Best Bluetooth Hearing Aids of 2022 | 3 Top Rated Devices with Bluetooth

Hi guys, cliff Olson, doctor of audiology and founder of Applied Hearing Solutions in Phoenix, Arizona. And in this video, I'm sharing my top picks for best Bluetooth hearing aids in 2022. Coming up. For the past several years, virtually every hearing aid that has been big enough to fit a Bluetooth antenna has had Bluetooth wireless connection capabilities with smart devices. Because of this, I have largely avoided talking about the best Bluetooth hearing aids, because basically every hearing aid has Bluetooth. But as time has gone on, I've started to realize that there are certain Bluetooth hearing aids that outperform the others. So if wireless connectivity is something that's important to you, you're gonna wanna make sure that you actually get a hearing aid that has good quality Bluetooth capabilities. But before I share my picks for the best Bluetooth hearing aids in 2022, if you could do me a huge favor and click the like button, it really helps out my channel because it gets these videos in front of a bigger audience. And while you're at it, if you have not yet hit that subscribe button with notification bell go ahead and do that as well because I release new videos every single week and if you wanna get notified of those videos, you have to be subscribed to my channel with notifications on. That being said, I really appreciate it.

Now let's talk about a few things you need to be aware of before you consider any one of these Bluetooth hearing aids. The first one is this video is dedicated to the best Bluetooth hearing aids on the market in 2022. So if you're looking for just the best overall hearing aid or the best invisible hearing aid or the best custom hearing aid, or the best behind the ear hearing aid, you need to make sure that you check those videos out separately and I will link them down in the description. Second, it does not matter how awesome any one of these hearing aids are. Unless you have a hearing care professional who fits them and programs them following best practices. Now, if you do not know what best practices are then I highly recommend that you also check out that video, that I will link down in the description because best practices are the only way to ensure that you maximize your performance with hearing aids. Now, if you wanna find a hearing care professional who follows best practices in your area, make sure that you check out my website, Dr.Cliffaud.com, where you can search for a best practice pro member near you. Third, I am not gonna rank any of the hearing aids that I talk about in this video, because every single one of them is really good from a Bluetooth perspective, but what hearing aid might be best for someone else might not be best for you. It just depends on what your specific wants and needs are. Forth each one of the hearing aids that I talk about in this video also has its own dedicated, detailed review on my channel. So if you're interested in learning more about any one of these hearing aids, make sure you check out those videos as well. And fifth, just like all of the hearing aid review videos on my channel, this video is not sponsored. It is just a very short list of what I find to be the best Bluetooth hearing aids in 2022.

All that said, I should give you a very quick understanding of the different types of Bluetooth that is being used with hearing aids. The first one is Bluetooth classic. The second one is Bluetooth low energy. And the third one is the Asha Bluetooth protocol. Of these three forms of Bluetooth that are currently available, each hearing aid on this list, in fact, most hearing aids that are available for purchase nowadays uses two of the three. Bluetooth classic is the oldest form of Bluetooth on this list. And it does use the most battery life, but it is also the most fully functional and gives the best streaming quality. Bluetooth low-energy was developed because it uses less energy than Bluetooth classic, but it is not as ideal for streaming audio. This is also the main form of Bluetooth that made for iPhone hearing aids actually use. The Asha Bluetooth protocol, which stands for audio streaming for hearing aids was developed to allow hearing aids, to connect with Android devices, not just iPhones. Now there are other forms of Bluetooth that are currently in development, but at least as of right now, you have these three major forms of Bluetooth inside of hearing aids. So now that you have an understanding of these different types of Bluetooth, let's go ahead and talk about what I find to be the best Bluetooth hearing aids of 2022, starting with the Oticon More. The Oticon More is a made for iPhone hearing aid, which means that it uses Bluetooth low energy to connect up to an Apple device, which allows you to stream audio from that device, as well as connect up to the Oticon on remote control app and the remote programming app. The Oticon More comes in two different styles. You have the rechargeable version of the mini right and you also have the mini right T which is the 312 disposable battery model. They also come in three different technology levels. You have the top tier premium More 1, the mid tier More 2, and the bottom tier More 3. However, it is important to understand that every single one of these tier levels use the exact same forms of Bluetooth, which nicely leads me to my next point, which is that the Oticon More also uses the Asha Bluetooth protocol. So if you happen to have Android devices that you want to Bluetooth with, you can do that with an Oticon More hearing aid as well. You just have to make sure that the Android device that you wanna connect to has Bluetooth version five and Android 10 operating system or higher. One important note when it comes to the Oticon More hearing aid is that it does not have two way audio. So if you're talking to someone on your smartphone, you're gonna have that audio of their voice stream directly into your hearing aids, but you're gonna have to use the microphone of your phone to talk back to them. Now you can go completely hands-free with an Oticon More hearing aid, but it does require the use of the Oticon connect clip that you actually clip onto your shirt. And that acts as an intermediary device between your hearing aids and your phone. So it can pick up your voice with its onboard microphone and send it to the person on the other end of the line. When it comes to the quality of audio streaming, it is not my favorite because I'm just not a big fan of Bluetooth low-energy or the Asha Bluetooth protocol when I'm listening to stream audio. Now you have to remember, I am extremely picky when it comes to the quality of streamed audio into hearing aids. You may not actually notice a difference between the Bluetooth low-energy, the Asha Bluetooth protocol, or Bluetooth classic. A few really nice things about the Bluetooth capabilities of the Oticon More is that inside of the Oticon on app, they give you a three band equalizer, so you can adjust the quality of the stream to audio. They also have really good ear molds to improve the sound quality of streamed audio, and they have some really good wireless accessories as well. The Oticon More is also the only hearing aid that allows you to use a streaming equalizer to adjust the low frequency tones, mid-frequency tones and high-frequency tones while streaming. Now let's talk about ear molds for a second. One of the best ways to improve the quality of streamed audio is to use a custom ear mold. In my opinion, Oticon now has some of the best custom ear molds thanks to the release of their new micro shell embedded ear mold that could dramatically improve the sound quality of your Bluetooth streaming. When you use a custom ear mold that does not have a very large vent, you can trap in more low frequency bass tones, which makes music sound much better because if you end up opening up this vent or you end up using an open dome on the end of your hearing aids, you're gonna leak out a bunch of low frequency bass tones, and music's gonna end up sounding flat. Now there is a bit of a trade-off here because if you end up getting an ear mold with a vent that's too small, it can have a negative impact on everything else that you hear outside of streaming. This is why I recommend you talk with a hearing care professional to determine if an ear mold is right for you. The wireless capabilities of the Oticon More expand beyond just connecting with a smart device. They also have some wireless accessories like the Oticon Connect Clip, as well as the Connect Line TV streamer. Like I mentioned before, the Oticon connect clip allows for two way audio streaming. So if you do wanna be hands-free on a phone call, you can do that, but you can also take the connect clip and clip it onto the shirt of somebody else in a noisy situation and that will stream their voice directly into your hearing aids, helping you overcome any background noise. If you find that you still need to use closed captions when you're wearing your Oticon More hearing aids, while watching the TV using the connect line TV streamer will completely eliminate the need for those closed captions. And you also have the Oticon on app, which is an app that gives you a remote control that allows you to change programs and activate different Oticon accessories. It also allows you to adjust your volume up and down, mute your hearing aids, activate more sound booster, which can help you hear better in background noise. Oh, and by the way, you can also use your iWatch to be able to make adjustments on your actual hearing aid. So if you want to increase or decrease volume, if you wanna change the programs, you can do that right from your watch without having to pull out your phone. A couple of other things that the app allows you to do is check the battery life of your hearing aids. And it gives you access to a fine my hearing aid feature. So if you lose one or both of your hearing aids, it show you the last known location of your devices. The homepage of the app gives you access to a variety of other features, such as hearing fitness, which allows you to set goals and track your hearing aid usage data over time, and to help ensure that you are maximizing the wear time of your hearing aids. You also get access to the internet of things that connects your hearing aids to if this then that. So you can set up different workflows and automations that get you notifications through your hearing aids, basically allowing you to connect your Oticon More hearing aids to virtually anything. And last but not least, you can adjust the settings of the app to send you notifications on battery life, notifications about your devices from Oticon, activate or deactivate voice prompts and provide anonymous feedback data to Oticon to help them improve the performance of their technology in the future. And one more thing, you can also download the remote programming app from Oticon, which will allow you to have the remote programming session with your hearing care professional even if you are not in their office. As you can see, the Oticon More hearing aid really takes advantage of its Bluetooth capabilities. And while I do wish it had Bluetooth classic to improve the quality of streamed audio, this is an absolutely fantastic Bluetooth hearing aid and heck, even if you wanted the hearing aid, but you did not care about Bluetooth, you should strongly consider the Oticon More as well.

All right, the next hearing aid on my list of best Bluetooth hearing aids in 2022 is the Phonak Audeo Paradise. Unlike the Oticon More, the Phonak Audeo Paradise is not a made for iPhone hearing aid, which means that it uses Bluetooth classic. Now Phonak was late to the Bluetooth game. In fact, they did not come out with their first Bluetooth hearing aid until late 2018, which means that they were basically the last hearing aid manufacturer using Bluetooth. But I have to say it was worth the wait because they made the first made for any phone hearing aid that could connect to virtually any Bluetooth device using Bluetooth classic. The Phonak Audeo Paradise actually comes in a few different styles. You have the rechargeable version of this hearing aid. You have the rechargeable version with a telecoil. You have a size 312 disposable battery version, and you have a size 13 disposable battery version that has a telecoil. They come in several different technology levels as well. You have the premium tier one P90, the second tier P70, the third tier P50 and the bottom tier P30. Again, every single one of these technology levels and styles has the exact same type of Bluetooth that functions the exact same way. Now the Phonak Audeo Paradise hearing aids actually use two different forms of Bluetooth. They have Bluetooth classic, which I already mentioned, but they also use Bluetooth low-energy to connect up with their, myPhonak smartphone app. Of course, the best things about Bluetooth classic is that the quality of stream to audio is just fantastic and you can connect up virtually any other Bluetooth device. And literally don't care if it's an iPhone, if it's an Android phone, if it's a brick phone, if it's an Android tablet, if it's an iPad, if it's a laptop, if it's a desktop, you can basically connect to anything. And if you're lucky enough to have a Phonak TV Connector, you can also stream audio directly from your TV, into your hearing aids with very low latency. Now, just so you know, I have heard of some individuals being able to connect their Phonak Audeo paradise hearing aids up to a smart TV for direct streaming, without a TV connector but some people say that this increases the latency, which means that the words that you're hearing is different from the mouth movements that you're seeing on TV. Now, here's the other crazy thing about the Phonak Audeo Paradise hearing aids, which is that you can pair it to up to eight different Bluetooth devices at the same time with two of those pairings being active at the same time as well. This means that you could be actively paired and connected to your smartphone and your tablet at the same time so you can be streaming audio from a movie on your tablet and then have the phone ring and actually be able to answer your phone without having to turn off the Bluetooth on your tablet. So let's talk about the customizability of the audio streaming. And Phonak does not give you the ability to adjust your own audio stream like you saw inside of the Oticon On app for the Oticon More hearing aid. However, your hearing care professional can do a much more detailed job of programming the streamed audio of your Phonak Audeo Paradise hearing aids. And not only can they adjust the audio of music, they can also separately adjust the audio of speech as well as the audio of phone calls and the audio from a partner microphone, as well as a Roger device. This means that we can literally make adjustments on every aspect of streamed audio. We just have to make sure that we take the time to actually do it. The biggest limitation of the quality of streamed audio is whether or not you're using a rubber dome or a custom ear mold inside of your ear. But remember how I told you that there's pluses and minuses that go into using a custom ear mold that either has a big vent or has a really, really small vent. Well, you actually can avoid those issues with the Phonak Audeo rechargeable Paradise hearing aids because they have something called the ActiveVent receiver. So here's the crazy thing about the ActiveVent. When you are just wearing the hearing aids and you're not doing any kind of streaming, you can have the vents be completely open, which means that the quality of sound that you're gonna hear with both your own voice and hearing other people talking to you is going to be really good. But then when you start streaming, the vents actually snapshots, which means that you're going to be able to perceive all the low-frequency bass tones of all the sounds that you're . That's right. This means that there are no trade-offs and you get the best of both worlds.

But that's not all you see the combined usage of Bluetooth low energy gives you the ability to connect up to the myPhonak smartphone app, which allows you to make some different feature adjustments inside of your hearing aids. This app can show you things like battery life, if you happen to have the rechargeable version of the Audeo Paradise, it will let you increase or decrease volume and change between different programs that your hearing care professional has made for you or any custom programs that you have made yourself. To make a custom program, you can click on the advanced settings menu in the bottom right corner of the app. This screen lets you make some preset quick adjustments for increased clarity or increased comfort of sound, or you can make your own customizations with the three band equalizer to adjust base middle and trouble, your overall volume. You can adjust noise reduction to block out extra steady state background noise. You can use speech focus to control which directions that your hearing aids primarily pick up sound from and even adjust your own compression settings to either reduce loud sounds or increase soft sounds. Once you get your adjustments where you want them, you can save these settings as a custom program, so you can quickly access them again from your program menu. The app also lets you do a few other things like adjust the tap control settings of your hearing aids and initiate a remote programming session, in case you can not make it into your hearing care providers office. Now there are a bunch of advantages of using Bluetooth classic and Bluetooth low-energy inside of the Phonak Audeo Paradise hearing aids, but there are a few negatives as well. So Bluetooth classic only allows you to pair up one hearing aid with the smart device. Now it will let you stream the audio from the smart device into that one hearing aid and then it will route it over to its partner device to give you stereo hearing. But if that main connection hearing aid either runs out of battery or that hearing aid breaks down, you literally cannot stream any audio even into the still functioning hearing aid.

The other issue is that Bluetooth classic does use more battery life, which means that the Phonak Audeo Paradise rechargeable hearing aids will never be the smallest rechargeable hearing aid that you use. However, overall, the Phonak Audeo Paradise rechargeable and non-rechargeable Bluetooth hearing aids are some of the most impressive Bluetooth hearing aids that I've ever seen. Now the third and final hearing aid to make my list of best Bluetooth hearing aids in 2022 is the Phonak Virto Marvel custom in the ear hearing aid. Now the reason that the Phonak Virto Marvel ITE hearing aid made the list of best Bluetooth hearing aids of 2022, even though it's a generation behind the Phonak Audeo Paradise is that it gives you this Bluetooth classic capability inside of a device that goes all inside of your ear. Just like the Audeo Paradise, the virtual Marvel can stream from virtually any other Bluetooth device directly into both of your hearing aids. You can also stream from a TV connector. It has integrated Roger receivers, just like the Audeo Paradise for streaming from a Rodger remote microphone and you still have separate audio customization's inside of the programming software. So you can customize this audio specifically for what you're trying to hear. In fact, the only things that you do not get with the Virtual Marvel that you did get with the Audeo Paradise is the ability to be connected to two different devices at the exact same time. And you cannot use the ActiveVent receiver. Otherwise, from a Bluetooth perspective, there is very little difference between the Phonak Audeo Paradise and the Phonak Virto Marvel. Now, like I mentioned before, the Phonak Vitro Marvel is one generation behind the Phonak Audeo Paradise, but I have a feeling like Phonak is gonna be releasing the Phonak Virto Paradise at some point in 2022, which will allow you to have an in the ear hearing aid that can be actively connected to two Bluetooth devices at the exact same time.

So if you are not yet subscribed to my channel with notifications turned on now is a very good time to do that so you do not miss that announcement. Now, I know that I left some amazing hearing aids off of my list of best Bluetooth hearing aids of 2022, like the Starkey Evolv AI, the Signia Pure AX, the WideX Moments, the ReSound ONE, but I left them off of the best Bluetooth hearing aids list because of either connectivity issues or quality of streaming issues. It's not to say that they are not suitable Bluetooth devices and fantastic hearing aids in their own right. I'm just telling you what I think the best ones are. Now, here's the kicker. Eventually we are gonna see a new form of Bluetooth hit the scene, which is called LE audio and uses the LC3 Bluetooth Codec. And this is going to completely change the way that Bluetooth functions within hearing aids. So if you wanna check out my video, talking about that new form of Bluetooth, make sure that you check that out down in the description because that is going to be a game changer. That's it for this video. If you have any questions, leave them in the comment section below. If you liked the video, please share it in a forum. To see other videos, just like this one, go ahead and hit that subscribe button. Also feel free to check out my website, Dr.CliffAud.com.