[nfb-db] bluetooth neckloop quattro 4.0 review

[Chris Westbrook]

Someone asked me ot write up a review of the neckloop I recently started
using, and I thought some of you might be interested.  Let me know if there
are any questions.

I would like to tell you about a new neckloop that I have found to be very
beneficial. It is called the quattro 4.0 made by clearsounds. For those not
familiar with what a neckloop is, it is a necklace worn around the neck that
allows sound to be passed through to a hearing aid with the t-coil setting
enabled. This neckloop also has a place to connect a pair of headphones and
actually comes with earbuds. I presume these are meant for people who either
do not have hearing aids or who have hearing aids but do not wish to use the
t-coil. This loop does provide amplification as well, so in theory someone
could use this with headphones successfully. The nicest thing about this
neckloop is it is Bluetooth. Not only is it Bluetooth, but it supports the
a2dp profile, which means it will work with voiceover on an iphone and not
just phone calls. It will also work with computers that have Bluetooth built
in. You can buy Bluetooth dongles to enable desktops to have Bluetooth, and
so far I have had mixed results with that setup, but I am waiting to try it
on a new machine because I think the machine may be the culprit. My comments
are mostly positive, with a few caveats. These have not been deal breakers
for me, but they may be for others. One of the nice features about this
device is its ability to connect to multiple devices simultaneously. I can,
for example, connect it to my iphone and computer at the same time. If I am
listening to something on my computer, and I get a phone call, the loop
automatically goes to the phone and I can answer or reject, etc. This is
great. The problem comes in when you get a notification on your phone while
listening to somethingon the computer. It appears that the loop can only
handle one audio stream at a time. So if one device has control of the loop,
you will probably not know the other device has tried to say something.
Occasionally the sound will cut out a bit and then I can infer that the
other device may want my attention. If you stop audio for about 5 seconds or
so, the loop appears to drop the stream from that device and the second
device can take control so to speak. This leads me to my second minor
annoyance. If you don't have audio for about five seconds or so the loop
seems to disengage and go into some kind of standby mode. I suspect this is
to save power. There is a minor click sound heard when audio resumes, and
when using the eloquence synthesizer with Jaws part of the first syllable is
cut off at times. Interestingly, sapi 5 at least on windows 8 does not
exhibit this behavior. You still notice the click, but the full word is
spoken. Also I have noticed that if I have the neckloop connected to my
laptop and phone, if I disconnect my laptop by turning it off or putting it
to sleep, I have to turn off and on the neckloop again before I can get good
audio from the phone. And while there are audio prompts to let you know a
device has connected or the loop is in pairing mode, an audio indication of
battery status would be nice. There is an audio prompt when the battery is
low. There is also included a Bluetooth microphone that sits on the back of
the unit that can be taken off and given to someone in a noisy situation. I
have not tried this extensively, but this could be helpful. All in all, I
encourage anyone who is blind with a hearing loss to try this device if your
hearing aid has a t-coil, especially if you only plan to use it with one
device at a time. You can find more information at:

http://www.clearsounds.com/product/quattro-40-adaptive-bluetooth-system


 

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