Calls accepted on MFi hearing aids - callers can't hear me clearly

By Brian Negus, 1 October, 2023

Forum
Apple Hardware and Compatible Accessories

When using iOS 16 on my iPhone 13 mini I was able to accept incoming phone calls on my MFi hearing aids by clicking a button on the hearing aids and then progressing with the call leaving the phone in my pocket and the call using the hearing aids microphones. That worked fine with iOS 16. Now I have installed iOS 17.0.2 (and I've tried the beta of 17.1 as well) callers hear me very faintly or with very poor sound quality. My hearing aids are Resound Omnia, rebadged as Amplifon. Are others experiencing similar issues? I'm about to report to Apple via beta feedback.

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Comments

By Travis Roth on Thursday, October 5, 2023 - 12:50

Hi, I have not noticed any changes with mFI support for iOS 17. Question: have you verified that mic input is still on? Is it possible an update toggled the setting? When mic input is off then the phone uses the internal phone mic, and it will sound faint if it isn't close to you. Check in Control Center > Hearing Devices > Mic Input. Note: I have needed to have sound playing through the speaker, or muting VoiceOver and using Braille only, to get this button to appear and work. Sorry if you already thought of this.
Oh also, I just thought of this: right about the time iOS 17 was released my Starkey Genesis AI mFI aids received a firmware update that claimed to improve mFI compatibility. You may wish to check with your audiologist or hearing manufacturer if they have a similar firmware update. Some aids can be updated over the air with just a companion app while others require your audiologist to do it.