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Comment by Jemaclus | Hacker News Reader

I'm profoundly deaf and wear a hearing aid. Some of the modern hearing aids can connect directly to my iPhone, which means I can now hear audio from my phone very, very, very well. I used to hate talking on phones, but now I don't mind it at all. It's seriously a life-changer.

Unfortunately, modern hearing aids don't connect directly to Macbooks or iPads or anything else. They do make these dongles that can act as a connection bridge, but they're hundreds of dollars.

I'd love someone (hopefully at Apple) to figure out how to connect the iPhone-compatible hearing aids to Macbooks or iPads.

Signed, Deaf Guy wearing Giant Headphones that Look Stupid on Zoom Calls :)

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I'm not quite sure I understand the Problem. Bluetooth enabled hearing aids would work just as well with Macbooks or iPads or any other Bluetooth capable Computer. Are there certain hearing aids that incorporate Apples H1 or W1 Chipsets that allow the Airpods to more seamlessly connect to iPhones ? But those same Chipsets enable a seamless connection to iPads and Macbooks. So do the hearing aid makers use some incomplete implementation of Apples protocol or are you using an older Macbook that does not support Airpods ?

It's not Bluetooth, exactly, it's something else. See this link:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201466

I think it's some kind of Bluetooth, but it doesn't get picked up in regular Bluetooth connections, so I suspect it's some sort of custom Bluetooth implementation or low-energy BT or something? Not entirely sure. But it definitely does NOT connect to regular Bluetooth-compatible systems.

According to the Apple Documentation it's supposed to work on all iPads and Macs as well: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201466#:~:text=your%20iClo...

Where do you see Macs? I only see iPads and iPhones on that page.

It says "Apple Devices" the example they give only mentions iPads but I as it seems to use the same "Handoff" technology used by Airpods it should include most modern macs on a recent Macos version. I'm actually curious whether they gave those hearing aid makers access to their protocol (which to my knowledge, no one outside Apple and their subdivision Beats has had) or whether they just sell them the Chips.

Well, the Accessibility section on my Mac (latest Big Sur) doesn't have anything for hearing aids, and it doesn't show up on the normal Bluetooth screen, so... :(

Thanks for your assist, but it doesn't look like this works... yet.

It says iPad but there's nothing about Macs:

> Made for iPhone hearing devices connect to iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch so you can stream audio, answer phone calls, adjust settings, and more.

That's terrible. It should be normal bluetooth, but with some optional flags to say that it's a hearing aid or whatever so that it can be more specifically supported where appropriate.

I guess if it's a power consumption low energy thing, it would make sense that it doesn't work with legacy bluetooth, but in that case the same low power tech should be available to non-hearing-aid bluetooth audio devices.

Yeah, hence my original post! someone fix this please! haha

That must be super inconvenient! It's probably a long shot, but I wonder if reaching out to Apple's accessibility support [1] might bump up the priority of getting this resolved?

[1] https://support.apple.com/en-gb/accessibility

I'll give it a shot, but I'm not entirely sure humans read this stuff at Apple, whereas I'm positive humans read Hacker News! (I think... you ARE human, right??) :)

I'm a dog...

Yes, <HN_USERNAME>, of course I am a human.

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