Assistive Listening Knowledge Base
  • Manufacturer Q&A (follow-up to an HLAA webinar)

Better Together: Auracast & Hearing Loops. Understanding the Future of Assistive Listening (questions not answered during the webinar)

From https://assistivelisteningknowledgebase.org/evidence/listen-2025-hlaa-webinar-qa/ · record checked 13 October 2026

  • Ampetronic | Listen Technologies (webinar presenters Kevin Jewkes and Carrie Kaumans)
  • Hearing Loss Association of America (hearingloss.org)

Manufacturer (Ampetronic | Listen Technologies, which makes hearing loop drivers and the Auri Auracast system; the answers are written in the company's voice and published on HLAA's website after a webinar the company presented for HLAA)

Summary

Written answers from a loop and Auracast maker to questions left over from a December 2025 HLAA webinar on running Auracast and hearing loops together.

Key findings

  • Audience questions on PDF pages 1, 6, 9, 15-16 and 20-21 ask about combining telecoils and Auracast or choosing hearing devices with both. Page 8 shows confusion between the room loop and the telecoil inside a hearing aid. These repeated questions come from one event; the document gives no distinct-asker count.
  • Pages 1 and 8 ask how joining works without conventional pairing and whether a smartphone is required. Pages 3-4 and 8 ask what an assistant and channels are and how listeners choose a stream; pages 4 and 22 ask whether a phone can relay Auracast to older hearing aids. The questions identify uncertainty, not verified compatibility routes.
  • On page 2, a listener says incoming Bluetooth calls stream automatically into their hearing aids and asks whether Auracast might behave that way. The question does not describe a call interrupting an Auracast listening session.
  • Pages 2, 11 and 12 ask about implant-brand support, simultaneous hearing-aid/implant use, and whether a processor needs replacement or a software update. Pages 3 and 18 ask about readiness and activation; pages 5-7 and 13 ask about loan equipment, neckloops and separate receivers.
  • On page 9, a hearing-aid owner asks how to encourage venues to offer Auracast and how it compares with room sound when music is easier to hear than dialogue. Page 13 asks for an installation directory, and page 16 asks about New York City venues.
  • Page 12 asks the approximate cost of a device converting Auracast for devices without support; page 23 asks receiver/headphone/neckloop prices. Neither question states who would pay. Page 7 separately asks whether a listener can buy a receiver. Venue installation costs are asked on pages 3 and 9.
  • Other audience questions concern a church's existing Wi-Fi route (page 3), speech delay (page 5), privacy beyond the venue (pages 7-8), receiver interoperability across manufacturers (page 10), and adding Auracast to a church loop (page 20). Audience roles are not stated for every question.
  • Answers that hearing loops and Auracast need to coexist: loops give direct access today while Auracast is still gaining device support, and "Both technologies will coexist for many years".
  • States that "Currently, there are no hearing aids that include both Auracast (BLE) and T-coil in the same device", citing size, antenna and battery limits.
  • Gives $2,000 to $4,000 as a ballpark cost for a venue to install an Auracast system, and says most listeners still need a venue receiver with headphones or a neckloop.
  • Says final performance criteria for Auracast, including latency, will not be complete until the end of 2027.
  • Says its Sydney Opera House installation showed that venues can run Auracast side by side with existing assistive listening systems during the transition.

Limits

Answers by a company that sells both technologies, without data or references. Its statement that no hearing aid has both a telecoil and Auracast conflicts with advocacy device lists that show models with both. The page 17 answer about a recent ReSound purchase also claims a neckloop can transmit through hearing-aid microphones without a telecoil; this is inconsistent with the telecoil receiving route in CHA's borrowed-equipment guide and RNID's hearing-loop guide. Audience questions can document concerns without validating these answers. There is no audience sample size, demographic breakdown or distinct-asker count. Undated; the date is that of the PDF file, after a webinar held on 3 December 2025.

Read the original

www.hearingloss.org/wp-content/uploads/documents/presentations/auracast-post-webinar-questions-all.pdf

Link checked . We link to the original and do not host copies.

Cited in

Cite this source

Ampetronic | Listen Technologies (webinar presenters Kevin Jewkes and Carrie Kaumans). Better Together: Auracast & Hearing Loops. Understanding the Future of Assistive Listening (questions not answered during the webinar). Hearing Loss Association of America (hearingloss.org). 11 December 2025. https://www.hearingloss.org/wp-content/uploads/documents/presentations/auracast-post-webinar-questions-all.pdf (accessed 13 October 2026).

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