FP3+ & FP4 & FP5 hearing aids and direct streaming

[Lidwien]

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.

[Freigeist]

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.

[Freigeist]

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.

Phonak | Life is ON

[Nico_Horstink]

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

[phonefrog]

Many thanks. This info is valuable as:

1. It works also on a custom Rom (/e/) without proprietory Google ASHA
   2.Working is depending on the HA-chip and not only on the phone
   3.Time seems to be over for HA-manufacturers to determine the phone we have to use and I can stay with my Fairphone.
   Very good news!
   I hope it will also work with a Linux-computer.

[urs_lesse]

Mainly linking for reference reasons, maybe some of the German-speaking folks can contribute: 🇩🇪 Telefonieren mit Hörgeräten (Oticon)

[Popko]

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

[Freigeist]

Hello @Popko

which hearing aids do you have?

Regarding ASHA:

@phonefrog

As far as I understood ASHA cannot be downloaded but must be included from OEM at the beginning into the software of a phone. It also seems that OEM has to pay for it to Google. How much I do not know.

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.

[phonefrog]

@Freigeist

´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…

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.

[Popko]

Sorry for taking some time to answer …
The hearing aids I use are: AMPLIFON AMPLI-ENERGY R 3 P R SLV

[MathiasS]

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

[Freigeist]

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

Bluetooth audio bug on Android 12

I seem to have a problem with Bluetooth audio after updating to Android 12. It simply doesn’t play. Is anyone experiencing the same problem? I have tried to clear Bluetooth cache, unpair and restart, but that doesn’t help.

I hope this will be solved with the next update.

[NienkeFleur]

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.

[anon9989719]

@NienkeFleur

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.

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

[Freigeist]

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:

Bluetooth audio bug on Android 12

Hi, I’ve done some troubleshooting and can probably explain why some users are reporting the bug as fixed, while others still have issues. The FP4.SP21.B.048.20230215 update does indeed fix aptX HD. It does NOT fix aptX or aptX Adaptive. LDAC works but does NOT get automatically used, see workarounds 2 and 3 below. Bluetooth devices that support aptX or aptX Adaptive will automatically use these over AAC or aptX HD because the FP4 lists these broken ones as higher priority in the bluetooth aud…

[Hallkom]

Just got Phonak hearing aids today and could not pair them with FP4. Very disappointing. Hope this will be solved going forward.

[Lidwien]

In another thread on the Fairphone 4 @Yasen_Tomov wrote

@Yasen_Tomov

Hello everyone,

We are aware that the issues related to aptX were only partially resolved with a previous software update. I’m happy to share that our Software Team has prepared a fix for the remaining 2 variants of aptX, and that it will likely be included in the July update.

I’ll let you know when the timing is more concrete

[Tineke]

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

[Freigeist]

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.

[Popko]

Just read about the coming of Fp5. Does anybody know it will work with my Amplifon hearing aids (using ASHA protocol)?