Hearing aid brands that are made specifically for the iphone

@tonyinmi I have 2 hearing aids but the left one just broadcasts to the right one.. my better ear.. my left ear is just decoration... So when I am home alone... these days .. I just wear my right HA... I have been looking at a Samsung Galaxy 20 note as I do alot of sketches...(architect) background.. but will do some more research... Thanks.. Ken

IPhone vs. Samsung Galaxy 20: I had an IPhone, switched to the Samsung in order to have Live Transcribe (available for Androids only). The one thing that the Samsung does better is driving directions. Not only are most places, even the road only we live on, pronounced correctly, but the Samsung is able to adapt when you stop at a rest stop or a store. However, that's the one good thing! The Samsung, even set to only notify you of new texts or calls, frequently announces its presence regardless. GPS apps and abilities, esp. where there's no reception, aren't as good as good as what was available for IPhone. Most important, the ability to switch to phone mode for calls is easier with the IPhone and calls seem a little clearer. If I lived in a place where we had cell reception, I probably would have switched back to an IPhone. However, since we have zero cell reception here, I've stick with the Android for over a year. My biggest reason to switch back would be to have better GPS; I do volunteer work for our state fisheries agency and really need GPS. The slightly better/easier phone use doesn't matter much due to our lack of reception at home. I also confess to not liking Macs so hated to be part of the "I" everything group.

Like you Tony - I joined the Apple/Resound bandwagon years ago and bought into the streaming and use of the iPhone. My powerful hearing aids used lots of energy with the phone at the time and within one year, I moved from the 5S to the 7+ just because I needed the power to cover my 4 programs and multiple apps. When my 7+ dropped into my pool last year, it died and so I had to purchase a new phone - so went with the 8+ which has helped keep me juiced up and doing well with the needs I have including the streaming to both ears, apps for captioning and an assortment of other newer platforms that include banking, cooking, reading the paper, virtual care, camera and you know the rest. My batteries are changed weekly and I wear my aids for around 10 hours a day depending on amount of exposure to noise my brain can take given I have migraine syndrome.

Best check with audiologist.

I have been an industry professional for 40 years and all modern hearing aids have apps for the iphone. Starkey, Oticon, Siemens, Audina, Widex, Phonak, Unitron, Resound, Bernafon, Sam's Club hearing aids, which are done independently from the Club as they just rent space, were the only hearing aids not compatible with iphones. And Unitron is a more inexpensive brand of Phonak; Rexton is an inexpensive Siemens and used by Costco and will be iphone compatible - I have all these apps on my iphone to help show my patients how they work. The hearing aids can also stream with the TV (a separate connection) and if you stick with any of the above brands you can't go wrong. Often hearing aid stores are owned by the hearing aid manufacturer so your choices can be limited.

OMG...the pro I go to at Costco never mentioned that my Bernefon can stream with TV. Although my Samsung phone has an app for the aid, I've had no luck making it work to enhance phone conversations. When I had an older IPhone, the phone app worked well, and it also worked to bring map directions directly into my ear, but, so far, the Samsung does neither. It's all royally confusing, due to the various manufacturers of aids, phones, etc., each of whom does "their own thing." I'm working up to making an appt. with the woman at Costco to "ketchup" on some of the tech stuff that I obviously don't understand well enough. It's made more complex because I have zero/zip/nada cell reception at home and have been totally unsuccessful in utilizing the landline/'net modem's WiFi. I've yet to find a tech who can even comprehend that there are places without cell reception...too strange a concept for the guys in the cities.

How do I pair my iPhone with bernafon?
Pairing Bernafon Zerena hearing aids to iPhone

Take your iPhone and go under Settings.
Click on General.
Click Accessibility.
Scroll down and click Hearing Aids.
It may ask you to Enable Bluetooth.
Once Bluetooth is active your iPhone will search for your hearing aids automatically. Bernafon is a division of Oticon, a top hearing aid manufacturer. It may depend on which model you have. Hope this helps.

Again, when I had the IPhone, it worked flawlessly. I switched to the Samsung in order to use Live Transcribe. I didn't realize how aids are designed to work with IPhones and not with other brands of cell phones. FWIW, I learned that the Samsung does a far, far better job of showing you how to get to a specific address (and the "person" doesn't mispronounce geographical names the way that Siri does), but it's not as good for GPS use where there's no reception and it doesn't work with my Bernefon aid. FWIW, I was never told about the possibility of the aid connecting with the IPhone when I was using the IPhone...I figured that out myself from something I saw here. I suspect there's lots more technology built into aids that isn't ever used because no one ever tells you about what does...and doesn't...work with various phones. The big joke is that I found Live Transcribe to be more confusing than useful, as looking at my phone meant I wasn't able to speech read the speaker, and the transcription always lagged behind, making it impossible to participate in a discussion, especially a technical one. It's a similar thing with TV captions: for live broadcasts, the transcription is one or two sentences behind the speaker, so it's easy to get confused. I've also found that when I miss just one word the transcription often omits that phrase, as they can't use all the spoken words and keep up, so eliminate less important (to them) phrases. AARGH!

@joyces for those who live on the remote edge of the continent, as you do with a mountain range between you and the big cities, having poor "reception" is common. Have you asked others who live in your area "which provider gives them more reliable service and bandwidth?" When I have lived on the remote edge in FL, elevation of the receptor really helped.. that is being upstairs above the ground level of my house really helped catch the Cell phone signal.. the frequencies used by cell phones are essentially "line of sight".. and ground cover of heavy vegetation doesn't help get reflective signals .... If you have cable TV internet vs regular Land line internet you are more able to get a better signal.. Some businesses in your area probably do heroic things to get a good internet and Cell phone signal.. Ask around what works best..

Reply to Ken 82: We're a quarter mile from the edge of the continent...or, that really big antenna, the Pacific Ocean. However, our acreage and the acreage that abuts it on two sides (hundreds of acres total) is mostly old growth spruce, which is damned dense...and wonderful. Although we are so close to the ocean, we're in a small, steep-sided valley; house is at 55' above sea level. There's a Verizon cell tower a mile above us, with a high hill (about 500') between us. The next nearest tower is an AT&T 5 or 6 miles away, and we can get reception by hiking up on the back of our place and pointing the phone in that direction--not at all practical, as that's about a quarter mile away, through thick woods. Before we moved here full time, I kept a "cell phone trail" gouged out, but it was hard to write things down in pouring rain.<g> I've heard that the reason I can't get WiFi with my cell is due to the modem supplied by Charter; their cable provides phone, 'net, and TV (sorta) when there's electricity. There are far better modems available, but I've hesitated to invest in one, fearing that it would only add to the piles of electronic crap that doesn't work here, or work well enough. Believe it or not, here there's zero reception in CITY HALL, unless you have the pw for their WiFi. About half the places in town have zero reception. This is a concept that the techs in the Willamette Valley east of the Coast Range just fail to grasp. No point in asking about providers, as Charter is the only provider available to us (except CenturyLink for phone and 'net, no TV). All you need to do here is mention "Charter" and everyone has multiple stories about the lack of service. Right now, we're waiting for a repairman to rehang the cable, which was torn loose from the house when a tree limb fell across the cable a couple of weeks ago; fortunately, we still have some reception, but I can't drive up the driveway far enough to turn around (really long driveway that crosses a creek, which is flooded much of every winter). It had been three weeks since I'd been able to drive across the creek...and then the cable came down. I'm now parking where the cable crosses from a pole on our property to the house, where the cable hangs down almost to ground level. That does mean that I don't need to carry everything in from the road. Unfortunately, another storm is on the way, so, once the cable's rehung I still may not have use of the driveway.

All sounds glum, but where else would deer come and breathe on the window behind my monitor, begging for me to bring apple slices? Where else could I watch elk graze not 10' from my office window? There's the resident great blue heron, a male egret that's been thinking about living here, and the Canada geese have arrived to nest in the beaver pond between our place and the ocean. We have a great assortment of birds, from a bald eagle to lots of year-round hummingbirds. Every morning, Wiley the limping coyote trots down our one-lane road and then comes back, crosses the creek on the driveway culvert, and hunts pine squirrels in the reeds just past the acre I mow. We also occasionally have coastal black bear and cougar in the woods, as well as the pack of coyotes. The pine squirrels, packrats, and mice I could do without! Nearest neighbors are a quarter mile away, both west and east. Last week was about as cold as it ever gets here: clear, sunny, and down to the low 40s at night. A day over 75 in summer is "red hot." Perfect!