At risk of repeating my earlier post, I was lucky
in an audiologist (UK, National Health, delivered by a not-for-profit clinic that also has a private arm) who two years ago took on board my needs by asking about lifestyle. Tones and tympanology only go so far. On a review visit she invited me to pop outside to the busy street for five minutes and just listen. Back in clinic she fine tuned lows, checked for high-note distortions while I riffed on my mouthorgan, then removed the microphone directionality which I had been finding disorientating - as well as hazardous
in traffic. Perhaps speech in noise or echo is a little more difficult now, but as a music lover I am happy with that tradeoff. I wonder if users could be given training in use of equalisation and dynamic compression, then be offered full control of their HA?
Surely not that difficult, because the nice
thing about sound is you can appreciate changes immediately. Like seasoning stuff in the kitchen.
I would think, if for no other reason than to ease the learning curve for HCPs, that HA OEMs are going to implement AI for fitting. And maybe someday, the user will not even have to visit their HCP. Right now, there is remote fitting via Target, but perhaps someday the user can just talk to MyPhonak and Phonak cloud servers will be able to investigate and drill down further (more follow-up questions, A/B testing, etc.) to perfect the user’s fit.
There’s always the consideration the HA OEMs are selling their products to HCPs, not to users directly, and HCPs probably won’t like being taken out of the loop by AI that understands every nuance of the fitting software and knows the relatively defined domain of the OEMs product and how it fits various hearing losses (we’re not talking about “understanding” and processing the world’s Internet “data” here). It might be a realm like automation in the car industry vs. manual human labor…
One interesting thing about Target is that you can remote fit yourself. You don’t have to connect in Target to your own HAs by a login to Phonak cloud servers (with ReSound Smart Fit, you do). And you don’t have to use a NoahLink Wireless to make the connection (just your smartphone via the MyPhonak app). The main drawback is the connection process, having changes take effect, and saving changes is slower than molasses (I only have about 20 Mbps upload speed; it might be better with a 1 Gbps fiber connection on both ends! 
).
can a DIY user adjust hearing aids remotely? Do I need to have a phonak user account on the server?
I don’t have a Phonak account, but I made several adjustments to my Spheres and saved them through my Internet connection. I presume Phonak is counting on a phone “handshake” for connection security (HCP informs the user over the phone they are about to connect), or maybe one’s HAs have to have been previously connected through a NoahLink Wireless to the Target user’s computer. The Target user initiates the request, and the HA wearer, through MyPhonak, accepts the request. You can have a video and audio connection simultaneously, and maybe that’s what slows things down so much! It might help if you’re using this method to fit your HAs to turn the audio off, though. I created a positive audio feedback loop at one point as I, the wearer, sat right at my computer keyboard as I used Target. I’m also in the USA, so I don’t know if it works the same way without a Phonak login in other parts of the world. I used my home Wi-Fi LAN, not cellular data, to remote into my HAs.
That’s the way it is. Unfortunately.
Therefore you need to have Noahlink Wireless to establish a first connection to Target. Before you can connect remotly with your phone.
I have Noahlink wireless, it’s not a problem. It is not a problem for DIY users to buy this device, the device will be in use for a long time, so it will also be used for newer hearing aids.
I tested the remote adjustment of the hearing aids. The video connection is unnecessary for a DIY user and I can see it being the main reason why everything is slow. Another reason I don’t like is that the smartphone screen has to be active in order to work, ie it can’t be moved to the background. or lock screen. I think it could be better and practical to work on it a bit.
David Owen wrote a good book. Thanks for reminding me about this experience.