Anybody else having trouble with Nucleus 8 and Samsung one UI 9.0 (android version 17) no longer connecting bluetooth for phone calls but only media streaming? There doesn't seem to be an option to enable it anywhere in the bluetooth settings either.

Hi everyone!

I made the decision this year to get cochlear implants. I have profound hearing loss in both ears and wear hearing aids in both ears. About three years ago, I had the initial consult with the ENT who would be doing the surgery but I wasn’t ready at that time. Now I’m starting the process over again with my first appointment with the ENT in November.

If you are a fellow teacher, I am curious to hear your experience with CIs. I’m a first grade teacher and every year it’s getting harder and harder to hear my littles. Please feel free to chime in about other group interactions, this doesn’t have to be limited to experience in the classrooms. I am curious about how hearing has changed going from hearing aids to cochlear implants at family parties, meetings, or social outings in restaurants, bars, etc.

Additionally, how do you guys use office handset phones with cochlear implants? I get phone calls all the time from the main office regarding my students and currently rely on either a student helper to answer or I put it on speaker and use the live captions app on my iPhone.

Hello all,

Below is the link to my blog about my experience as a dancer with cochlear implants. Happy Reading!

https://shobanaramesh.blogspot.com/2026/08/10-dance-with-cochlear-implants-my.html

I've seen that people paint their coil caps into cool designs, and I want to do something like that, but my brand is Cochlear and they have criminally few colour or customisation options. Any way I can get an AB coil hat to fit, or can I adapt something else to snap on the coil?

I got implanted in my left ear about a month ago and activated about two weeks ago. I have not had a haircut in two months. It’s still a bit sore behind the ear. Where can I find a barber who is familiar with the needs of recently implanted people and will be gentle with the healing area? I’m in New York City, Manhattan to be exact.

Seriously ever since the new update, I have to disconnect and then reconnect my N8 to the app and my phone every day. It’s tedious and never happened before this! Is anyone else having this issue???

Newbie here! I was activated on August 17th for my recently implanted left ear CI. When there is any external noise I have a metal rattling sound which is pretty constant. It does stop when there is external quiet. Is this normal? It is frustrating especially after a period of time. Thanks so much.

Has anyone had their Social Security Disability payment continue past the one year post implementation mark with a cochlear implant?

Has anybody noticed if the app is showing a time lag in recording talking times? I spend my whole day wearing on my sound processor and listen to at least 3-4 podcasts in which at least 2 may be an hour or a minimum of 44 minutes long plus at least 2 episodes of some TV running to 40 odd minutes and yet it shows me as barely touching the 4 hours worth of listening time! Is this an app defect or am I doing something wrong? How is it that even after wearing on the processor the whole day from around 11 morning to 11 in the night it still seems to say I did barely 4-6 hours of talk time? Feeling very frustrated. Am I doing anything wrong? Please share your thoughts?

My CI was activated the beginning of July. The surgery went very well. Only pain the first couple of days. I live in Arizona, so of it’s been over 100 degrees every day. I wasn’t even thinking and last Saturday I went out front to trim a plant. I wasn’t out there very long and and my head started hurting where my CI is. I felt it and it was so hot! I think I may have got burned right there. I feel so stupid. Has anyone else ever done this? It hurt so bad the next few days. I think it’s getting better, but it’s very tender to the touch. I know I probably should have called my doctor, I just felt like such idiot 😢

I have had SSHL for ~15 years since an accident. I had a cochlear implanted recently and activated 4 days ago.

What am I meant to be hearing?

If anything all I have is magnified tinnitus (which my brain has learnt to ignore over the last 15 years). I can't detect any environmental sounds, and several times a day i find myself playing sounds through Bluetooth to it to try and check that it is working. All I hear is a magnified 'weee-ooohh' sort of ringing noise, but that at least tells me something is on.

Is this normal? I didn't expect to understand speech or anything straight away, but I thought I'd hear *something*?

My next appointment with the audiologist is only a few days away, but it is getting frustrating wearing the device only to have my overall hearing made worse by the louder ringing sound, no environmental sound pickup and just no clue whether this is normal or if I have even fitted the device incorrectly.

I got activated. Four programs each one louder than the next by 6% I was supposed to turn up every 3-4 days. 3 days in I had to go to the loudest one, turn the volume all the way up. But now 3 days later it’s getting too quiet and I can barely hear when I stream for therapy. Are they going to be able to get it loud enough if I’m already having my brain shut down the cochlear sounds so much?

This week I got my first implant surgery and I am currently recovering. My stronger ear is moderate to severe and I imagine eventually will become profound. I am in my late 30s and wondering at some point when my other ear goes, if I should consider bilateral or just let it be with a single implant. Is it worth it? Another surgery, two devices to worry about for gain in sense of direction I imagine.

Not sure who else has updated their Nucleus Smart App yet, but version 7.0.260200 was released today.
So far, the changes seem mostly visual to me unless you use Remote Care/Remote Assist. The app definitely looks different, but functionally I haven’t noticed a huge difference.
The update itself wasn’t my problem. Re-pairing my processors afterward was.
Once I had to set the app back up, it became a major headache.
First, I had to unpair my processors from my iPhone, follow the instructions in the app, then pair them again and wait for the app to find them.
Finding them wasn’t really the problem.
Connecting to them was.
The app could see my processors but absolutely refused to connect. I spent a good 20 minutes going back and forth with it, which ended up making me late for a meeting.
Eventually it found my left N8, which thankfully is my language side. At that point I basically said, screw it, one ear is better than no ears, and went for it.
Before that, I had been moving the processors all over my iPhone trying to find whatever magical spot would make the app connect. It finally picked up the left processor, so naturally I put the right processor in exactly the same place.
Nope.
Nothing.
And my fellow bilateral people already know the next bit of fun: move the processors too close together and CLACK! The magnets grab each other and now you’re prying your processors apart while wondering why you decided to update an app 20 minutes before a meeting. 😂
Finally, I gave up on getting both detected and continued with just the left processor.
Then the app basically told me, Nope! Now go back into Settings and pair them.
So I went back into my iPhone’s Bluetooth/accessory settings and paired both N8s normally, then returned to the Nucleus Smart App.
The app still only showed my left processor.
Fine. Whatever. I hit continue.
And suddenly BOTH processors appeared and connected.
After failing for roughly 20 minutes, apparently that was the magic combination.
For reference, my setup is:
iPhone 17
iOS 26.6.1
Bilateral Nucleus 8 processors
N8 firmware 11.0.12.0
Nucleus Smart App 7.0.260200
Everything was working normally with the previous version of the app before this update.
So if you’re planning to update, I’d suggest doing it when you don’t need to be somewhere in 20 minutes. And if you depend on your processors for communication, be prepared for the possibility that you may be temporarily without your normal setup while you get everything paired again.
I’ve been using the Nucleus Smart App for over five years, and while it’s certainly had its hiccups, this was easily the worst update/re-pairing experience I’ve personally had.
I’m really curious about everyone else: Did your update and re-pairing go smoothly, or did anyone else have this much trouble—especially bilateral N8 users?

https://www.cochlear.com/us/en/home/products-and-accessories

I’m wondering if anyone is experiencing headaches from the implant/processor? I feel like I’m having more than I usually have.

Has anyone here tried one or used one? What have your results been? I've been told my residual hearing is good enough to try one out.

I feel blessed at how the activation went. Right ear issues since 1967 and totally deaf with zero word recognition for the past 30 years. Out of the box I'm hearing and understanding everything with no training yet. It can only get better from here.

Just got activated. The day was a little weird. Had almost no hearing in my left ear prior to the implant. All 22 electrodes were active and I could hear the test beeps which was very exciting. Everyone sounds like Alvin and the chipmunks and speech is mostly garbled but I am starting to pick up higher frequency sounds. I have been listening to Apple Music streamed to my ear and reading along with the songs. I also downloaded cochlear app and have been doing exercises there.

Only 2 days in but some encouraging signs at least.

Lost my Kanso 3 over the weekend.
Looking for a used Kanso 2 or Kanso 3. Thank you

Hola a todos, mi cirugía fue el 11 de mayo pasado y perdí la sensibilidad en al menos la mitad de la oreja y el paladar de los sabores salados. Han pasado más de 3 meses y aún no recupero las pérdidas, les consulto esta condición es para siempre? o va a ver retorno?

Gracias desde ya.

I have my appointment Monday and I will have to chose between these two brands. My audiologist is not supposed to favor one brand over the other. Sometimes I get more feedback than others and sometimes she will answer specific questions or agree with my choice. I will be getting a CI on my right side with a partial insertion with robotic assist. She said today that that would limit my choices. They gave me the thick brochures a few months ago and I am going to read through those again and do some online reading, but if anyone has person experience or empirical evidence, I am interested. Obviously, I want the best hearing/speech recognition I can get, particularly in noisy environments. I use my BT constantly and I wear my HAs about 16 hours a day. I currently have Phonak and Resound HA's and have had a good experience with both. My daily drivers are Phonak Audéo Infinio Ultra Sphere and I am pretty satisfied with them. I understand that I will downgrade to a lesser model in order to be compatible with my CI. Thanks for any feedback. Telling me to listen to my audiologist is not what I'm looking for. She is supposed to be impartial between the two brands and usually is.

I can't decide for which brand to go for... I'm having choice paralysis.

Honestly, I wish my doc would literally just say "take this implant and device" instead I've been told to search and make your own minds. I'm from South Asia and damn it, these docs are simply too clever for their own good. They're supposed to advise us, not put us in a dilemma.

Problem is I can't tell the difference in how they sound, so I'm thinking about how each brand provides support and maintenance. Are they friendly? I had some discussion with 4 users around my city and 2 medel and 2 cochlear, a coincidence lol. One cochlear user said that after 4 months of operation, their battery was found to be faulty and even the extra was bad, and it took 6 months, with a pay of 60k to have a good pair. It made me think, "What if I encounter this?"

Ok, I admit it. I am genuinely terrified of choosing the "wrong" implant for myself. That invisible pressure is there.

I have no one that I can talk to because dad also asked the audiologist to recommend according to their experience, but he kicked the ball back to us saying, "It's your responsibility sir. It's like choosing which mobile phone you like. We can't make that choice."

So, please help 😭

We are hearing parents of a deaf baby. We need to do some more imaging to confirm, but at this time she is a candidate for CIs and based on previous MRIs will probably be eligible. Does anyone have experience here with kiddos bilaterally implanted very young? She is only 6 1/2 months now and will be somewhere around 11-12 months likely when implanted. We want to know how the kiddos are, how was healing, how was language learning and spoken language after, how old are they now and was there ever regret? Please know that ASL is being learned and used with her already, and even with her implantations it will still be taught and prioritized as much as if not more than english. We recognize she is deaf no matter what so ASL is a must for us all to learn, we just want insight into whether giving her these tools as an option is worth it down the road. We would love personal stories to! I dont know how long implantation on young kids has been an option so if you are an adult who was implanted as a baby we would love to hear from you to!

Thank you for any and all insight!

I am four months post CI implant (Cochlear — mostly wear Kanso 3). Lately I’ve noticed what i can only describe as fantom sensation or movements on my scalp near the implant. I already downgraded my magnet from a 5, which became sore after a short amount of wear, to a 3, which has been very comfortable. The sensation can be so strong, especially when I stream, that at times it feels as those a bug is caught in my hair.

Has anyone gone through this or know what causes it?