Phonak Paradise P90 - reliable Bluetooth dongle at last!

WH - There was a previous thread about fun with Zoom and Phonak aids:

https://forum.hearingtracker.com/t/phonak-marvel-paradise-and-ks9-and-zoom-microphone/

where one poster had spoken to Phonak Tech support and was told that Phonak recommended the Sennheiser BTD 800 dongle. On my iMac Pro running either macOS or Windows 10, that device shows up as a USB audio adapter. I don’t have Phonak aids but Oticon Tech Support recommends the same USB dongle be used with their ConnectClip (I have Oticon OPN S 1 aids) if you have bluetooth issues with a notebook or (more likely) a desktop pc. It fixed issues I was having with an iMac Pro (2017) running either macOS Catalina or now Monterrey. It is not inexpensive but one was shipped with my ConnectClip when the ConnectClip first delivered (after a long delay after it was announced). EPOS/Sennheiser also includes the dongle with certain of their headsets to ensure that they work with various PCs and call center software. The Oticon Tech Support person said that many bluetooth implementations (chipset and/or driver) had bugs or didn’t correctly support the bluetooth profile and/or versions needed by the ConnectClip.

On my iMac Pro running Monterey (12.1), the System Preferences Sound panel shows the “Sennheiser BTD 800 USB for Lync” as type USB. It can be selected as the Output or Input device (or both). When used as an input device and the dongle is paired with the ConnectClip, the microphone in the ConnectClip becomes the input sound device. If it is selected as the output device, the sound is relayed fthrough the dongle to the ConnectClip as classic bluetooth and from the ConnectClip as Low Energy (Apple MFI) to the hearing aids.

I expect the Avantree DG80 might work with your MacBook and I expect the Sennheiser BTD 800 would also but I’m only guessing. I do know that EPOS/Sennheiser does issue new firmware every so often for their dongle - I’ve updated the firmware a number of times when the issues fixed included support for Teams and similar applications. You do have to run a windows application to update the software - I use Windows 10 with Boot Camp on my iMac or a Windows 10 box at work to do that.

Good luck - you may need it with bluetooth :slight_smile:

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