Websites playing “silent” audio to my hearing aids?

Cochlear Implants
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#1

When audio is streamed from my iOS devices to my cochlear Nucleus 8 I have adjusted the settings to lower the sensitivity of the microphones, so I don’t have to hear the surroundings. This works amazingly well, but it made me discover something really annoying when I’m NOT streaming anything to my CI:s.

If I visit websites like https://www.nytimes.com/ suddenly the microphone on the CI:s lower their sensitivity as if I’m streaming something, but the website isn’t playing any sound. It is as if the website is playing a silent audio track.

My best guess is that it’s ads that have sound but are on mute, or something like that. It is really frustrating because when I’m in a conversation with someone and has to look up something on the web, suddenly I can’t hear anything even though I haven’t pressed play on any video or audio.

Has anyone else discovered this “hijacking” of the hearing aid by websites or apps?

#2

I wear the K2 or N7 processors with an Android phone.
Your description makes perfect sense but I have never had “silent” audio happen.

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#3

Could that be the “wunerful” new Bluetooth LE audio Auracast coming in to play? If so, that is one of my BIG fears as the world shoves Auracast messages down our ear canals - regardless of whether we want to hear them or not.

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#4

No, Sam is on IOS. No LE Audio there…yet.

I think his guess is most likely correct. Does advertisement designers are very clever. I accidentally tapped an ad today as I was scrolling and suddenly music started playing. It’s surprised me.

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#5

I don’t think so. Because on the same site, when I have scrolled to a segment of just text, everything is normal. I think it’s the ads in combination with the web browser Safari.

#7

Thank you. I have googled it before posting here, even though it is hard to describe. Would be interesting to hear from more Android users, because I suspect it’s a iOS/Safari thing.

#8

I found this when the Audio Routing option under iOS hearing aid settings was set to Automatic or On for media. I ended up setting it to never and will manually switch audio output device via control centre.
I also noticed this on Reddit however I could turn off auto play videos, so not a safari thing. Seems that if media is playing regardless of its volume the sound output will switch to the hearing aids if that option isn’t it off.

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#9

I agree with it is probably a settings thing.
Both Android and iOS have so many options it gets flat confusing sometimes.
I tend to just turn off all notifications except the very few I actually want to hear. Also turn off most automatic things as well. The phone never seems to think the way I do.

The Nucleus Smart app is pretty good about telling you to turn stuff off when it’s something that will hinder your hearing.

#10

I find a very similar thing going on with my activevent receivers. No sound from the web site, but click click click click as it goes in and out of streaming. Chrome on iOS. Phonak Audeo p90r.

WH

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#11

Oticon Real 1 hearing aids, Oticon TV Adapter 3, iOS 17.5.1 on iPhone 12 mini

When I’m listening to a TV show via the TV adapter, if I start the NY Times app on my iPhone, the TV audio is silenced for a bit and then usually comes back. If it doesn’t, killing the app on the phone restores TV audio to the aids. I have both Call Audio and Media Audio set to Automatic.

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#12

Good guess! My Phonaks do that, too. I first made the connection on cnn.com, which often has a muted video auto-playing. I can click to unmute it, but if I don’t, I can hear that the aids are in streaming mode anyway.

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#13

I have the exact same experience. I usually turn of Bluetooth on my iPhone if the app or website doesn’t “release” my hearing aids and then it is instantly connected to the TV streamer again.

#14

@Sam-bunchofnumbers I’m iOS and bimodal N8/Resound. I don’t experience what you do.
Do you have audio handoff turned off?
And audio routing to hearing devices on?

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#15

@Deaf_piper
Having “Audio Handoff” turned ON or OFF doesn’t make any difference.

Yea, I have “Audio Routing” set to automatic for both “Call Audio” and “Media Audio” because I want sound from the iPhone (music, YouTube etc) to the N8 directly.

If I set the routing to “Never Hearing Device” and go to any website or app that steals the connection to my N8, the problem stops, but I also won’t be able to play Spotify or YouTube etc. directly to the N8, so unfortunately it doesn’t solve my problem.

In most apps and on several websites I have none of these “hijacking” problems, so I would like to find the source of the silent audio so I can make Cochlear and Apple aware of them.

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#16

One possible solution is the “StopTheMadness” extension. I use it to stop video autoplay on sites that get around the Safari Auto-Play “Never Auto-Play” setting somehow (CNN, for example). Perhaps it would stop your audio auto-play problem. It has other advantages as well (bypassing Google AMP, stopping sites from disabling functionality, etc.).

#17

I bought the extension but unfortunately it doesn’t help. I still get the silent audio playing (it did stop som functionality in this forum however, but the extension was easy to turn off so no problem there) but thanks for the tip!

#18

I had that issue with the Opera browser. It by default plays music that rises and falls with user activity (it’s kinda cool most of the time), but if I had a window open and was using any other browser, it was still playing music in the deep background, using my HA’s battery life while it was doing it.

#19

Yes I have the same problem with my iPhone and 3 different pairs of hearing aids.
If I am streaming music and I activate the 7 Little Words or Word Connect app, either one will steal the connection away from my music stream. Even though neither one actually uses the connection to stream audio to my aides.
Very frustrating!

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#20

Is there an efficient way to bring attention to this problem? It’s possible that management does not realize their websites are problematic for hearing aid users and if we made collective noise web developers would find a less intrusive method. For example, CNN says to email Accessibility@turner.com (source: https://www.cnn.com/accessibility)

#21

Now that I know I’m not alone and that it’s not my specific phone, I think I’ll start with reporting it to Apple and Cochlear. Best case scenario it’s that it’s a browser bug (because all ads/videos seems to be on mute).

Bur on the other hand, it would be nice if I could find some technical clue from the sites as well (even though I suspect it’s not their fault). Thanks for the tip!

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