Hearing aids in other rooms

What is available for hearing help in other rooms. We have a number of high priest who quit going to anything outside the chapel because they can't hear even if the teacher uses the microphone. Can the hearing assist devices from the chapel be modified to work else where(I assume only good in rooms with microphone) or what other answers are others using. The HP group leader has asked about blue tooth because apparently his hearing aid supports it. Don't know about the other users though. Guessing not all of them will.

From a meethinghouse audio standpoint, I think only the chapel is set up. However, you might have the stake president ask the FM group about adding transmitters to the other rooms that have sound systems. Or if they have a portable transmitter in their catalog they can order. (Such as the Comtek M-175) Stay away from the M-126 as it's the wrong frequency range to be compatible with the receivers they already have.

As for Bluetooth, I can't say as I've seen it work in a one-to-many situation. I've only seen it "paired", one-to-one.

Given the cost of the Comtek system, if FM won't pay for it, I'd look at a loop system. The prices are still not cheap, but the transmitters are much cheaper and should work with hearing aids without having to obtain receivers.

The Williams-Sound interpretation equipment, normally used for language translation, should work for this situation, and will be in the FM group catalog. (Whether they will pay for it is a different issue.) I don't know how the costs compare with the Comtek equipment.

rsidwell wrote:The Williams-Sound interpretation equipment, normally used for language translation, should work for this situation,

It certainly could be done, but the transmitter would need some adaption. It's AC powered and requires a wired input. I'm not sure if it's compatible with the Comtek receivers, so the users may need a different receiver outside the chapel.

The Comtek M-175 is battery powered and can be worn by the instructor - even if no PA is used. Of course, if the regular transmitter is used, it could be wired into the PA. Both are compatible with their receivers. However, you may need to get the updated model which are tunable since using the same frequency may cause problems.

Increasingly, hearing aid models and some newer models of cochlear implants implement Made for iPhone (MFi) technology. Persons who wear MFi hearing aids and have compatible iPhones or iPods can turn on the "Live Mic" feature on their Apple device and either point the device at the speaker or have the person speaking hold the phone (or lay it on a podium/pulpit/table near the speaker) and it will transmit speech directly to the person wearing hearing aids or cochlear implant. This technology does not currently work with Android devices.

For more information regarding MFi hearing aids and cochlear implants and iPhone settings, please refer to https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201466