Introduction
The process of pairing hearing aids with compatible devices can seem confusing and frustrating. Familiarity with the process helps you to understand different options, how to make the most of them, and why they might not be as effective as other approaches.
How Pairing Works
Pairing is a process that occurs when you connect your hearing aid to another device. This connection allows the device to send and receive audio signals via radio waves or cabled connection so that sound can reach your ear through both devices at the same time. Hearing aids are currently designed mainly for one-device per ear coupling (1DPC).
The most common hearing aid connectivity problems arise from the lack of an available physical connection or the inability to pair a device with the original equipment manufacturer’s hearing aids. The following guidelines will help you identify and troubleshoot these issues. Pairing is not necessary when you power on your device by using a
battery option such as batteries or a battery eliminator.
Hearing Aid Connectivity & Pairing
1. Bluetooth
Bluetooth® terminology can be confusing, especially when paired with hearing aids. When pairing via Bluetooth, there are two components involved: the hearing aid and the Bluetooth audio (BA) stream. The BA stream can be transmitted through wires or wirelessly. BA signals are managed by your body worn device (BBD). Wires must be connected to the BBD for BA to work with hearing aids.
The BA stream is a separate signal from the sound coming from your devices’ speakers or earbuds that you want to hear. The sound from the speaker is broadcast via visible light communication (VLC).
2. Wireless
There are several ways for a device to communicate with a hearing aid:
a. Air interface: Bluetooth connection, Wireless Network Adapter (WNA), or using your phone through a wireless service provider. Your hearing aid is paired with the end device via an air interface connection. b. Electrical interface: Using a Bluetooth dongle or AirLink by a PC/Mac or using mains or wiring via the HeadSet Window/deVivo Connect software. Your hearing aid is connected to your devices’ electrical signal input. c.
3. Connectivity Limitations
There are some limitations to be aware of when determining where and how you want to connect your hearing aid:
a. Bluetooth has limited bandwidth. This usually causes distortion and can affect speech understanding in noisy environments. b. Using the phone for streaming audio can reduce battery life and slow down data transmission rates for activities such as streaming video. c. If you have a WNA, it can only connect to one Bluetooth device at a time even if paired with multiple devices. d. A BBD can only communicate with one type of device. If you have multiple phones/tablets and a BBD, you will be required to pair each phone/tablet with a different Bluetooth device. e. Bluetooth devices are not compatible for use with technology such as Ambient Intelligence, Smart Glasses and the like. f. The speaker output volume on your hearing aids is limited to a maximum programmed level due to impedance matching limitations within the hearing aids.
Some devices such as wireless access points (WAPs) can be used to establish communication between 2 devices that are equipped with a BBD.
4. Battery-Powered Devices
Battery-powered devices such as iphones, laptops, and tablets can be used to setup a connection between your device and your hearing aid. You can use this connection to stream audio from your device through the hearing aids. For example, you can use the phone or laptop as a remote control from which to adjust volume and stream audio throughout the house without needing to turn on any external devices. Unfortunately, battery-powered devices usually do not include an audio input option for connecting a BBD for pairing.
5. Compatible Devices
Although some devices are compatible with hearing aids, it is not always clear what this means. For example, a phone that supports Bluetooth streaming (such as Apple AirPod) can be used with your hearing aid when it is battery-operated, but these phones do not generally include an audio input jack suitable for connecting a BBD. A BBD can be used to connect the phone/tablet to your hearing aids through the end device’s standard headphone jack. This connection will have to be done manually by selecting the phone’s audio output and switching to wireless Bluetooth before pairing.
6. Additional Considerations:
a. Bluetooth battery consumption can reduce hearing aid battery life significantly if you are using the phone for sound streaming.
b. Most Bluetooth headsets/headsets/earphones require an audio input jack to be connected to your hearing aids. If you have multiple sources of sound being transmitted by wire, a BBD is necessary to connect each source of sound with your hearing aids.
7. Additional Considerations:
a. You don’t need to do anything special when you pair the phone with your hearing aids the way they are designed (1DPC). Simply power on both devices and they will pair automatically, assuming that they are compatible with each other and their respective operating systems.
b. If you want to set up a 2DPC connection, you have to take the extra step of pairing your phone via Bluetooth with the BBD. Again this is a one-time process that allows you to use the phone to stream sound from any other connected device.
8. Some devices like wireless access points (WAPs) can be used to establish communication between 2 devices that are equipped with a BBD.
9. Additional Considerations:
a. You do not have to pair your hearing aids or BBD in order for them to work together if they are powered on and in range of each other’s Operating System (OS).
Conclusion
Although there are currently dozens of brands and hundreds of models of hearing aids, only a handful of these devices can be used to connect with wireless technology. If you want to be able to use any wireless device, it’s important that you get a BBD – but keep in mind that if the technology is not built-in to your hearing aid, you will need to add an external Bluetooth receiver.
We hope that this article was helpful; we want our readers to be better informed when they go out into the world so they can make better decisions about what technologies work best for them. This way they can interact with their environments more effectively and enjoy their lives more fully.