That’s the way my old Phonaks worked, but they were equipped with telecoils. I understand the magnet activates the “XPhone” feature in the KS7’s, but not the KS8’s. But I’m still in the steep side of the learning curve and I could easily be wrong. I’ll certainly find out
Ah. Indeed. I’m assuming that the KS8’s would work similarly. I don’t know either. Maybe the telecoil version of the KS8’s?
Sounds like you may have the answer.
So did you get the telecoil option in your KS8’s? If so then maybe this would work the same as the KS7’s.
No, I didn’t get the telecoil option with the KS8’s. Other than the telephone feature, I never used the telecoils in 7 years with the Phonaks. I understand that it makes the HA’s physically larger, and the iPhone connectivity of the basic model met most of my major needs. But the ability to adapt to the landline phones with this workaround (when needed) is an added bonus.
Having owned hearing aids with the built in telecoil is a great convenience. It requires no other action than touching the mode button to the telecoil setting on your hearing aid, and placing the landline receiver next to your ear. When someone speaks other the other end, the speech is amplified by your hearing aid. I thought that almost all better hearing aids come with the telecoil feature. No so with Costco products. That’s a definite negative.
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My Costco house brand Kirkland Signature version 7(KS7)'s have it. A version of the KS8 can have it. It just so happens that johnhardin9 chose or was not sold the version with it.
I’m not certain about all the other HA’s Costco has but I would tend more towards it being the exception that any don’t and more likely that they would.
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Yes, Z10 nailed it. I chose the KS8’s without telecoils because I preferred the smaller size, especially since the iPhone connectivity gave me 75-80% of the phone capability the telecoils provided with my previous devices. The discovery that I could use “XPhone” feature just added icing on the cake by closing the gap to 95%.
When I bought my Phonaks 7 years ago, I thought telecoils were the wave of the future based on many things I read and heard. There were expectations that loop systems would be ubiquitous in public venues such as buildings, arenas, stadiums, airports, churches, etc. However, in my experience that hasn’t been the case. If it weren’t for the telephone feature, I would have considered the telecoils to be virtually useless for me. Over the 7-year period, I can count on one hand the number of times they helped in any situation other than the phones.
All that is to say I decided my optimum choice was to skip the telecoils, especially since Costco’s policy allows a switch to them during the trial period. So far I see no reason to make the switch. Having choices is a positive, not a negative. (YMMV)
Beside the land phone and public places, one other nifty thing with the telecoil is that you can get a third party neck loop that has an audio line in and turn your hearing aid into headphones for non Bluetooth devices that have audio out like older laptop, TV etc.
Not so! Many of the size 312 battery models don’t. Only one I am aware of with it is Resound and that is new to this model. The emphasis for several models has been smaller profiles and that could be accomplished better leaving out them out.
We all should fact check better. There is a lot of guessing going on based on limited knowledge. Costco doesn’t eliminate Telecoil from the models it offers. They are identical as to whether or not that model has TC.
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We all have slightly different understandings of what constitutes a “better hearing aid”, based on our individual needs and wants. To me, a better product gives me options to choose or not choose a particular feature. And ideally it should give me an opportunity to evaluate my choice over a reasonable period of time and then trade up if I choose to do so. I think Costco wins hands down in both respects.
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Except that the telecoil outputs only mono. ie. copied to both sides. You would need to output mono from your playing device or you would lose things.
Now…connecting that device to the center speaker output of a 5.1 system might be golden. I haven’t tried that yet. I’ll be putting in my own loop in my reno I have going on right now.
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Yeah, that’s one inherent drawback of the telecoil, mono only.
There are physical adapters that can convert from stereo to mono. The way the connector of the neck loop is built may already do this automatically without needing an adapter.
When I got my KS8s, and asked for the size 13 batteries, it was not an added cost and telecoil was included. The telecoil feature works very well with a telecoil transmitter (I have Open Door). I don’t know about landline use because I ditched that.