I use hearing aids with Bluetooth, which is fantastic for phone call clarity, watching videos, and listening to audiobooks. I use my iPad often for watching videos, so they’re constantly paired.

My particular model of hearing aid has a flaw where the ambient sound gets adjusted during streaming in such a way that it causes a static like sound that’s loud enough to require turning the sound up to hear whatever I’m streaming. I seriously doubt this is good for my hearing.

I can go into the app and adjust the ambient sound balance, which reduces the static sound but makes the sounds around me quieter. This will reset back randomly, sometimes even when I pause. Annoying, but I can live with it.

My issue is that if I play a game on my iPad, it turns on streaming even if I have the sound turned off in the game. So I’ll be sitting here listening to static while I’m playing a card game or something, it’s loud enough that it’s then harder to hear the people around me.

Does anyone know if there’s a way to force the sound off so I don’t have to mess with switching Bluetooth on and off and having to restart the hearing aids because suddenly they don’t pair even though it was working 5 minutes ago?

Hearing aids: Phonak Audio L90-RL (lumity)

iPad Air, 4th gen, WiFi only

iPad os:26.5

Has anybody tried these? I just ordered a Silent Mammoth... which is essentially a coat hanger bent all fancy. It arrives in a few days.

Anyway, anybody have any experience with these sorts of things? I went with this one purely because its metal and I don't want to have some ten-use plastic to recycle if this whole thing leads to improvement.

I don't have sleep apnea but I do think my cute button nose could use a little opening. :)

Getting to that age that I know my hearing is declining and I have steady tinnitus, which I'm pretty used to already. Conversation in a quiet room is no problem but in a busy restaurant I have to concentrate and strain to pick up what's being said. I can tell I have to play things a bit louder than I used to. I'm delaying going to an audiologist for a test out of anxiety that I'll have to get hearing aids.

Which makes me wonder what they're really like - How does using them change your hearing? Do you get back the crisp highs and lows in music? Is conversation in a noisy place easier? How much maintenance do they require?