Answering a phone call on Apple watch with MFI hearing aids

Yes, incoming calls are showing up on the watch, however, if you answer them on the watch, mic and speaker of the watch are used, no way to connect it to the hearing aids. You have to get you iPhone out of the pocket and answer the call on the iPhone, in order to get the call directed to the hearing aids, and you will have to use the iphones mic.

it is very disappointing, but that seems to be an apple's restriction.

when I bought the watch I assumed that the call will be direc to my hearing aids, when answering the call on the watch, same as when answering it on the iPhone and that I could use the watch mic. It was one of the main factors for me to buy the watch. And I still hope that a watchOS upgrade will make that possible.

on my wife's linx older model

will not work consistently even with the external bluetooth phone streamer

will not work directly to the watch (not seen as bluetooth headset)

will not hand off to the phone which could connect (option to do this is where?)

the iWatch does not support made for MFI aids

No good answer as of yet

The app from resound on the watch, which really just remotes to the phone, works reasonably well. The iWatch does not have the same accessibility connections as the iPhone 8 plus she has now. The phone connects well and has the full setting support expected. This has not changed now for a while. On the watch it does not connect using the Bluetooth without the phone clip. The watch OS 4 has no MFI HA ability/section/settings to manage such things. If you are seeing a new MFIHA section in the settings, let me know, it was absent on her watch and not shown in any docs from apple. You might be seeing a better level of support for the HA you use as a headset? That is cool but we are not buying new devices really soon.

We have spent Many hours with Apple directly and on the phone working the issue.

There are also very long voice connection setup delays when using the phone clip as a intermediary (still requires using phone as base and attaching to the watch) with the iWatch.

She has a Resound LiNK2 7 and yes we will pursue new firmware (if available) but even if that helps some of the issues, the iWatch will not work until watch OS recognizes her devices directly as HA or as a headset.

The post you made about a year ago (2016)is still not resolved as far as we can tell. "Thanks for confirmation. Since I posted the above (11 months ago) I have not heard of anyone else claiming that answering on the watch sends the call to the phone, so I have discounted it as wrong."

No I think the experiences match here pretty much. We did indeed hope that she could "answer" call on the watch and have the HA pick up the sound with the watch doing the Mic. Sigh, no luck yet.

The speed difference between the iPhone 7 and 8 is not that great. My wife had an iPhone 6 Plus and it was fast in use.

Most aspects remained the same. Given the costs I can't say you should change such a new device over yet.

The phone clip is a little device that bridges the bluetooth output of lots of things (made for mobile phones) and connects it to the HA using the low power mode that the HA expect to use. It is in the resound accessories section online.

The suggested method to do this (from APPLE and Resound) was to connect both phone and watch (this was really hard) and then when she answered from the watch the Phone would grab the call and make the connection! This barely worked and the call setup time was 10 seconds, lots of people hang up before it fully connects. This is also why any plan that forces the HA user to switch between the watch and phone will not be good. It adds delay in answering. The same thing happens when I call my wife in the car. The HA sometimes lose connection and get it back because the car radio is competing with voice the connections.

If a lot of people were to speak up, Apple might consider better HA support on the watch or maybe one of the HA vendors will make the HA look like a normal headset. Hang in there, 8 years ago NONE of this work very well at all. Maybe in a year it will be better.

Everything I am reading is that if you answer on the watch it stays on the watch. If you answer on the phone it goes to the phone, but you have to use the mic on the phone, you cannot use the mic on the watch. There is another community board that has discussed this.