Hearing Health News – March ’22

It was a relatively slow month as far as impactful news goes, but it’s likely the calm before the storm. 

With the Academy of Audiology hosting their annual industry expo from March 30-April 2nd, we’re likely to see several newsworthy announcements from manufacturers in the coming days, which we’ll report on in April’s post. 

We expect at least one new hearing aid to be announced during this expo, but probably nothing incredibly noteworthy—we’re looking to Fall for that. 

iOS 15.4 update requires re-pairing of Bluetooth hearing aids to apps

iOS 15.4 was released on March 14th, and within days the calls began to come in—

“My app doesn’t work.”

“My hearing aids don’t stream.”

“These hearing aids are garbage!”

We soon learned that the iOS 15.4 update breaks the established connection between the phone and the app, resulting in a black screen and prompting the user to pair the hearing aids again.

This problem affected all major brands and models except those that use classic Bluetooth, such as Phonak Paradise. 

If you’ve had this issue, here’s the fix: 

1) Un-pair the hearing aids in IOS settings with the app running in the background.

2) Re-pair your hearing aids with the app still running in the background.

3) Go back to the app and complete the pairing flow as prompted.

This is a good time to mention—

Anytime anything wonky happens with your Bluetooth hearing aids and/or app, the first step of troubleshooting should always be unpairing and re-pairing your hearing aids via Bluetooth. 

If that doesn’t work, almost all manufacturers then recommend deleting and reinstalling the app. 

If that doesn’t work, contact your hearing aid manufacturer via their Bluetooth support line. 

Phonak TV Connector D back in stock

In what is hopefully a bellwether of the supply chain crisis easing, Phonak announced their TV Connector D accessory is now available. 

We’re not sure how “newsworthy” this is, but since so many of our customers are subscribed to our blog and have been waiting for this to be available, we thought we should announce it here. 

This popular accessory plugs into TV’s and other audio sources and allows for direct connectivity of most new Phonak hearing aids, just like wireless headphones. 

Most people use this accessory to stream audio from the TV wirelessly, right into their hearing aids, in stereo sound. The nice thing about it is it allows the hearing aid wearer to set their own TV volume in their hearing aids, while everyone else in the room can keep the TV volume at their preferred level, or the volume can even be turned off. 

The range is about 30 feet, and it can stream to an unlimited amount of connected hearing aids. 

Phonak has raised the price on this accessory, so we’ve had to as well, and it is now available for $279, up from pre-pandemic price of $249. 

If you’re interested in this accessory, we recommend getting it while you can, as China’s new COVID lockdowns threaten to exacerbate already stressed supply chains.