Demant introduces Philips HearLink hearing aids

Yes, precisely this - it’s all about Market Segregation.

Or at a more basic level - more slices of the pie.

I’m not an expert on hearing aid specifications, but when I did an internet search for the “Technical Data Sheets” to compare the “Philips Hearlink 9010 MiniRITE” with the “Bernafon Zerena 9 MiniRITE,” the graphs for the frequency responses for “2 cc coupler” and “Ear Simulator” are exactly the same. Does this mean that they are the same hearing aids under different names?

No. I think it basically means they use the same receivers. Many of us already think the Bernafon Zerena, Oticon OPN, Sonic and now Phillips use the same receivers. Many of us also are pretty sure that the hardware (computer chip) is the same. What we really don’t know is how much difference is in the software. The OPN has a different approach to noise reduction. The Zerena and Sonic seemed to still use a more conventional directional approach. The Phillips Hearlink?? Looking at the little bit I saw, it seems to claim both.

Can you tell us about the max amount -dB of noise reduction that can be applied in a complex environment for the Philips?

In this reference for comparison, the OPN 3 has a max noise reduction of -3 dB, while the OPN 2 has max -5 dB, and the OPN 1 has max -9 dB.

Bernafon touts their “channel-free” technology. The Oticon Opn 1 has 64 channels. (The Opn 2 & Opn 3 each have 48 channels). I could not find any information on the Philips technical data sheets about channels. Does anyone have more information or thoughts about this? Thanks.

Anybody know how many fitting bands Opn 1, 2 and 3 have and also Zerena? The Phillips premium model has 16.

Regarding fitting bands (according to the technical data sheets):
The premium Zerena9 has 16.
The Opn1 has 16.
The Opn2 has 14.
The Opn3 has 12.

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Philips audiology confirmed the settings for complex noise reduction give those same three options (-5, -7, -9) in the Philips fitting software.

It is also 64 channels

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It’s looking like the full featured Opn S line if it has the new Opn S OpenSound Optimizer feedback prevention technology.

eta> maybe not Open technology as @Volusiano says below, maybe Sonic?

Looking at the power plus bte regular earhook, not powerful enough for those with very profound hearing losses.

Found the feature overview:

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Just a guess here that the HearLink 2000/3000 are the old Opn tech and the 5010/7010/9010 are actually Opn S 1/2/3 … SoundMap Feedback Canceller seems like it could be “OpenSound Optimizer”…

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The Phoneme focus and Envelope focus are dead giveaways that this is based on the Sonic Enchant 100 technology, not the OPN technology. I posted a review of the Sonic Enchant 100 a while back and these terms from the Enchant 100 stick out like a sore thumb here.

Adaptive compression is another Sonic Enchant 100 technology that I’m aware of.

Finally, the various directionality options here don’t fit the OPN directionality options. The OPN only had Open Automatic, Full directionality, or Pinna Omni.

There’s a noticeable lack of the keyword “open” here in any of the features, which is the hallmark of the OPN. Such as OpenSound Navigator, OpenSound Optimizer, OpenSound Booster, etc.

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As far as I’ve been told, OPN-S doesn’t have the “autophone” setting (whereas first-generation OPN did), In the specs posted here, there is something called “non-telephone ear control,” (similar to autophone?), so that’s different than OPN-S. The only thing that makes me wonder is that there are 4 options for noise reduction–and OPN-S has that with the new “very high” setting they added. I think @AbramBaileyAuD might be right.

Whenever a hearing aid company sells their tech cheaper at Costco, they usually change as much as they can in the naming to obscure the connection between the discounted product and the flagship product. So, I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions there.

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Some more docs for you all:

Philips HearLink BTE PP (478.9 KB)
Philips HearLink miniRITE T R (548.6 KB)

Thanks for the info.
I noticed full on gain of 66. So these aids would be good for people up to severe loss, maybe a touch profound.
They look nice.

I’m not really drawing any conclusion. And I understand that they do change the name differently so that it’s not obvious of the copies. However, like in the case of the Sonic Enchant 100 and the Bernafon Zerena, I could draw a comparison to see the equivalence of the technologies embedded in them fairly easily despite them making things with different names, to deduct that they probably share the same technologies. But in the case of the Phillips Hearlink and the Oticon OPN here, I really don’t see anything that seems to be the equivalent of the OpenSound Navigator or OpenSound Optimizer or OpenSound Booster.

Still not drawing any conclusion yet nevertheless, just saying I don’t see anything glaringly similar to the Oticon technologies, yet I saw a few glaring similarities with the Sonic Enchant 100 technologies.

As far as I can tell, the approaches to signal processing between the OPN and the Enchant are VERY different. The Sonic Enchant for some reason doesn’t seem to catch on to the hearing aid market as well as the others, even compared to the Bernafon. So I wouldn’t be surprised if William Demants is making this move to promote the Sonic Enchant technologies more effectively through the Phillips label /brand.

Clear as mud. Maybe one of us could trial the new Philips, then if it’s not locked, take it home and see which software detects the hearing aids;

  • Oticon Genie 2
  • Bernafon Oasis
  • Sonic ExpressFit

j/k; well, halfway kidding :wink:

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