Costco News: KS10 discontinued

My fitter said they usually changed manufacturers at least every 2 iterations of the KS aids. He didn’t think it would be Sonova either but didn’t know who it would be, especially with the new director settling in.

1 Like

@twilkins10: Thanks for your clarification. I wanted to confirm that there were no restrictions on the model of aids that is subsequently purchased.

1 Like

I was told this yesterday by my Costco audiologist during a visit about a problem charging my KS-10’s.

Sales of KS-10’s have been suspended because of power issues that are plaguing a fair number of users. They recommend to do a hard reset to correct the issue. If that fails to correct the issue, they can replace them with a new pair if they have them in stock. I do not know what they plan to do if the store doesn’t have any stock. They also said they are working with the vendor to correct the issues. No further information was given.

4 Likes

I was at my local Costco this morning to pickup my new Philips HAs and saw they too had pulled the Kirkland HAs. The good news was they had the Philips and the next brand (sorry I don’t remember the brand) on sale for $200 off. So after the fitting of my new Philips HAs they gave me a $201.50 refund. Sweet! This is my first time with HAs so we’ll have to see how they work out. Time will tell!

2 Likes

Great! My local Costco definitely likes the Phillips.

Costco has been selling these aids for about 18 months. Did they change the manufacturing process or is this a problem KS 10s have had from the start?

Definitely something is up, a lot of people noticing the KS10 being pulled from the shelves at Costco, but I’m wondering if it’s more a new model coming out, KS11 (Phonak Lumley?)

@tenkan KS11 (Phonak Lumley?)
Not sure what you meant:
1- Johanna Lumley
2- Phonak Lumity
3- Not sure

:sweat_smile:

What kind of association does Lumity evoke? A weaver working his shuttle through the weft and warp?

Who hired the guy that came up with this? Was there a focus group?

Ha ha, yeah you’d think they’d at least get a bunch of people together over brunch! cheap wine can do wonders! but yeah lumity it is, dam text to speech and no proof reading on a sunday!

1 Like

The discount or price accommodation on hearing aids purchase less than 30 days earlier is for recharageable models only.

I just called Costco today about the KS10 problem. According to the rep they are not discontinued, but suspended until a charging bug is fixed. They will be sold again when that problem is resolved. He did not have any specific information on the KS11’s, but say new models usually come out in the spring.

4 Likes

@ctreenmn: thanks useful information. Hoping it is accurate and soon charging bug problem is soon resolved and they are available again for those of us for whom this model seems to be a good fix.

I find it odd that Costco recommends the KS10 for your loss. I think I mentioned that Costco would not even sell the KS10 to me, and your high freq loss is greater than mine. I think they justified it by claiming that Resound goes to 9.5k Htz and at higher gain s in the upper freqs, were the others top out at 8k and lower high freq gains. Go figure…

1 Like

So the KS10 recall has nothing to do with the KS11 coming up?

The KS10 (Phonak) is actually better for high frequency loss than Resound in most cases.
The KS10 has a better frequency lowering technology. It can shift high frequencies to lower frequencies than other brands of aids. This benefits those with severe/profound upper frequency hearing loss.

On the other hand, if a person has high frequency hearing loss and hears well in the upper frequencies and all they need is gain, maybe the Resound aids are better. Honestly in this scenario most any good hearing aids can be of great benefit to that person. It is just a matter of gain and acoustics.

3 Likes

I honestly have no idea which aid is better for high frequency loss. I was only passing my experience along and what Costco told me. Also why I self program and returned the Jabra’s

No.

:slight_smile:

:slight_smile:

Several months ago I had to bring my KS10s in for repair. The left one would not hold a charge properly. I got them back in about 10 days. Now the right one seems to drain more quickly than the left one, but still performs OK. I had similar issues with my rechargeable Phonak Marvels. I just sent them in for reconditioning as my 3-year warranty was about to expire.

2 Likes

I"ve had to do a hard reset a couple of times with my Phonak Audeo Paradise P90R’s. Each time they were fully charged when I left home. Some time after driving/arriving at work I found one hearing aid dead.
Remedy was to put my hearing aid into my charger case, recharge. Meanwhile reading the owner’s manual on line and doing a hard reset…at home.

DaveL