I got the new Costo Ks-10 aids a couple of days ago. They help the hearing in my left ear a great deal, especially when I’m watching TV by bluetooth connection. I also love being able to talk on the phone with it in my pocket and the conversation coming into both ears! And I also seem to be saying “huh” a lot less.
But all is not perfect. Aside from the relatively trivial matter that they make my ears itch, the major problem relates to the fact that the Android app “Easy Line Remote” doesn’t work. It will seem to connect via bluetooth to my HAs but then within a few seconds reports an “Internal error” with a red exclamation mark. “We are sorry, something unexpected has happened. Please restart your hearing aids, reset your bluetooth connection and try again.” Which, of course, I’ve done a half a dozen times by now. Another screen reads, “We detected that touch sounds and/or screen lock sounds are enabled in the device settings of your smartphone. We highly recommend to manually disable those sounds as they can interfere with the app usage.” Really??? I turned off the touch and screen lock sounds and there was no change in the apps behavior upon re-installation and reconnection via Bluetooth to the aids.
I hate to return the aids because of this problem (and because it’s another 2-hour drive each way), but I would like to be able to control the audio and engage the noise reduction features (for restaurants) via the phone app. The aids I tried briefly a few months ago had no problem with this. I reported the problem to Phonak, but they didn’t respond at all. I’m guessing that’s because I bought them from Costco under the Kirkland name.
I’ll also add that the fitter at Costo called someone for tech support when I was getting the HAs. He couldn’t make he app work either. His tech support person told him that the store’s IP folks needed to make some changes to the store’s settings. I now know that that was a bunch of hooey. I wanted the app to work so that I could connect remotely to the fitter for support, but I was there well beyond the appointment’s allotted time. I left tired of messing with it and annoyed and exasperated that it didn’t work. I remain annoyed and exasperated.
Note: I actually made a video of the whole process on my phone. Here’s a link to it: https://youtu.be/ACHuj0-dbMM