I have lost most of my hearing, and depend heavily on my Phonak hearing aids, which have all kinds of smart things. I can connect to a BT device coupled to the headphone outlet on my TV, giving me my own private 16 channel stereo sound system. It is coupled to my mobile-phone, so I can use the phone, if it is lying somewhere within 30 feet range, using the hearing aid remote-control, microphone and ear-pieces. I can get sound from MP3 players directly into my hearing-aids. I can have 2 BT connections simultaneously (incoming phone calls override the others) and switch between any three paired. My PC doesn't have BT,so I have acquired a BT dongle from Phonak marked Laird, which connects to the PC via USB. The idea was to send PC sound (Music) to the BT device, which is paired to the hearing-aid. The hearing-aid then acts like wireless BT speakers. How do I channel my PC sound into the BT dongle? SUSE 42.2 and KDE. All updated to latest versions.

That's a very challenging question. I honestly don't know but if there's anything I've learned from running Linux is that most dongles need a driver. Most drivers are built into the kernel. Drivers are in the output of lsmod.

Does lsusb see the BT dongle from Phonak marked Laird?

Well, anyway just for what it's worth (FWIW):

Today I wrote directly to Phonak, to ask if there is a Debian bluetooth driver for Phonak V90.
The lsusb does not list my devices (I have one on each ear).

Hope to be able to return.

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THX whoever fixed this!

Today I downloaded a new bluetooth db of some kind as part of normal Debian 11 (Bullseye) - and TADA ! my hearing aids now work perfectly!!!

/René

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Rene - I have Phonak marvels v50. I'm running Zorin OS. Sometimes the BT connection works, most times not. Can u pls provide details as to how you updated your BT database to easily connect your Phonak aids. Thanks, and much appreciated.

Hi Timoteo,

I'm no Lunix expert, and I run Debian 11 (Bullseye).

1. I installed

a. bluetooth 5.50-1
b. libbluetooth3 5.50-1-b1

This made my bluetooth devices visible, bot none worked.


2. Then I added
c. pulseaudio-module-bluetooth

This made my JBL headset work.


3. From here I'm guessing, but one day I did a normal package upgrade and some bluetooth.db was downloaded.

This made both my Phonak V90 devices work.

I have no further information, alas, and I do hope you get your devices working too.

/René

I should maybe add, that I run the KDE desktop / Plasma 5.12 rather ... and the bluetooth from KDE.

Thanks for the help.