Hey guys, Cliff Olson, Doctor of Audiology and founder of Applied Hearing Solutions in Phoenix, Arizona, and in this video I'm talking about the four different types of Bluetooth and how to decide which one is right for you.
Bluetooth started as a way to transmit data wirelessly over short distances using an ultra high frequency radio wave, which eliminated the need to always use cables. In the grand scheme of thing, it really hasn't been around that long, but the first Bluetooth headset was released officially in 1999. I don't know what you were doing back in 1999, but I was still a junior in high school and you probably didn't need hearing aids yet.
Of course, this earliest form of Bluetooth could not transmit data that quickly and it could only transmit it over a very short distance, approximately 10 meters at the time, which significantly limited its capabilities.
Fortunately, Bluetooth technology has improved greatly over the past several decades, and it has gained widespread adoption to the point where pretty much every electronic device out there has some form of Bluetooth inside of it. Of course, it was just a matter of time before this Bluetooth technology worked its way inside of hearing aids, and it did that back in 2014.
This was great because it allowed you to stream audio directly from your smartphone into your hearing aids. This included music, audio, books, podcasts, YouTube videos, and even phone calls. But over the past 10 years, we've gone from one form of Bluetooth inside of hearing aids to now four different types of Bluetooth inside of hearing aids.
That's why I feel like it's time for me to explain what these different forms of Bluetooth are, so you can actually decide which one is right for you.
But before I do, do me a huge favor and hit the like button. It really helps out the channel, and if you are not, you'll subscribe to the channel with notifications turned on. Go ahead and do that as well. It is greatly appreciated and a huge shout out to Phonak for sponsoring today's video, but more on them in a little bit.
Also, let me know down in the comment section whether or not Bluetooth is an important feature for you to have inside of your hearing aids.
The first form of Bluetooth that we had was MFI, Bluetooth Low Energy Technology. This stood for made for iPhone and for several years this was the only form of Bluetooth that individuals with hearing aids had access to, and you could only stream audio from an iPhone or an iPad into a few different brands of hearing aid as the name Bluetooth.
Low energy suggests it was really good at preserving battery life because it did not maintain a constant connection between your smart device and your hearing aids. However, it was not, and still is not the best when it comes to audio streaming. That's because this form of Bluetooth is very short range and it does not pass through walls very easily and the sound quality is subpar. But the biggest problem with this form of Bluetooth is that it was only compatible with Apple devices and everyone who had an Android device was left out of all the fun.
So this led to the development of the ASHA Bluetooth protocol. The second form of Bluetooth, which stands for audio streaming for hearing aids, was an extension of Bluetooth Low Energy developed by Google in 2019. This allowed individuals with made for iPhone hearing aids to stream audio from an Android device into their ears.
Reliability, audio quality of the ASHA Bluetooth protocol is rough at best, and it's probably the least supported form of Bluetooth out there considering that not even all Android phones have this form of Bluetooth, which is why the third form of hearing aid Bluetooth called Bluetooth classic is so popular among hearing aid users.
Bluetooth classic allowed hearing aid users to connect their hearing aids up to pretty much any wireless device out there, whether it was an Apple device, Android device, or anything else that had Bluetooth classic. That's because Bluetooth classic is the most widely used form of Bluetooth in the entire world. Not to mention it offers better sound quality and more reliable data transmission compared to Bluetooth low energy or the ASHA Bluetooth protocol.
It was also the first form of Bluetooth that allowed you to go completely hands free when talking on the phone. That's why Phonak. Today's video sponsor upgraded their Bluetooth classic from version 4.2 to version 5.3 inside of their Infinio and sphere Infinio hearing aids, which added a lot of new features.
While you can still pair your Phonak hearing aids up to eight different Bluetooth devices with two active connections at the same time. This updated version of Bluetooth Classic has allowed Phonak to significantly increase their signal strength for greater wireless transmission going from a distance of 30 feet to 60 feet without the audio cutting in and out on you.
This update is also allowed for something called Smart own Voice Pickup. This is when you're hands free talking on the phone and your hearing aids are picking up your voice. The hearing aids can identify which one of the hearing aids has a cleaner signal of your own voice to send off to the person on the other end of the line, and it can do this in the middle of a phone call. So if your voice is being picked up better in your right ear to start off the phone call, but then it's being picked up better in your left ear, it can make that switch automatically for you to make sure that the person on the other end of the line hears you really well.
Another big feature improvement that Phonak made with this new update is their My Phonak app version 6.9. This updated version of the My Phonak app is better than ever. Now. You still have the ability to use the app to:
- Change the volume of your hearing aids
- Mute your hearing aids
- Switch between different programs, whether they're programs that were made for you by your hearing care professional or whether they're programs you made for yourself
- Track your usage and health data
- Have a remote care session with your hearing care professional if you cannot make it into their office
But you can also do several new things such as:
- Check the Battery Life estimates, so you know how many hours of usage time you have left
- Make custom adjustments to the programming of your cross transmitter where you can turn on and off the CROS or adjust the balance of sound (if using an Infinio hearing aid with cross transmitter)
- Use the new GPS locator, so you no longer have to worry if you lose your hearing aids because you can now track your hearing aids using your My Phone app
With all the improvements that phone app has made to their my phone app app, it is no surprise why it now has 4.4 stars inside of the Google Play Store and 4.2 stars in the App store. This makes the MyPhonak app one of the most popular hearing aid apps among hearing aid users.
Now, if you've been counting along with me, you know that that is three different forms of Bluetooth, but this fourth form of Bluetooth is a brand new form and it's called audio. And this new form of Bluetooth is loaded with a ton of cool features powered by the new low complexity communication codec or LC3 for short.
It allows for a significant upgrade in streaming sound quality at lower bit rates. As you can see on this bar graph in comparison to the old SBC codec that could only go as low as 240 kilobits per second, but significantly degraded the sound quality.
Not only does LE Audio Bluetooth give you significantly better sound quality than the other forms of Bluetooth, but it can do this with a much lower battery drain, which is critical when it comes to really small electronic devices like hearing aids, but there's more LE Audio.
Bluetooth also allows for multiple synchronous connections. Basically, this means that you can share the audio from one smart device to multiple other devices like hearing aids or headphones. Imagine this, you and your spouse are flying across the country and you both wanna watch the same movie on your tablet. Well, if that tablet is equipped with Le Audio Bluetooth, you could use your hearing aids and they could use their hearing aids or their earbuds that have LE Audio and you could both tap into that tablet at the exact same time and listen to the movie together.
But perhaps the most exciting thing about LE Audio Bluetooth is its ability to give you access to something called Auracast Broadcast audio or cast broadcast audio allows you to stream audio from a public venue like a museum, a Broadway show, church, movie theater, or even sports bar directly into both of your hearing aids.
And because this feature will be available to everyone, not just hearing aid users, we should expect to see a significant amount of public venues having Auracast broadcast transmitters for you to gain access to their audio and Phonak's new ERA wireless chip inside of their Infinio and sphere, Infinio hearing aids or or a cast ready when it comes to all audio Bluetooth.
The only thing that we're really waiting for is the rest of the world to catch up with the hearing aid industry because as of right now, you cannot find that many other electronic devices like smartphones, tablets, laptops, and TVs that are equipped with LE Audio Bluetooth. But when the rest of the consumer electronics world actually catches up, you will start to see LE Audio Bluetooth as being the gold standard.
Alright, so let's go ahead and do a quick recap of these four different types of Bluetooth connectivity:
- Made for iPhone Bluetooth low energy: This was the first form of Bluetooth used inside of hearing aids, and while it wasn't perfect, it at least got the ball rolling
- ASHA Bluetooth protocol: Honestly, I can say this was better than nothing, but not that much better than nothing
- Bluetooth classic: Then we saw a massive jump forward when it came to Bluetooth classic because this allowed hearing aid users to connect their hearing aids up to a lot of different wireless devices, whether they were Apple devices or Android devices
- LE Audio Bluetooth: And now we're working our way into the future of Bluetooth connectivity with LE Audio Bluetooth
I'm happy to say that with a decade of hearing aid Bluetooth experience, we have made significant strides forward when it comes to this form of wireless connectivity, and the best part is it continues to get better and better, and while chances are 10 years from now, the Bluetooth connectivity will be even better than what we have today. It's really exciting to see how far we've come and how useful Bluetooth can be in your hearing aids.
So I've gotta say it is definitely an exciting time to be a hearing aid user if Bluetooth connectivity is important to you.It is crazy to see how far Hearing Aid Bluetooth has come.
