Curious if anybody has tried the new Costco Phillips hearing aid? Anybody have any info on it? My understanding is that it is both Made for iPhone and compatible with ASHA certified Android phones.
Not sure what you mean by new but I switched to HearLink 9010 miniRITE T when they first came out in 2019. I understand there’s a newer version that may be out. I had be wearing Bernafons Jura for 6 years but eventually needed more amplification. I really like the Philips. The Jura’s were excellent but required a lot of program tweaking depending on the environment and sound profile. All of that went away with the Philips. They still have all the different programs but I really don’t use them. Everything seems to be done automatically…and better. Better except for serious music listening. As with most H/As, the feedback or canceling loops create a vibrato or warbling of single tones beginning just below 2000 Hz. The Bernafons had an audio program that defeated the effect and I do go back to them at a concert or evening listening. For everyday music the Philips and my brain adjust. Additionally, the Philips are superb with iPhone interface. I’m very pleased.
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By “new,” I meant a model that has been released within the last month or so.
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I noted with interest that these were shown in the recent Costco Connection magazine. I have KS7s, had wondered about upgrading to 9s, but was waiting until the next generation (10s?) might show up.
This is about the timing for a refresh of the KS line based on past history.
The Phillips ad made me wonder if they would be the next featured Costco offering instead of a new KS model. It would break the trend of KS prices dropping each generation though.
Watch this space!
This is always an interesting guessing game (and I’m typically wrong! :>)) The new Phillips aids are now on Costco’s website with a price of $1800 a pair. I talked to a hearing aid fitter at Costco recently and the rumor was that the next Kirkland model would be made by Rexton. It does seem like they’re due (maybe a little past due) for a new Kirkland model.
My take on Costco models. They’re all decent. Kirkland are value leaders, but Phillips and Rexton are close with pricing around $1800 for the pair. Resound and Phonaks are more like $2500 a pair.
Currently I’d be biased towards the KS9 or Phillips with connectivity and frequency lowering preferences being deciding factor.
I stopped by the HA center at Costco today and asked if they knew or could say if a KS10 was coming soon, or was the Philips taking its place. Person admitted it was about the right time for 10s if they are coming, but otherwise offered no hints. Not surprising, but I figured it was worth a try.
I picked up a Philips brochure. I’m a little put off by the notation “made for iPhones”, but “works with Android” since I have the latter. For now, I’ll just wait and see.
Made for iPhone is trademarked. The Phillips aids are ASHA (Android Streaming Hearing Aid) compatible. They will only be compatible with relatively few Android phones. Basically Pixel 3 and later, Samsung S10 and later and some OnePlus phones.
Like most things in life, YMMV. I tried them, on a suggestion from the fitter and I absolutely hated the sound! Lots of people love them. Try it for yourself. You may like them. If not, there are other brands and models.
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This is a new development for Philips, which previously had sold its Hear Link models at Costco for $1249 each. If you bought the TR you had to buy the charger separately. Now these are sold at $1799 for the pair, including the charger. (I expect this it an attempt to price match with the Rexton Motion Core, which sells rechargeable models with charger for that price.) Does anyone know if there have been any changes to the technology of this model? I have an iPhone so MFI is fine with me, and I don’t expect to need Android compatibility. Here’s a link to the Philips site with model descriptions: Philips HearLink Hearing Aids | Models, Reviews, Prices, and Videos
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This is definitely a new model with new features. It has uses artificial intelligence to aid with noise reduction. I believe it is similar to the Oticon More in this aspect. Note: I’m not saying it is the same as the Oticon More or uses Oticon’s Open paradigm. My guess is that they are very nice hearing aids and would be at least some improvement over the older Phillips model.
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Followup on this. Costco’s Rexton, Phillips and Resound hearing aids all seem to be the same price: $1999 in California. They are all rechargeables. The Resound has an extra $100 charge for the charger. KS10 is still rumored, but possibly not for another month or two.
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When I looked the original Phillips Hearlink hearing aid’s technology, I recognized right away that it uses the exact same technology and buzzwords used by the Sonic Enchant 100 (which I did trial for a few weeks and had written a review on it here in this forum).
But Sonic has since upgraded the Enchant line that was based on the SoundDNA platform to the new Radiant line on the new Extend platform. You would almost think that the new Phillips Hearlink 9030 would be the equivalent of the Sonic Radiant. However, it seems to not be the case. The Radiant has no mention of AI technology, while the Hearlink 9030 mentions AI technology, so perhaps they’ve diverted path and chosen a different HA technology instead of continuing with the new Sonic Radiant line.
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I was curious about the new Philips also and looked at them before choosing a set of KS 9.0’s. The deciding factor for me was that the Philips uses the mic in your phone when talking. With the KS 9 you use the mics in your HA’s and can leave your phone in your pocket. Also, the KS 9’s can stream from my PC, though I am having trouble with drop outs with my PC.
In noisy environments I wish the KS9 or phonak brand (maids paradise) would allow one to chose the aid or phone as the mic during calls
So the KS9’s mics pick up all the noise during a phone call? I think the phone’s mic is near field and uni-directional, designed to block out a lot of noise and focuses on the voice next to it only.
I don’t get any complaints with the KS9 and phone calls unless I’m driving in a car, but it tolerable.
I saw a review for the Naida paradise where he was wishing for the option to choice aid mic or phone due to noise. It may not really be a problem though.
Although “handsfree calling” was kind of the holy grail of what was wanted regarding phone connectivity, in practice it’s difficult to tell if it’s a glitch or a feature! In quiet situations it seems to work well. In noisy situations, it seems like most would prefer to be able to talk into their phone.
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I had the opportunity to try out the new Phillips Hearlink HAs for nearly a week a few weeks ago. My audiologist informed me they use the same chip as the new Oticon More and most likely some of the same software for their feedback control.
I currently wear KS-8s and had worn a couple of iterations of Bernafons prior, the most recent the Junas.
Here are some of my observations while trialing the Phillips:
- Background noise suppresssion was very similar to my Bernafon Junas and better than my current KS-8s.
For example, when walking around the Costco store, it was very quiet, no blower noise, no conversation rumbling, no beeps when at the checkout scanners. - Phillips has better speech recognition watching tv.
- Understanding speech in a loud environment was good but not that much different from my Bernafon Junas and only slightly better than my KS-8s. (I didn’t get the “Opn” experience which the Oticon are noted for).
- The Phillips were better with understanding soft speakers.
- As stated above, feedback suppression was outstanding, even with vented domes as opposed to double domes or custom molds I use with the KS-8s.
- Overall, the Phillips were better than my KS-8s and I would have ordered them except for background noise suppression. This feature worked too good canceling out things like the furnace motor running and birds chirping when taking walks. Also, I was uncertain where some loud noises were coming from.
Note:These observations were made based on the Phillips HAs using the default software programming based on my recent my hearing test but at 100% rather than 80%. I am certain the background noise suppression could be adjusted by my audiologist and will ask her to make that adjustment when I decide to do another trial.
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I found a whitepaper on the new Phillips Hearlink 9030 and compared it with the whitepaper on the Oticon More MoreSound Intelligence (the deep neural network stuff for the More). I don’t know if the chip used on the Hearlink 9030 is the same chip used on the Oticon More or not, but regardless, it’s fairly obvious after reading the 2 whitepapers that the Hearlink 9030 does NOT use the same AI technology as the More does.
Yes, the Hearlink 9030 uses AI to train its Noise Reduction unit hundreds of thousands of times during development to remove noise from speech, but that’s different from how the More is trained on the 12 million sound scenes to get the best balanced result of the various sounds. The Phillips Hearlink 9030 also incorporates directionality heavily in its noise control approach, while the More adheres closely to the open paradigm that the OPN and OPN S embraces.
That’s why you have the impression (in #1) that background noise suppression is so good that it becomes a negative for you in #6 because you want to hear more background noises.
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in the software, if my memory serves me correctly, there is a function “noise suppression” from minimum to maximum. Ask your audioprosthetist to check the box for minimum noise reduction. Sorry for my bad english