iOS 11 does not work correctly with MFi hearing aids and Apple MUST fix this ASAP, right?

Hi SpunkyinAZ. The problems that I'm having with my Resound Line 9 MFi hearing aids are similar to yours. With iOS 11 on an iPhone 8, they are very slow to make a connection either on a call or when streaming a talking book. The connection is then extremely erratic, switching from aid to aid and sometimes failing totally and reverting to the phone's speaker. I have worked round the problem by buying a device that Resound call a clip; I think they are generically called streamers. This small device has to be worn and its job is to sit in the communication between the iPhone and the hearing aids. The iPhone is paired with the clip by standard b bluetooth and the clip is paired with the hearing aids using the low energy bluetooth the MFi hearing aids use. This means that the low energy bluetooth connection is between two devices made by Resound and removes Apple support from the picture. The iPhone communicates with the clip as if it were a standard bluetooth headset. The clip cost me around £200. I'm now pretty confident that the problem is with Apple withdrawing support for older versions of the MFi hearing aid standard, so it may be the those of use who have older models (mine are just three years old) may never have Apple fix this. I'm trying to confirm this but I did learn it from an authoritative source. Sadly, it's common practice for the IT industry to stop providing support for older standards. Think of all those different floppy disks that our older computers used. I think we'll discover that hearing aids are no different. They may all look the same, but internally they will be using different standards to communicate with phones as the technology evolves and it's very unlikely that Apple or other manufacturers will support older devices forever. We may just be unfortunate in having purchased or acquired devices that were among the last to use an older standard. The good news is that streamers aren't terribly expensive and they seem to work.

Hi Wanpole,

agreed - this is incredibly frustrating. But, if my information is correct - and it is from a source very close to my hearing aid manufacturer - then Apple, with iOS 11, has stopped supporting earlier versions of the Made for iPhone hearing aid standard. It would have been helpful if both Apple and the hearing aid manufacturers had made a clear announcement, but we don't seem to get that. The evidence is very strong. Owners of newer model hearing aids have no problems with iOS 11; it's just those of us who bought our hearing aids a couple of years ago or more. There's absolutely no evidence that Apple will provide support for older hearing aids in future iOS releases, so I think our options are either to switch to a current hearing aid model - ouch! - or use a streamer like the Resound Clip. These devices cost much less than the hearing aids and I think every manufacturer will have a streamer that works with their hearing aids. Please check out my earlier posts if you want to know more.

Brian

Bob, if you're as desperate to get your hearing aids working properly as I was you may be able to purchase a relatively inexpensive device like the one I bought from Resound. It wasn't cheap, but it was a lot cheaper than the hearing aids. Anyway, new hearing aids probably won't help because the bugs are Apple's. I suspect that hearing aid manufacturers are keeping quiet about this because they wouldn't want to be shouting from the rooftops that their products don't work properly - even if it's not their fault. It might be worth checking if a similar device is available for your hearing aids. Actually, it's likely, I think, that a device from any manufacturer would work. Mine talks to the iPhone via standard bluetooth just like any bluetooth phone headset and then relays the signal to the hearing aids via low energy bluetooth, the way the iPhone should if iOS worked properly still. My device cost me £200 her in the UK and I appreciate that's not cheap, but it does work and it will come in handy if Apple reintroduce these bugs assuming they are eventually fixed. Good luck!

Hi Bob, I think I now understand better what is happening. I made contact with someone who champions Resound, the hearing aid brand which I use and we've had a very interesting conversation. He states that the standard that is used for communication between iPhones and hearing aids (MFi) is evolving and he believes that, with iOS 11, Apple has failed to provide backwards compatibility with older hearing aids. It's possible that Apple may get round to fixing this but it is equally possible that they will never do so. I'm less than happy since my hearing aids will be 3 years old tomorrow and they were the current model when I bought them. Continuing to offer support for older hardware is a major issue for brands like Apple but I have to say I'm disappointed that I've had what I consider to be a short service life. It's very unlikely that the hearing aids manufacturer can do anything about this since it's probably hardware specific, so the only hope is Apple deciding to add back in support for older hearing aids. The lesson learned is that digital kit often stops working not because the hardware fails but because software stops supporting it. So far as I can tell, users of current model MFi hearing aids should be fine, unless they have an individual faulty item. So, you can continue to wait in hope or maybe ask for an additional piece of hardware that connects by standard bluetooth to your phone and then by low energy bluetooth to your hearing aids. This is what I have now and it works OK.

Hi Charlie,

I bought a streamer. That's the generic name for devices designed to connect smartphones to hearing aids. The streamer talks to the phone by standard bluetooth and communicates with the hearing aids using whatever protocol is correct for the hearing aids.

My hearing aids are Resound hearing aids made by GN, so I bought the GN streamer, called a Resound Clip. I acquired this through the audiologist who fitted and supplied the hearing aids. Although, I think that a streamer designed to work with a specific brand of MFi hearing aids will probably work with other brands, I certainly can't guarantee this, so I strongly recommend that you check with an audiologist for the appropriate streamer for you hearing aids. You should also be able to find this information on the website of your hearing aid manufacturer.

Here is the Resound clip: Help & support for your Phone Clip+ | ReSound | ReSound

Hope that helpps,

Brian

You don't pair the hearing aids in the Bluetooth screen in Settings. You go to Settings>General>Accessibility and you will find the hearing aid section there. While you may believe that Apple does not support customers, I disagree. I've not experienced any problems with my hearing aids, with my iPhone 6, 7, or now my iPhone X. Again, work with your audiologist for assistance with pairing your devices with the iPhone. They should help you and not stop until they are correctly paired. Make sure that you have downloaded the Resound Smart app before you attempt to pair the devices.

Hi Bob (and others)

f you're still having problems with your MFi hearing aids not connecting reliably to iOS devices, I may have some good news. There are definitely problems with older MFi hearing aids in all iOS 11 releases so far and I've reported this issue to Apple accessibility. I just got an email from the accessibility team which states that the issues I reported will be fixed in iOS 11.4.1. It has been a very long wait, but let's hope that this release will at last allow us to use our MFi hearing aids as we did with iOS 10.

Brian

Apple replaced my iPhone X two weeks ago and my Odacon 1 aids are working much better. I found if I shut down the app before I turn the aids on in the morning I have less issues during the day. My phone needs to stay very close to me when I’m using the aids on a call and sometimes the aids don’t handle the entire call. Music has been flawless and controlling the aids from the phone has always worked. The battery indicator for the aids on the phone doesn’t always read the two aids sperality.

I can live with that. For me most of my problems seem to have been hard ware iPhone X issues.

Purchased ReSound Cala 8 hearing aids from Costco in September, 2017. Paired and worked beautifully with my iPhone 5SE. In early May upgraded to iPhone SE model with more memory. Hearing aids paired fine. After IOS 11.4 update have had similar problems outlined on this thread. Thought it was the hearing aids. Went to Costco and after multiple troubleshooting attempts we called the ReSound/Apple hotline. Learned that the 11.4 update supposedly messed up Bluetooth connectivity with the iPhone 5 series and SE series phones. Went to Verizon to return SE phone and upgrade to iPhone 8. Was told I was too late and that my $500 phone was now worth $80 if I wanted to upgrade. Multiple complaints to Store sales rep and manager to no avail. Now dealing directly with Verizon and they are helping me trouble shoot the problems. No resolution at this point. May consider going to T-Mobile to have contract bought out and switch to IPhone 8. My problems were inability to hear incoming phone calls ring, delays of up to 15-20 seconds before Bluetooth kicks in on calls. Calls, podcasts, music stream to one aid or another and eventually to both, or might switch back to just one - similar to what's on this thread. Evidently this impacts up to three different manufacturers of HAs and Apple is aware of issue. Was told by hotline techs that Apple "is working on it", but no timetable for resolution. Very sad

It's iOS 11.4.1 which Apple believe has fixed the hearing aids issues present in earlier versions of iOS 11. iOS 11.4.1 is only available as a beta at present but will no doubt be released soon. I haven't installed the beta, so can't comment on whether it fixes the problems I reported last autumn. I'm a volunteer trainer for blind iPhone and iPad users, so I'm keen to keep my phone and tablet running the same software as my trainees. For this reason, and perhaps to retain what's left of my sanity, I don't engage with the beta programme.

I have my Resound Linx hearing aid that is a year and a half old, and it has paired with all of my iPhones, and is currently paired with my iPhone X with iOS 11.2.6. I suggest you contact your audiologist and ask them for assistance with pairing your hearing aid. Depending on the brand/model it may require some type of update, or the company can explain if it is compatible or not.

I would work with your audiologist and have them work with Oticon. There are other posts about the Oticon being a problem. Apple provides support for the latest version of Bluetooth, and the hearing aid manufacturer would need to support that. Oticon's failure to work with you and point fingers at Apple does not sound like support. Knowing what I paid for my Resound, I know I would expect more from the manufacturer.

Chrisj4203, I suspect that you may have relatively recent Resound hearing aids. I have a pair of the original Linx hearing aids which stream uselessly erratically with my iPhone 8 running iOS 11.3 but still work fine with an iPhone 5 running iOS 10. However, the current model Linx 3d hearing aids, which I have on trial, stream perfectly (well nearly). I suspect from anecdotal evidence that the Linx squared models, which followed the original Linx, are still fully supported. I have an email from Apple's accessibility team responding to bug reports which I submitted. This states that Apple didn't knowingly withdraw support for earlier model hearing aids and that they are working on the issues that I reported but can give no date for a fix. I'm pretty confident that there's nothing that an audiologist can do to solve support for older hearing aids except lobby to bring pressure on the hearing aid manufacturers to work more effectively with Apple to ensure that Apple carefully test backwards compatibility when the MFi hearing aids interface evolves. I'd like to think that the hearing aids manufacturers would do this testing on iOS betas, but, being realistic, their attention is going to be focused on the performance of their current models.

iOS 11.4.1

Just a quick bit of background. There may be two separate issues in this thread (leaving aside irrelevant issues). The original issue was that iOS 11, from its launch last autumn, caused severe streaming problems with some hearing aids; it became clear later that recent model hearing aids were working fine with iOS 11 and that only those of us with older models seemed to have problems. (Mine were only a little over 3 years old.) If I understand other posts correctly, iOS 11.4 seems to have introduced MFi streaming problems specific to iPhone SE. I'm an iPhone 8 user, so can't comment on the SE issue. Because streaming is very important to me (I also use VoiceOver, the talking interface for the blind), I reluctantly decided to buy a new pair of hearing aids, Resound Linx 3d and these have worked fine with all versions of iOS 11 since I acquired them. I upgraded to iOS 11.4.1 yesterday from iOS 11.4 and the Resound Linx 3d continued to stream well, so there was no regression due to iOS 11.4.1.

Today, I took the plunge, instructed my iPhone to forget the Linx 3d aids, put fresh batteries in my old Linx 9 hearing aids and - they may be a little better, but performance is still erratic. It takes over ten seconds for both aids to start streaming (streaming starts with just one aid in my tests today) and I've experienced disconnections with streaming reverting to the iPhone speaker. I did have one good music streaming session, but, on the whole, if there is an improvement, it's by no means a total fix and certainly doesn't offer acceptable performance.

Maybe it will work better for some other manufacturers' older hearing aids.

Others, please try the update and let us all know what your experience is.

My conjecture it that Apple's message that iOS 11.4.1 fixed MFi hearing aids bugs was sent to me in error and that they were referring to the SE-specific issue. So, perhaps, SE owners will find their problems solved? Of course, it may also be that iOS 11.4.1 doesn't contain the hearing aids fixes that were in the beta. There is certainly no mention of hearing aids fixes in Apple's release notes.

Brian