Is there anything new about this item? Why cannot Fairphone bring the Asha protocol in a software update or something like that? I am sincerely missing some options of my hearing aids because I cannot connect them with my Fairphone 3
Hello @Popko
which hearing aids do you have?
Regarding ASHA:
So, you can you could start a poll in the forum to ask how many FP users do have ASHA hearing aids and send the result to FP support.
If there are enough, then maybe they will include it.
I learnt from this post that it seems not to depend on ASHA only but also on the hearing-aid itself. Resound is closely connected to Apple and only fully compatible to some dedicated phones e.g. Samsung and Pixel. But there are aids like Phonak working also with customs roms and I don’t believe that /e/ includes proprietory
ASHA.
My decision for next hearing aid is clear: Will accept only one working with nearly all phones like Bluetooth ear plugs do.
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Sorry for taking some time to answer …
The hearing aids I use are: AMPLIFON AMPLI-ENERGY R 3 P R SLV
So I need to look for hearing aids in the upcomming time frame. Using a FP3+ it would be intersting if something new came up from Fiarphone about this topic?
Thank you
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Right now I can’t use the Phonak Audeo Life anymore with my FP3 with /e/.
This started with the last update, so I think it´s related to the Bluetooth-audio-bug from
I hope this will be solved with the next update.
I came across this whilst looking for something else, but in my FP4 (build number FP4.SP28.B.065.20230420 Android 12 security update of 5 April 2023) in settings>accessibility there is a specific setting for hearing aids (under the header “Audio”)
Clicking it gives me the message “To pair your hearing aids, find and tap your device on the next screen. Make sure that your hearing aids are in pairing mode”, which I can either “cancel” (just exits the message pop up) or “continue” which brings me to a screen that looks identical to me to the regular Bluetooth connection screen.
My headphones (Fairbuds XL) do show up in there as well if I put it in pairing mode, but if I connect it here, it just connects as headphones, whilst the “Hearing aids” setting still displays “No hearing aids connected”, which seems to indicate that it is at the very least able to tell whether a Bluetooth device are hearing aids as opposed to headphones.
I don’t have hearing aids myself, so I can’t check anything more with actual hearing aids, but it might be something to look into for FP4 users who do have hearing aids. Perhaps FP has introduced some updates that now allow it to function better than before.
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Hi and welcome to the forum
Just to clarify this is a user forum and Fairphone will not the message unless they are contacted directly by a user, maybe via support@fairphone.com
I believe this is a problem with the last two OS versions, which have a problem with AptX or so.
The connection with my hearing aids (Phonak Audeo) did work before and I hope we’ll get a patch for this soon.
This was discussed in another thread and seems to be a bug in android made by Google.
And there seem to be some possible workarounds but I didn’t test them by myself:
Just got Phonak hearing aids today and could not pair them with FP4. Very disappointing. Hope this will be solved going forward.
I need hearings and tested resound, wanted to buy but faced app problems. I’m glad to read in time the resound app problems, so now im testing phonak as well. It works very well at ff4
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Just an update:
In /e/ Murena 1.12.3 I still can’t connect my Phonak Life Audeo hearing aids. This was possible up to two system updates before.
But regarding the problem, I think it’s still the Android BT audio bug. When I go to the developer settings and check for codecs, then all codecs are still greyed out there.
Just read about the coming of Fp5. Does anybody know it will work with my Amplifon hearing aids (using ASHA protocol)?
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Good question. I have forwarded your question to Fairphone.
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Today I got an answer on ASHA and the Fairphone 5:
Yes, it is supported and it also supports HAC (Hearing Aid Compatible) mode.
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In the app Settings, Accessibility an option appears Hearing Aids. I guess for this option you need hearing aids capable of direct bluetooh connection.
FP4 does support ASHA streaming. Source: I’ve tried it myself with a pair of Signia hearing aids about half a year ago (early 2023) for a few days. However, ASHA phone calls did not work (no audio), though this might be a software issue on any side.
(The same behavior applies to a few other smartphones from different brands which I don’t recall.)
Basically the same that @phonefrog reports for a GN device:
It’s not that easy. There are, for example, different PHY implementations (1M PHY, 2M PHY) with different bitrates. I don’t fully understand the ASHA spec but it might be read that 2M PHY is required.
This is not correct, as stated above.
I don’t know for sure but I guess ASHA comes by default in Android’s Open Source code or whatever Fairphone gets from Google and they did not explicitly disable it.
I don’t know for sure but it might be that you need to pay extra money to your acoustician/hearing aid vendor to have your hearing aid support ASHA.
ASHA support was added way later (Android 10 or 11 or so), so they are probably referring to bluetooth classic (the same standard that smartphones and cars have implemented since late 90ies). For this to work you would need an additional device which is paired to both your hearing aids and to the smartphone, which kind of translates from bluetooth classic to some proprietary protocol similar to or based on BLE. Something like what @Lidwien reports:
(your mileage may vary because your hearing aid vendor might have a different device.)
With the new hearing aids I get early October I don’t need a Compilot anymore. The hardware and software for connecting is then all included in the hearing aids. Phonak Audéo M50-R
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