Do you use a hearing aid, and have you struggled to pair it to your streaming player? Now Amazon’s Fire TV, along with Cochlear, has made it easy to stream audio from the Fire TV to your hearing aid. This is done using the open-source Audio Streaming for Hearing Aids (ASHA) protocol.
“When we talked to customers who use hearing aids, audiologists, and other experts in the field, the majority told us that the first thing you really want if you’ve got hearing loss is to be able to hear clearly the people around you,” Peter Korn director of accessibility for Amazon Devices said. “The second thing you want is the ability to hear the television, to enjoy entertainment.”
Cochlear has configured direct streaming from Fire TV to the Cochlear Nucleus 8, Nucleus 7, Nucleus Kanso 2, and Baha 6 Max sound processors. With ASHA, sound processors connect directly with the Fire TV device, so customers can enjoy audio from their favorite streaming apps, use Alexa, listen to music, hear navigational sounds, and more.
ASHA-enabled Fire TV devices include: Fire TV Omni QLED Series, Fire TV Omni Series, Fire TV 4-Series, Fire TV Cube (3rd Gen), and Fire TV Cube (2nd Gen).
Hopefully, Amazon will expand support to more hearing aids and Fire TV devices in the future.
You can learn how to pair your hearing aid with a Fire TV HERE.