Frankly speaking: This ASHA is a miracle for me. For GN resound the Fairphone support and GN resound said that it will not work, but it works for FP 4 with the only exception:
Streaming of phone calls is not possible.
Would be very interested to learn where is this ASHA installed? Is it in the firmware of the processor? If so, could it work also with a Custom Rom?
Hi there,
i asked the support about this issue becaus e I have reSound hearing aids:
āI would like to know if there are plans to make ASHA available on the Fairphone 3. As a wearer of hearing aids I had trusted that Bluetooth 5 and Android 10 would suffice. Iāve been waiting for Fairphone to develop for a year now - so Iām basically patient. But now I donāt like to wait anymore.ā
and what they answered:
"A lot of our efforts go into testing to make sure you have a great working Fairphone, but as a smaller company, we have simply not had the opportunity to test a the vast majority of third-party products like your reSound hearing aid.
Although itās great to hear that you are interested in using your Fairphone with the ASHA standard, this is not included in the official specifications for the Fairphone 3/3+ because it is not compatible due to platform limitations.
I welcome you to check out our community forum for like-minded people that share your interests and could be using the same product. The more people we have sharing their input, the more information we have to direct our testing and lead to an update more quickly.
If your post gets many upvotes or comments in the community, it will help us focus our efforts to better support you."
So please give a lot of answers and comments to my post 
6 Likes
Well, do not know how I can help.
For me the main problem is to understand what really is ASHA, where is it included and whether it can be included by OEM to firmware later on. I spend hours in the internet to learn details about ASHA but did not succeed.
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. My testing showed that Fairphone 3 is not alone with not working with GN-Resound. Most current phones do not stream to this Hearing Aid and even most of Samsung phones do not. There is only a very limited number of phones streaming to GN, i.e. the high-class phones of Samsung ( the others mostly do not) and some Google Pixel. My FP4 streams despite FP stated it does not, but for FP 4 telephone calls are not streamed and can be answered only by pressing the phone to the ear/hearing aid. There is no feedback noise for me and therefore normal handling and no problem! But this could be dependent on the sound amplification which is different for every person.
Of course it would be great if FP3 would include ASHA. Is this technically possible? The same applies the other 100 phones that do not have ASHA. A important question is also
why there are Hearing Aids working without ASHA only with Bluetooth and why GN needs ASHA. I asked this question already to GN but did not get an answer satisfying me. I think therefore at least 50 p.c. responsibility is for Hearing Aid manufacturer to make these units working with all kinds of modern phones.
For the future:
I will not accept any hearing aid which is limited only to some phones.
3 Likes
Me too - I will also not accept hearing aid that is limited only to some cell phone
2 Likes
I use Resound hearing aids too, with the same limitations for connection to my FP4. The helpdesk could not help me and suggested the community where trere appear many other users with the same question. @ FP Developers: Please integrate the Asha protocol, you will make many users happier with their FP. My hearing aid supplier told I had to buy a cellphone with at least Android 7 or 8. I Like the FP concept very much and did not want to buy an I-phone. So I bought the FP 4, expecting the possibility to connect my Hearing aids. The lack of usability with my hearing aids disappointed me a lot. I am not alone in this and hope other users will support this demand to Fairphone.
Regards, Nico
3 Likes
I have an FP3+ and have just been given new Danalogic GN Ambio Smart 77 hearing aids. I donāt yet know whether these are going to work with my phone. It would be good if it did, although this conversation is not very encouraging. I have plenty of aids-using friends of a similar age to whom I would like to be able to recommend FPs.
1 Like
Please keep us informed.
Hope that we will get in this forum some more info which hearing aid
works with FP 3 or FP 4.
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
1 Like
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 āboth earsā 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 . .
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
ā¦
Iād like to inform you that unfortunately the Fairphone 4 does not support ASHA protocols, this is because of platform limitations.
ā¦
1 Like
I wonder what āplatform limitationā means sounds like cheese speak.
1 Like
For me it sounds like the used SOC does not support it.
1 Like
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 IĀ“m still waiting for a reply:
Hello everyone!
Related to the topic ā(feature request) dual audio support (BT 5.0) = how to recycle old bluetooth speakersā I want to mention another use case for dual audio:
IĀ“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 donĀ“t have that problem on my computer since itĀ“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:
IĀ“ve read the topic āFP3+ & FP4 hearing aids and direct streamingā and since IĀ“m going to buy new hearing aids soon and want to stay with Fairphone (I started with FP2), IĀ“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 IĀ“ll buy in the end (itĀ“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 donĀ“t support connections to my hearing aids.
It would be nice if you can tell me something positive regarding these issues.
IĀ“ll keep you updated about what Fairphone Support is going to answer to this question.
1 Like
I got the first answer from Support regarding ASHA. They clearly said there wonĀ“t be ASHA support for FP3/4.
There was no information about future plans mentioned.
1 Like
Pity they didnāt explain why 
1 Like
@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 wonĀ“t be a solution for this.
4 Likes
Unfortunate news. But I think this topic is very good to have, those affected might want to stay in touch somehow. If thereās 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.
1 Like
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.
1 Like
Some answers here have suggested that the answer to this problem is either a non-Fairphone or new hearing aids. Iām pretty happy with my phone and given the ethics and other considerations donāt want to feel obliged to change. My hearing aids come from the National Health Service and I donāt 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!
3 Likes
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 arenĀ“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!
4 Likes