When turned on, every incoming call shows an option to use phone mic, but defaults to Bluetooth mic on my hearing aids. My hearing aids don't offer the ability to use as a mic. Need a setting to be able to force the phone mic without having to choose every time. Turning off all the hearing aid enhancements seems to be the only way to get BT audio and force phone mic.
I'm coming into realization that I have hearing loss on my right ear alone. I have not yet been checked for it but I can identify a loss of lower frequencies and overall hearing loss as well. I found that my Bud2 Pro on the app, under Labs, and Hearing Enhancement, I can boost the passthrough volume of the Buds2 Pro. Even better I can control individually left or right buds to be louder or lower.
With that said, I have found two specific issues with the feature.
1) The volume to control the left and right individually, is preset to notches. My right ear happens to be between notches. Which means on the max end it hurts my ears and one notch lower and I lose quality of sound for my hearing needs. Having more increments or an analog style slider would help dramatically in this regard. I bought hearing aids to compare with the Buds2 Pro and the only thing keeping me from the Buds2 Pro being a perfect match is this and the other issue I'll specify below.
2) The Buds2 Pro has both active noise canceling and passthrough capability. But something I noticed on day 1 of owning these is that when set to Ambient Sound (passthrough) it still has a safety feature that will block the ambient noise if its loud and sudden. Like a siren, or a loud potentially harmful sound. In fact it helped me out in many cases during some fire drills the company needed to perform and I was forced to walk by the alarm speakers going full blast. That's great and all, but the system is triggered by low sounds too and I've found myself now needing that feature to be turn off. When using the Buds2 Pro as a hearing aid I don't need it to protect my ear as much as to allow me to hear every sound. Because it can be triggered by error with low sounds I have found myself in the middle of conversations with someone where it suddenly activates the noise canceling because of wind or something and missing what the person said to me. Having to wait a short period for the system to determine it is safe for ambient noise to passthrough again before I can hear clearly. It would be incredibly helpful to have a manual switch allowing me to turn that feature off or on as I desire. Rather than being forced to the feature at all times.
For now those two points are the only thing keeping my Buds2 Pro from being equal to or better than the dedicated hearing aid device I bought to compare it to. It would be nice if Samsung were able to provide a sleek and modern wearable device like these Buds that doubled as a hearing aid as well, and only those two factors seem to be the major difference.
