We just updated our story here Costco to Sell Philips Hearing Aids from Demant with a response from Demant:
How are Open Sound Navigator and Speech Guard different from SoundMap and SoundTie?
OpenSound Navigator and Speech Guard are features only provided in Oticon products (Opn, Opn S, Opn Play). Their respective role is to help patient understanding speech in noise and making sounds audible. This goal is addressed by Phillips HearLink in a different manner. While Oticon and Philips products both offer innovative technologies for these key patients-needs, they do it following a different approach. OpenSound Navigator has a unique three stage processing in noisy environments with an Analysis, Balance and Noise Removal. The goal is to allow for significantly improved performance in noisy situations without creating the unnaturally narrow listening window created by beam forming. SoundMap Noise Control uses a more conventional approach with a Directionality and Noise Reduction, but here using a twin-microphone to estimate noise more accurately. On the amplification side, Speech Guard uses a linear gain window to optimally preserve small changes in level (speech modulations), while, SoundMap amplification integrates a noise estimate that controls compression ratio to better preserve speech information in noisy environments. SoundTie is the name of the connectivity solution of Philips HearLink. It shares the core transmission technologies (2.4GHz Blutooth low energy, Near-Field Magnetic Induction) with other products of the Demant group, including Oticon.
Is there anything in the Philips aids that would provide something similar to the OpenSound Optimizer feature found in the Opn S?
Demant has developed and patented a core technology to detect and control feedback in a much faster way than conventional technology, and which does not make use of conventional frequency shift and gain reduction. This core technology is applied in both Philips and Oticon products to provide state of art/ market leading feedback control.