Bluetooth

Hearing Aids and Bluetooth: Audio Right to your Ears

Nowadays, most hearing aids are small enough that they’re barely even noticeable, with incredibly sophisticated technology that makes hearing better than ever. With these advances, almost every hearing aid available on the market includes Bluetooth connectivity for audio streaming, phone calls, and app control.

The benefits of Bluetooth streaming are boundless. The most common benefit patients report is improved understanding on phone calls. Anyone with a hearing loss will tell you that talking on the phone is a major headache. The frequency range of the human voice extends from 100 Hz all the way to 17,0000 Hz. However, in order to preserve bandwidth, phone calls limit the frequency range of audio to 300 Hz to only 3400 Hz. When you have hearing loss, you lose access to sounds in any frequencies where there is a loss, so speaking on the phone becomes even more difficult since the phone is already limiting the frequencies that are transmitted. While non-Bluetooth hearing aids do help, you still need to rely on holding the phone up to your ear and many patients run into issues with feedback.

Enter Bluetooth streaming, where now the call audio is transmitted through the hearing aids directly into the listener’s ear, amplified to their hearing prescription. People who have always had to take their calls on speakerphone can now have improved audibility without everyone around them getting to listen to their call. Many hearing aids also use the hearing aid microphones to pick up your voice for the call, eliminating the need to hold the phone up to your ear at all. Audio streaming through your phone works similarly, streaming any audio directly into the ears and amplifying it according to your hearing loss prescription.

All of the major manufacturers also have apps that can be used as a remote control for your hearing aids, where you can adjust volume, switch programs, and even adjust the directionality and frequency tuning of your hearing aids. Many apps even allow users to create custom programs that can be used in different situations according to their listening preferences. Some patients like these personal programs so much that they ask their audiologists to add them into the default programming of the hearing aids at their next visit.

With the exception of Phonak, most of the hearing aid manufacturers are made for iPhone (MFi). This means that the hearing aids use a low energy form of Bluetooth to connect to iPhones for streaming through the Accessibility menu. This form of Bluetooth is faster and reduces battery drain, and has the advantage of being extremely easy to set up as it only needs to be paired in one place. MFi hearing aids can also be paired to iPads and other Apple devices through the Accessibility menu. Apple devices also offer Live Listen through your hearing aids, so you can use your phone as a remote microphone. In a noisy restaurant, you can simply turn on Live Listen mode and hand the phone to the person you are speaking with to have their voice streamed directly to your ears. You can also use it to listen to the speaker in meetings or classes. 

If your hearing aids are MFi, you can still connect to Android devices if they have the ASHA Bluetooth protocol (usually found in more recent models- you can check compatibility through your hearing aid manufacturer website). Otherwise, each brand has accessories that can be used as a gateway to connect to Android devices as well as PCs.

Phonak hearing aids are slightly different as they are not MFi. This means they can connect via Bluetooth to almost any device that will allow it. In my time working with hearing aids, I have paired them to iPhones, Androids, Crickets, Google phones, laptops, and even flip phones! Phonak hearing aids use a traditional Bluetooth connection accessed through the Bluetooth menu of the phone. Whichever hearing aid is assigned as the primary hearing aid by the audiologist will be the hearing aid that connects to the phone via Bluetooth for audio streaming, then that aid sends all of the audio information to the other side through their own connection. For app connectivity, Phonak uses Bluetooth low energy, which pairs to both devices. So while with an MFi device you will have 2 hearing aids connected in the Accessibility menu, when connecting to Phonak hearing aids you will have 3 hearing aid connections in the Bluetooth menu.

Even if technology is not your cup of tea and the thought of Accessibility and Bluetooth menus makes you start to sweat, once it is set up Bluetooth connectivity makes wearing hearing aids a lot more hassle free. If you have trouble connecting your hearing aids, reach out to either your audiologist or your hearing aid manufacturer and they will have you paired in no time. Phone calls will start to go directly into your ears, causing less stress on the phone, and the large, user-friendly interfaces of the apps allow you to easily make adjustments without having to fumble around with tiny buttons on the backs of your hearing aids.

While even ten years ago being able to listen to phone calls and audio directly through your hearing aids may have seemed like a pipe dream, it has become almost ubiquitous among today’s hearing aids. With the introduction of over-the-counter hearing aids, the Bluetooth capabilities of hearing aids are likely to soar to even greater heights. As technology advances, these connections are only going to get faster and better. Ten years from now, who knows where we’ll be?