My Starkey

Below is an overview of some of the main areas of the app with some usage tips that I have found when using it with VoiceOver. This summary is not an attempt at rewriting the user guide, refer to that for more explanation of features and settings.

Note: this app does not have a demo mode. At this time you must have the Starkey Genesis AI hearing aids on and connected to your device in order to use the My Starkey app.

Sign up: First you will be prompted to make an account and/or sign in. This is accessible enough I had no issues using VoiceOver.

Home: This screen has some images with information that are not accessible to VoiceOver. In addition the VoiceOver swipe order is a bit confusing. Here is what is going on: using the VoiceOver swipe left to right gesture starting at the top of the app:
1. L - an inaccessible image of more information presumably about the left aid
2. R - an inaccessible image of more information presumably about the right aid
3. Assistant button – correctly labelled button that launches the My Starkey Assistant that takes voice commands
4. Text label that is the current program’s name usually it says “Automatic”. IT has no other function than the status.
5. “Circle, More” button. Correctly labelled if a bit verbose and ambiguous. This opens a dialog that gives more information and allows to customize the currently active program.
6. A text label. This is a description of the currently selected program. When the program is “Automatic” the text reads “Your everyday hearing settings.”
7. “Edge Mode+” button. A correctly labelled button which enables Edge Mode and opens a dialog for more configuration.
8. “Programs” button: correctly labelled button to open a dialog to switch programs.
9. “My Hearing” button. Correctly labelled button which opens a dialog with more information and settings for the connected hearing aids.
10. “Volume Lowest” button. Incorrectly labelled button that adjusts the mic volume. It should be labelled “Mute.” Activating it will change the button name to “Mute” even though this has already occurred and should now be called “Unmute”.
11. Unlabelled slider. This is the current microphone volume, It ranges from 1 to 255, 128 means 50%. VoiceOver reads the big numbers instead of percentages so one must do some math to get an idea of what the setting is.
12. A couple of icons without alternative text and do not seem to have any function at least that VoiceOver can activate.
13. At the bottom are four tabs: Home, Health, Learn, More. These are accessible.

The tricky part about reviewing settings in the app while VoiceOver is speaking through streaming is that the app will show settings for the streaming. For example, the volume slider on the Home screen will show the level of the microphones as set while streaming, not what they’re set to in the main active program. And likewise adjusting it with the slider will adjust the stream settings not the active program that is not part of streaming.
There are two primary solutions for this. The speech output solution is to set VoiceOver to not do audio streaming. To do this temporarily: Open Control Center and look for the audio control. If VoiceOver is currently streaming it will uusually be called "mFI Hearing Aids.” Open this and select a different sound output such as “iPhone.” The second way is to use a Braille display and mute VoiceOver speech.
Hint: if your Control Center and playback devices menus are as cluttered and require as many swipes as mine do it may be helpful to set up “Change playback destination” shortcuts via the Shortcuts app and place buttons on your home screen or invoke them via Siri. Doing this is outside the scope of this post but Google can help easily.

Selection dialogs. There are a couple of areas in the app that show dialogs to make a further choice. They are individual choices and should be radio buttons but in this case they do not tell VoiceOver which is selected. The two most prominent areas to know are the dialog for Edge Mode+ and the configuration of streaming found in My Hearing > My Settings > Audio Streaming. For example, “Phone Call Audio.” These dialogs allow to make a specific setting adjustment. Tapping the label, for example, “bass boost” does select it but VoiceOver is not notified. The key to know is once you’ve made a selection going back a screen the label is updated with the current selection, for instance, “media audio: Bass boost.” Note there is a selection graphic floating around in these dialogs but I have found it is inconsistently positioned and sometimes does not update so it is better to check the labels. A second note in the case of Edge Mode once enabled return to the Home screen and look for its descriptive label.