my dad is in his 80s and is losing his hearing. He has hearing aids, but the last pair was not paired properly with the iPhone. I have two questions. To pair the hearing aids, do you just select the hearing aids option in accessibility and look for the type of hearing aid? Also, does anyone have experience with the Live Captions beta option? It sounds like a great idea, but I wonder if it really works well.
Comments
hearing aids and the iPhone
How well it is supported depends on the make and model of the hearing aid. Also, how you pair it is determined by whether the manufacturer decided to include MFi support or not. For example, Oticon does have MFi support on their modern hearing aids, so it would be correct to pair those hearing aids under Hearing XDevices. On the other hand, I have a pair of Phonak hearing aids which do not support MFi. Since this is the case, I would pair these hearing aids through Bluetooth instead of the manor described above.
The Live Captions feature on iOS lacks the accuracy of Google's Live Transcribe in my opinion. However, neither are working perfectly with braille.
Pairing MFI Hearing Aids
Hi,
Hearing aids can be paired a number of ways with the iPhone. Some have bluetooth capability built in, and can be paired under accessibility>hearing devices. If a device can be paired, you should get a prompt asking if you'd like to do so after a few moments.
Others may need to be paired under bluetooth settings.
Some hearing aids, for example Phonak, may need an external device to enable bluetooth functionality, a la the Phonak CommPilot. Those devices are paired through bluetooth settings.
I would check the app store to see if his brand of hearing aids has an app. If so, it may enhance their functionality with his iPhone/give him the ability to make changes on the fly, if he needs to.
I hope this helps.