Hi guys. Rachael Cook, doctor of audiology at Applied Hearing Solutions in Phoenix, Arizona, and in today's video, I'm gonna be telling you how to pair your made for iPhone hearing aids to your MacBook. Coming up.

Back in 2013, the first Bluetooth compatible hearing aids were released, altering the hearing aids space forever. Now, nearly all hearing aids come equipped with Bluetooth transmitters, allowing you to pair to your smartphone to take phone calls, listen to music, audio books, and more. And for the average hearing aid user, this has been enough.

However, during the pandemic, many hearing aid users actually shifted into remote work. This brought up a relatively new need for a Bluetooth connection between their hearing aids and their laptop computers. This was in an effort to use the same great sound quality and volume achieved when streaming from the phone for other things like remote trainings and conference calls through Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and even Google Meet.

Now, some hearing aids that use Bluetooth Classic could already provide this function by being paired in the Bluetooth menu just like any other Bluetooth device would be. For example, Phonak and Unitron devices utilize Bluetooth Classic, so they can already be paired up to phones, of course, but they could also be Bluetooth paired to TVs, laptops, computers, things like that.

However, the same could not be said for made for iPhone hearing aids like Oticon, Signia, Widex, Starkey, and ReSound Made for iPhone hearing aids use a different type of Bluetooth transmission called Bluetooth Low Energy that only made them compatible with iPhones and select iPads. In order to connect to a laptop computer, an accessory device was required to essentially serve as the translator or the connector between the device you were trying to pair up to and your hearing aids.

While this is still true for PC based computers, new developments in the Apple space mean that made for iPhone hearing aids can now pair to select MacBooks directly without the use of a streamer. That's why today I'll be telling you how you can connect your Made for iPhone hearing aids to your MacBook without having to use anything in between.

But before we do that, if you could please give this video a thumbs up. It really helps bring videos like these to a wider audience. And while you're at it, go ahead and hit that subscribe button with notification bell so that you never miss any one of our newly released videos because we put out a lot.

Now to get started with pairing your Made for iPhone hearing aids to your MacBook, you'll first need compatible hearing aids to see if your hearing aids are able to direct pair to your MacBook, you'll need to head over to the Apple website. This will tell you if your hearing aids can only pair to iPhone, or if they have an asterisk, are able to connect to both iPhones and MacBook computers.

These include popular new models such as Oticon Intent, ReSound Nexia, Signia Pure Charge&Go IX, Starkey Genesis AI, and the Jabra Enhance lineup.

Next, you'll need a MacBook computer with an M1 or an M2 chip. The easiest way to know if your computer has one of these chips is by selecting the apple in the upper left of your home screen and selecting About This Mac. Here you'll see if your device has Intel Core as the processor or instead supplies chip information such as M1 and M2.

One easy way to know if you're already immediately disqualified is if your MacBook is from 2020 or earlier since the M1 and the M2 chips came out at the very tail end of 2020. And after that, you'll also wanna ensure that your operating system has been updated to Sonoma for this to work.

If your computer is not updated, you'll need to head to the Apple icon. Again, select System Settings, head to General and click on Software Updates.

After this has been completed, you can begin the pairing process between your hearing aids and your MacBook computer, which is actually a really similar process to the same way that you pair your hearing aids to your iPhone.

First, begin by turning off the Bluetooth on your iPhone so that the hearing aids do not try to connect to your phone. Next, over in System Settings, select Accessibility and then Hearing Devices.

From there, you will need to put your hearing aids in pairing mode, which can be done by putting your hearing aids in and out of your charger or by opening and closing your battery doors. After that, the hearing aids will pop up as options on your screen with an R for the right aid, an L for the left aid, or R + L, indicating that there is a set of hearing aids.

If you have two devices, make sure you're nice and patient here and really wait for both of those devices to pop up as right and left. Otherwise, the sound will only stream into one hearing aid or the other. After that, you can select connect, and then you're all paired up and ready to go.

Just to remember that you're made for iPhone hearing aids cannot be connected to both your phone and your MacBook at the same time. Just as regular Bluetooth headphones will not connect to two separate devices at the same time either.

Just be cognizant of this when you're switching back and forth between your phone and your computer, as this may require toggling Bluetooth options off and on, and it may require restarting your hearing aids as well. And if you can't manage to figure this out on your own, be sure to ask your hearing care provider to help guide you through this process. Don't forget that they are there to serve you and to make sure that all of your hearing needs are met.

Overall, this incredible update is just another way that hearing aids can become multifunction devices that can provide benefit to you beyond the standard face-to-face conversation.