FP3+ & FP4 & FP5 hearing aids and direct streaming

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28

The speech processor of Cochlear Implants can stream directly to compatible Android 10 smartphones. Nowadays there are a lot of Android 10 smartphones including my FP3.
But it is not working as the ASHA protocol is apparently not activated.

I was thinking about replacing my FP3 with a smartphone that has ASHA protocol activated.

Is there anyone who knows that Fairphone actually confirmed that FP4 does not have the ASHA protocol activated?
If that is the case does anyone know if Fairphone is planning for future Fairphones (e.g. FP5) to have the ASHA protocol activated?

13% of the US population aged 12 or older has hearing loss in both ears

So I think that is not a small market share.

I think it would be nice if Fairphone would take once more the lead as a pioneer (by dreaming about creating a fairly produced smartphone) and adopt the ASHA protocol.

I know that is only a dream for the moment. But Fairphone did prove they can make dreams a reality :slight_smile:

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29

Hi and welcome to the forum

I was looking for something to say the 13% was unlikely and a biased statistical interpretation. 1 in 7 people seems unbelievable ~ then I found this

We estimate that 14.3% of Americans aged 12 and over have a hearing loss in both ears. That corresponds to about 38.2 million people over the age of 12 in the United States today. We also explored how common hearing loss is at different ages and found that the percentage of people with hearing loss approximately doubles with every decade of life. As such, hearing loss is much more common among older adults and 91% of adults with hearing loss are aged 50 and older.
https://www.jhucochlearcenter.org/how-many-people-have-hearing-loss-united-states.html

However if this were true

We also explored how common hearing loss is at different ages and found that the percentage of people with hearing loss approximately doubles with every decade of life.

14% at 12
28% at 24
48% at 36
96% at 72

Would mean that only 4% of people over 72 can hear well, that seems untenable given that the first part is ‘both ears’ not in one ear at least.

But then hearing loss is relative and subjective, so what does it really mean.

I doubt there is statistics for every person from 6 to 12 to see if there has been a significant hearing loss

etc. etc.

None of this is meant counter support for the ASHA but no doubt Fairphone have their reason, which you may like to ask them about. FP5 . . . support at fairphone dot . .

30

Here is again the answer I got from FP-Suppot last year (as I already told above)

Jenni (Fairphone)

Nov 25, 2021, 11:49 GMT+1

…
I’d like to inform you that unfortunately the Fairphone 4 does not support ASHA protocols, this is because of platform limitations.
…

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31

I wonder what ‘platform limitation’ means sounds like cheese speak.

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32

For me it sounds like the used SOC does not support it.

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33

I got hearing aids, too and have the same issues. Regarding this I wrote following Email to Fairphone support but apart from an automatic message I´m still waiting for a reply:

Hello everyone!

Related to the topic “(feature request) dual audio support (BT 5.0) = how to recycle old bluetooth speakers” I want to mention another use case for dual audio:

I´m wearing hearing aids, which I connect via BT to my FP3. The HAs put the sound in my ears like any audio plug, too and at the same time the HAs are using their own microfone for recording my speach.
But here is actually the problem:
If I connect the HAs to the FP3, this is the only connection. There is no way to use the HAs only for hearing and at the same time to connect another microfone for speaking.

This is ok in a very quiet environment but as soon you are on the street, at work or in a bar nobody can understand you anymore since the microfones of the HAs are always focussed in front of you (of course, since they are made to record sounds like that).

So, the use case is to hear sound on one BT connection and speak on another connection.

This is actually bothering me for years now. I don´t have that problem on my computer since it´s very easy to decide myself in the (Windows) audio settings which hardware I want to use for sound in and which for sound out.

Is there a solution for this? Or is something planned?

Other than this issue with the dual connection:

I´ve read the topic “FP3+ & FP4 hearing aids and direct streaming” and since I´m going to buy new hearing aids soon and want to stay with Fairphone (I started with FP2), I´m really interested in any progress in this direction. Right now it looks quite bad, from the information in this topic.

Depending on what hearing aids I´ll buy in the end (it´s not about what I like but what works best for me) I will or I will not buy the FP4 (FP5). Since I will use these hearing aids for at least 6 years, I might not even buy the FP6 and FP7 if they don´t support connections to my hearing aids.

It would be nice if you can tell me something positive regarding these issues.

I´ll keep you updated about what Fairphone Support is going to answer to this question.

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34

I got the first answer from Support regarding ASHA. They clearly said there won´t be ASHA support for FP3/4.
There was no information about future plans mentioned.

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35

Pity they didn’t explain why :frowning:

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36

@Solveig wrote me:

Unfortunately, both the Fairphone 3 and the Fairphone 4 are not compatible with ASHA protocols due to platform limitations. My sincere apologies for the inconvenience.

Very friendly, but in the end with this being a problem of platform limitations, there won´t be a solution for this.

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37

Unfortunate news. But I think this topic is very good to have, those affected might want to stay in touch somehow. If there’s a group of people concerned, Fairphone might establish a more organized contact with you, at least for input for future developing. If enough Fairphoners concerned are interested, you might want to set up a forum group at one point.

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38

Ik experience the same problem. I specially bought the FP4 because the hearingaid shop said I should buy a phone with at least Android 7. So I did and found the FP4 useless for the hearingaid controller. I like the FP4 very much, formerly because of the sustainability. I really hope, in fact expect Fairphone, will be solving this issue. There anre many other users facing the same problem. I expect from the company with those very good goals theat FP is a good solution.

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40

Some answers here have suggested that the answer to this problem is either a non-Fairphone or new hearing aids. I’m pretty happy with my phone and given the ethics and other considerations don’t want to feel obliged to change. My hearing aids come from the National Health Service and I don’t want to be obliged to spend thousands of pounds on going private either. My sense is that at present the solution may well be beyond the limits of what Fairphone (and some bigger mainstream companies) can achieve . However it is an important equality issue. Getting a solution would add significantly to the benefits of both the phone and hearing aids so it would be good to know that Fairphone and its users are pressing for a viable and affordable solution. Think I am going to write to my MP!

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41

I got an answer for this question from @Emma from FP support.
A very friendly Email, which essencially says that FP is a very small company with limited resources, which are mostly used to produce a working phone and they aren´t able to test many third-party software products.

But she gave me the hint, that we maybe can get some of these resources allocated if there is enough interest in the community (Forum).

So, everyone, who would like this individually adjustable dual connection BT option, please give an upvote here or write more related comments in this thread!

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42

At least in Germany I see more and more little kids wearing hearing aids, I don´t know about the details, but I´d say that either there are much more kids hearing bad than 20 years ago or the doctors do more testing and give kids the first hearing aids at a much earlier age (the technology is much better than 20 years ago, so this would make sense).

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43

Please bear in mind that normally hearing aids use 2 BT-connections. One for every ear. I also tried with another phone (not Fairphone) to connect a third BT-decice. It did not work.

Usually you can test a HA at home for some days. I tested many (Think the specialist hates me for for this :wink: - so you can find the right one. In my opinion it is mainly a matter of the chip in the HA whether it connects to many different BT-connections or not. The so-called ASHA is nice but I assume that in future more and more HAs will connect like other BT-devices to all modern phones.
My FP 4 works with my HA for streaming music and audio books- without ASHA. But telcons are not streamed. For me no problem as I can use the loudspeaker instead but for other people it is a problem.
Test as much as you can even if the seller hates you ;-

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44

Thank you for pointing this problem with one BT connection for each HA. I didn´t think of this. And you are right - this is a problem with other phones, too.
But it´s still registered as only one BT device on the smartphone.

If I compare this with the audio device settings of the HAs on the Windows computer, there I can see more options in the device list (for example for my ComPilot from Phonak):

  • Connection with HA audio/mic
  • Connection with HA audio
  • Connection with HA mic
  • Connection with other mic

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With these options, I can pick audio for my HAs (better sound quality than with the audio/mic option) and use the other microfone for speaking.

I would really appreciate it, if I could do the same on my phone.

45

I connect my hearing aids with my Compilot II and the Compilot II connects as one connection through bluetooth to my Fairphone 3 and the same for my Fairphone 4.

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46

Exactly.
But when you do a call, there is no way to use only audio to HA and as mic the phone or an external BT mic.

47

I´m testing the Phonak Audeo Life right now and I can already confirm it´s compatible with FP3+ with /e/ and Windows 10 computers (with BT chips generations from the last two years - I didn´t test older ones).
The ComPilot isn´t necessary anymore and the “myPhonak” app is working.

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48

Dear Freigeist, i’m installing the Phonac app and Will try out on my Resound aids. A first bit of hope since long. Thanks

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