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Comment by shermp | Hacker News Reader

Unless you have a recent Mac, there is currently no way to listen to audio from a computer to most hearing aids without some sort of adapter.

Manufacturers sell such adapters at outrageous prices (hundreds of dollars). I wanted a way to stream audio to my hearing aids from a PC/laptop without paying an eye watering amount of money.

ASHA is the protocol used by android phones to direct stream audio over Bluetooth LE. The reference source and spec are openly available.

Also, it has been a fun and rewarding challenge.

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Interesting. I guess I’m lucky to use a Mac? I hadn’t realized that bluetooth connections with hearing aids didn’t work on other computers.

I haven’t tried to do it in a while, though. I prefer to swap my hearing aids for AirPods when listening to music. It sounds better and they are also easier to pair with multiple devices.

As a possible alternative, I wonder if there’s a good way to route computer audio through your phone?

Yeah, apple brought mfi hearing aids support to Mac OS recently.

It is possible to relay audio via a smartphone, I've done this in the past. The main problem is latency. Fine for music, crap for videos.

I also potentially want to use Pico-ASHA for teams calls at work, instead of trying to fit a headset over hearing aids. USB audio means no custom software.

At the end of the day, this is a stop-gap until LE Audio becomes common.

Is there any technical reason why the hearing aids don't just support A2DP like every other Bluetooth headset on the face of the earth or is this just a case of the vendors being the worst kinds of garbage and intentionally not supporting it to force users to their overpriced adapters?

Battery life is the biggest concern. Recent Phonak hearing aids DO use bluetooth classic (and I assume A2DP), but their battery life when streaming audio is generally considered to be not as good as other hearing aids.

Also, the battery usage is asymmetric, due to the fact that one hearing aid acts as the A2DP sink, and broadcasts audio to the other.

It's cool to see a hearing-aid related project on HN! I'm fortunate that my Phonak hearing aids can connect to any standard bluetooth audio source, including my windows laptop. However, I know other geeks with hearing aids that might find this useful!

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