I have 4-year-old Signia Pure 312 7Nx HAs. They’re still very helpful but I wonder if the last four years of progress in artificial intelligence/algorithms makes 2021 HAs much better than a few years ago. I would think that’s two generations of development and new ones are much better than older ones at noise cancellation, etc. Are new ones much better than ones maybe 4 years old?
Personally I don’t think so, there’s a lot of marketing hype for the every latest models, you know, every new platform they release, the manufacturers make wonderful claims,but one thing that has definitely improved is Bluetooth connectivity, this is getting better every year, all the new codes/profiles is much improved over the last 4 years and can only get better, AI is coming along, but still early days before we have real meaningful uses for this for the mainstream uses of HAs. The future looks good in the next 3-5 years i believe.
The Whisper hearing system is an innovative design using an external processor, which can process sound much faster than even the latest on-the-ear hearing aid processors. They use an AI/neural network design to take advantage of the available speed (and memory). A few of us on this forum have found that it works exceptionally well at separating speech from noise, while still letting you hear what’s going on around you. The catches are:
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Some rough edges are still being worked out. But the manufacturer has promised multiple software updates per year.
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It’s leased, not bought.
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The external processor (the Whisper Brain) has to be carried around for the best performance.
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Yes, I wonder how much “AI” is just a marketing term. AI is just processing. The term suggests a new level of performance, like you have a little Einstein in your HA. In fact, it just means that aids have better processing capabilities. How is that more intelligent than last year’s model?
Depends. It still depends on each person’s audiograms.
Sound quality? maybe or maybe not. You can make any hearing aids to sound great to ‘you’.
You just need the proper tools to do it. OR ask somebody professional to do it for you (although, this route will be costly and time sink). Illed fitting will always be illed result. Even if you have the best hardware, if software/programming not follow, its goes nowhere. The clear improvement over a decade was microphone technology. They seem to go way up from 113 to 116? 119? This means sound input will be clearer.
Bluetooth 5 will be a thing, I believe. LE audio is interesting. But gotta wait for the hardware to come out first. They already in the process maybe.
You might be right, but it might also be what we’ve been waiting for. For years we’ve been complaining that hearing aids make things louder, not clearer. This may be it (not specifically talking about Whisper here). I think we need time to get perspective.
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Yes, but why do we suddenly have “artificial intelligence” and last year we had “high powered processing features”? I think it’s all just part of the same spectrum, with a dash of marketing. AI is ‘big’ Soon they’ll be marketing artificial intelligence toasters. they’ll still just…toast bread.
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“AI” is the buzzword, “deep machine learning” is what they do. The flaw in your analogy is that toasters almost always succeed in toasting bread. Actually being able to isolate human voices and present them in a clearer way seems brand new to me. That’s what they claim to do. As I said, time and (more users) will tell.
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Think improvements are discernable by the masses every 2-4 generations
I’ve experienced three successive generations of ReSound models: Owned LiNX 3D, had a LiNX 2 loaner for a short time, and upgraded to LiNX Quattro. The differences between them were apparent at my level of hearing loss. LiNX 2 was obviously worse than LiNX 3D and LiNX Quattro was obviously better.
I’ve had ReSound Linx2 for almost 5 years. The VA gave me those and I’m going to the VA today they said I new new HA’s. I don’t know what they will be giving me until after my appointment today.
The choice of HA should result from a conversation between you and your audiologist. I would advise you to know why you get what you get. Ask yourself why the HAs you get are the best ones for you.
WH
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well, what’s “deep machine learning” when it comes to hearing aids? (And this last is incredibly clumsy–deep machine? Huh?).How is it different from what last year’s model does? In any case, chips don’t “learn” nor are they “intelligent”. they simply perform a programmed function.
There have been a fair number of discussions on the AI/DNN type functions, how they are implemented here. Do some searches and you’ll find it.
WH
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