How to Connect Hearing Aids to Your Phone

We live in a world where making connections through mobile devices is increasingly important, and that’s especially true for hearing aid wearers. The latest hearing aids have Bluetooth^TM technology which makes it easier than ever to connect to your phone. The process of connecting your phone to your hearing aids may seem intimidating, but it is a seamless process. Here is how to connect your hearing aids to your phone. 

How to pair hearing aids with a Smartphone using BluetoothⓇ

There may be slight differences in this process depending on the model of hearing aids and the smartphones you are using, but the process is fairly universal.

1. Turn Bluetooth on your smartphone. You can usually find it in the device Settings or even on its control menu.
2. On an iPhone®, you will find hearing aids under Settings > Accessibility > Hearing Devices. If your hearing aids aren’t immediately visible, you may need to open and close their battery doors or if you have rechargeable hearing aids, simply put them on the charger for a couple seconds then take them off the charger which will turn them visible to your phone.
3. Select your hearing aids—and they are now paired. 

1. Make sure you have a fresh battery in your hearing aid but leave the battery doors open so it’s not powered up.
2. If you’ve already downloaded the app specific to your hearing aids, your app may have a pairing feature that will walk you through connecting to your phone. If you haven’t downloaded the app, see below for links to the apps in Google Play®.
3. On your phone, go to “Settings” and then “Bluetooth” and make sure Bluetooth is turned on.
4. Close the battery door to power up your hearing aid, so your Android phone can detect it.

5. Then try launching the app to help you with the setup.
6. For manual setup, go to the Bluetooth settings and look for the name and model number of your hearing aid. It should appear under “Paired Devices”.
7. Tap the hearing aid name to complete the connection to each hearing aid.

For more specific details, users should download the pairing guides for their hearing aid models, the pairing guides may have been provided to your when you purchased your hearing aids as well.

Each hearing aid manufacturer has their own app that is designed specifically for use with your hearing aids. To take full advantage of the smartphone features, you will need to download the app specific to your hearing aid from the Apple App Store (for iPhones) or Google Play (for Android phones).

• Widex Beyond: App Store | Google Play
• Widex Evoke: App Store | Google Play
• Widex Moment: App Store | Google Play
• Widex Zen: App Store | Google Play
• Signia App: App Store | Google Play

Smartphones can stream a wide variety of audio to your hearing aids: phone calls, music, audio from videos you’re watching as well as notification sounds and virtual keyboard clicks. To ensure that you’re hearing the sounds you want, follow these steps:

Phone Call and Audio Streaming

• If you want to stream only phone calls to your hearing aids, Apple devices on iOS 13 or later allow you to turn off all notifications by going to Settings > Accessibility > Hearing Devices > Audio Routing > Media Audio and set it to “Never Hearing Devices.” For Android devices, hearing aid wearers should disable apps that stream audio directly.
• If you want to stream audio from selected apps to your hearing aids, both Android and iPhone users should go to Settings > Notifications and ensure that Sounds are turned on or off as appropriate for each application. Android users may have the option to disable all app sounds with a single switch.

Touchscreen and Keyboard Sounds

• To enable touchscreen and keyboard sounds, iPhone users should go to Settings > Sounds (or Sounds & Haptics) and turn on Keyboard Clicks and Lock Sound. Android users should follow a similar process at Settings > Sounds and Vibration.