I have had the same experience with my Jabra EP20’s. I have had mine for about 15 months and have had them replaced twice in that time due to microphone sensitivity degradation. I took the third pair back to Costco in December with the same problem at which time they told me that there was a new field installable microphone filter replacent, which they did for me. That improved the situation, but still not as ‘bright’ as when they are new. They slowly deteriorated again and when I went back to Costco a few days ago they told me that there is now a new body for the HA that allows user access to the mic filter, but it is factory installable so I have to send them away.
I have to say I am very disappointed with these HAs. Previously I was using Phonak HAs rented from an audiology company, but decided to switch to Costco HAs as I was paying about 3 times the price with the rental ones. I’m considering cutting my losses and going back to Phonaks. The phonaks worked great, my only beef with them was the battery life which only lasted 7 to 8 hours after a couple of years, not long enough for a full day’s usage.
The fact that Jabra has now introduced two ‘upgrades’ (replaceable mic filters and new HA body) indicates to me that there is a design flaw in the Jabra HAs that they are trying to resolve.
Things I liked about the Phonaks compared to the Jabras:
Consistent good operation, no mic degradation
Double ear tap pauses/restarts Bluetooth streaming - Jabras don’t
Can pair both my iPhone and my Android tablet to the HAs at the same time, easy switch from one to the other.
The Phonaks use regular Bluetooth whereas the Jabras use BLE, which is both the reason point 3 above works on Phonaks and also why the Phonak battery life is not great (regular Bluetooth needs more power) - swings and roundabouts: accept poor battery life for better convenience or accept less functionality for better battery life. I’m stil wrestling with that dilemma.
My Jabra hearing aids we’re fitted in mid December and I had issues with the hearing aids just stopping working at all due to dirt clogging the microphone holes. Costco sent them to GN for replacement of the entire innards with new ones, including the new microphone filters. The fitter who returned them to me, said that they were going nuts cleaning the ones that customers owned. I returned several times when one of mine or the other just stopped working.
Wearing them daily since February 20th, they have worked flawlessly. I haven’t done anything to them except put them on in the morning and take them off before bedtime. The only issue I have is that I have difficulty getting the right dome located properly in my ear canal in the morning. Then, I get some mild feedback when I cup my right ear. Eventually I fiddle with it and I get it in the right place. Then, it’s fine for the rest of the day. I’m a lefty and my right hand has less dexterity than the left hand, I think.
I wouldn’t count it as a recall, it’s a fix to a problem many users faced. Some people never complained about this moisture and mic fluctuations at all (everyone is built different w.r.t amount of sweat and other things).
What OP said aligns with what one of the users said ( ReSound Vivia 9 review - #14 by KB4096 ) about ReSound providing a retrofit outershell with the same external mic filters as the vivia and savi. Seems like they’re doing the same for Jabras too since they’re the same model.
To me it does seem like a design flaw. The filters are supposed to protect the microphone however they trap moisture in; regardless of how many dryer cycles the aids go through I always end up with the fluctuation problem within 2 or 3 months of use.
Same filter used on the Nexia and Omina, so the microphone opening is different so thats the main issue, but this new filter design is so they could be easier to fit then some kind of design flaw? It’s a brilliant idea I think, Vivia hasn’t been out long enough for us to know if there’s gonna be any issues with these new filters, but I guess no more hassle then doing wax filters.
Yes, it’s exactly what OP describes, except it’s moisture related not a microphone quality problem. (confirmed by ReSound and a couple of different audis I saw)
After few weeks of use the microphone just gets iffy and the volume gets up and down as someone speaks. At first it gives the impression that the programming is the problem when in reality it’s unrelated. It’s even not fixable when professionally cleaned with compressed air and such.
Hopefully the new external microphone filters are the true fix to this.
Got my first replacement HA two days ago (replacing them one at a time.) There are now replaceable mic filters that one changes with new filters on little sticks very similar to the wax guards. It looks like this might be a workable solution to the issue of mic sensitivity degradation. Keeping my fingers crossed.
Interesting, mine came back from the manufacturer and there are no replaceable filters other than the wax filters that you referred. Do you have the MARE microphones attached to your speakers?
The standard Jabra Enhanced Pro 20 hearing aids don’t have any other filters other than the wax guards, unless you have the microphones that are attached to each speaker. Is this what you are referring?
It doesn’t sound like you got the latest version, or maybe you weren’t told about the mic filters. The one I got has external mic filters. It looks just like the original except the mic holes are slightly bigger and have filters that one replaces much like the wax guards. Unless you look really closely it would be easy to mistake the new ones for the old, they look almost identical. The filter replacement ‘sticks’ are green to avoid confusion with the wax guard sticks.
I don’t have the microphones attached to the speaker.
My hearing aids have the exact same cases that they had before. The Costco hearing aid specialist told me that GN, the manufacturer, replaced the entire innards with new ones that have the improved or new microphone filters. They did that, she said, so that the serial numbers on the hearing aids are the same as on their paperwork. The microphone holes are the exactly same and there are no replaceable filters that they told me about.
Interestingly, since I got them back on February 20th I have done almost no maintenance. I may have brushed the exteriors a couple of times. I just take them off and put them in the charger and take them out in the morning and put them in my ears. I did this as an experiment to see how long they would work with minimal cleaning. Today the right one stopped working. I changed both wax filters and domes. Now they are working again flawlessly. That’s over a month and a week. Also, before they sent mine back to the factory, they kept telling me that I needed to clean out my ears with wax removal drops and to keep the exteriors and domes clean.
A friend of mine has new Jabra E/H pro 20s and both of his stopped working after ten days. When he returned today to Costco they told him his wax filters were dirty and told him to clean out the wax in his ears with wax removal drops. He has been wearing hearing aids for several years and never had a wax problem before.
I’m beginning to think that GN has told Costco employees that they won’t do the replacement until the customer has returned a minimum number of times. And, that they should blame wax problems on the customer before they will do the repair.
I do not think so. I think it is more then likely that the customer needs better HA & ear cleaning. Maybe the GN HAs are more susceptible to ear wax then some other model?
Anyhow I know this is an issue for myself. That I have to stay up on. It makes a difference when I’ve cleaned my ears and I’ve cleaned my receivers.
That said I think I might be experiencing the mic sensitivity issue. I have to double click my volume up on my hearing aids everyday now. Is that a sign of the issue?
I find it interesting that you came to the conclusion that my experiment has no validity. For the second half of December and all of January and part of February, that I had the hearing aids, I was going beck to Costco regularly for cleanings. Their excuse was that I wasn’t doing a good job cleaning my ears nor changing the wax filters enough.
However, since the hearing aids were returned to me, I did little and minimal maintenance and have had no issues. Maybe, the manufacturer not only repaired the hearing aids, but they magically repaired my ears from producing wax in the same proportions as before.
So from reading this and your other posts in this thread, you are saying, Costco did replace the two microphone filters in the top of each hearing aid (not the microphone in M&RIE receivers) or you think they’re lying?
So, a month and a week is not a long time for a wax build up to require reciever filters and domes to be replaced. Thus it sounded to me like you were having wax in reciever issues. This confused me as to why you had to get them sent back to the factory in the first place and I did not see it in the thread.
Reading this it sounds like Costco cleaned the HAs and the wax was in the filters and domes. Maybe they had not cleaned their ears before getting new HAs, I wondered. You did not elaborate on any other issues your friend found so I found this somewhat confusing as well.
My partner goes to Costco at least 4 times a year for cleaning as she has lots of ear wax. I myself have a lot of ear wax in my right ear, my better ear, and cleaning the reciever filters, domes and my ears regularly makes a big difference. Both of us have been told by Costco that we should stay on top of this. Thus my comments based on my experience and my other posts on this listserv.
As I mentioned, that said I think I may be having the symptoms others have reported in this thread. And I did not read you were reporting and thus part of my confusion. So, assuming you and maybe your friend might be having these same symptoms maybe it is an interesting thought. But it was not clearly stated to me.
I hope you can see where I was coming from. My intention was not to disregard your experiment. I just did not understand it…