth connection (likely), you can get a cheap Bluetooth transmitter from Ebay. Plug it into audio out (assuming there is one) and pair with the Bluetooth speaker.

Sounds dumb reading it back, but there you go.

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#10

Hi there. Not silly at all. I had come to the same conclusion. It is possible to have 2 bluetooth connections. However I just phoned Apple tech support and between us we found a setting in the dual channel setup that said “drift correction”. I applied it to both channels and it works! Perfect sync!

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#11

The Bluetooth profile used by your hearing aids is not low-latency. I don’t think there’s a solution to this beyond the drift correction fix if you connect by Bluetooth rather than using a proprietary Phonak streaming device (like a TV connector) connected to your Mac. The ultimate solution is for Phonak to implement low-latency Bluetooth profiles/codecs. But you could also potentially look for a pair of wireless earbuds with the AptX codec as an affordable alternative if that feels less anti-social.

#12

Hey Greg, thanks. I don’t think the Phonak connector will work because it will cut off the internal speakers. I tried to find out if Phonak supported the AptX or AAC codecs but I couldn’t find out. I’m guessing that because I couldn’t select them, the answer is no.
I did try some earbuds but they are fairly cheap ones and the clarity wasn’t there so I couldn’t make out enough speech. I wonder if expensive buds would work.
Maybe I should just swap to some non-vented domes when I watch. Bit of a faff though.

#13

That’s a good point - I use my TV Connector with a splitter (an optical splitter in the case of my TV setup, but an analog splitter would work equally well) so that audio goes to my HAs along with external speakers. But in your case, that would also require external speakers.

I suppose it might be possible to use an app like Loopback on your Mac to set up dual-output (essentually a “virtual splitter”). But you’d still need a second output device to connect to your TV Connector, like an inexpensive USB audio adapter.

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