Official Declaration From ReSound That Only The New Nexias Will Support Bluetooth LE Audio?

Hearing Aids Manufacturer Support
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Below is an edited copy of my correspondence yesterday and today with the U.S. GN ReSound headquarter in Minnesota.

Good day Jim,

Thank you for contacting ReSound.

The only hearing aids Resound manufactures that have the capability of receiving LE audio are the brand new Nexia hearing aids. The other models are not capable of receiving LE audio.

Matthew Ostlund | Consumer Technical Support |

ReSound | 8001 East Bloomington Freeway, Bloomington, MN 55420 |

From: Jim Lewis
Sent: Monday, November 13, 2023 3:44 PM
To: Resound Consumer Help consumerhelp@gnresound.com
Subject: Bluetooth Low Energy Audio and ReSound Omnia Hearing Aids

Hi, GN ReSound

I would like to know if a firmware update will be offered to make ReSound Omnia hearing aids capable of receiving streamed Blue LE Audio, at least the essential one-to-one streaming capability from a source (TV or computer) to my Omnia 962 hearing aids.

I am very disappointed that a year after issuing the Omnias, which are BT 5.3 capable, you issued the Nexias and apparently left Omnia users in the dust. If the Omnias are never upgradeable to BT LE Audio, I will strongly consider that letdown in what HA brands I go with for future hearing aid purchases.

Thanks for letting me know if the Omnias will be upgradeable to BT LE Audio at some point in the near future. If that would kill their MFi device capability, I am quite willing to switch to an Android smartphone to get that capability in my smartphone and HAs.

Jim Lewis

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Perhaps an Oticon user should try the same type of e-mail sent to the U.S. Oticon Headquarters and see what Oticon has to say w.r.t. the Real and the More…

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Not sure about the full email, but this extract is cold, very cold response from Matthew Wostland :cold_face: :cold_face: :cold_face:

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And for anyone else (like me) who isn’t sure why this may matter, here’s a primer on Bluetooth LE Audio:
https://www.howtogeek.com/558579/what-is-bluetooth-le-audio-and-why-will-you-want-it/
I’m sure you’ve been posting about this in the forum, Jim, but I missed the context here.

So it seems this is about transmitting a higher quality of music reproduction directly into the hearing aids. I’ve posted here several times that I don’t think (the current and older forms of) Bluetooth are very good at music reproduction in hearing aids. Personally I take the aids out and use Apple AirPods Pro tuned to the audiogram when I want wireless music in the ear.

Baltazard, I don’t know that the ReSound guy is being cold. He answered Jim’s question: the hardware in the earlier ReSound aids can’t support it. I dunno if that’s true, but that’s the answer.

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@hamjor1 I understand, there is a diplomatic way in answering consumer’s questions, and for sure this isn’t one of them.
But, you will have to see the full context to make a full judgement, but from the given extract, there is no doubt that the the answer in the extract isn’t consumer friendly.

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The material I quoted is the FULL CONTEXT. I only edited out his and my e-mail addresses and the links in his signature to ReSound sites. The quote is my entire e-mail to ReSound and his entire reply. I did suggest in another e-mail sent soon after that ReSound offer a “sweet upgrade deal” and suggested that perhaps they only charge $600 to $1,000 to exchange Omnias in good condition for the Nexias. He hasn’t replied, but maybe he or whoever hasn’t had a chance to read that separate e-mail yet. I sent that 2nd one to consumerhelp@gnresound.com as well.

I didn’t consider his response very cold. As Jack Webb used to say as Joe Friday in Dragnet (from the 1950s!), all he was providing was “Just the facts, (ma’am)! Just the facts!” OTH, I was expressing dissatisfaction and irritation, so perhaps the best response is to be plain-spoken rather than to butter up a grouchy customer who isn’t likely to be pleased with the answer provided.

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It’s about a lot more than music quality. There’s a thread on the forum just about LE audio that’s been going on since March of 2020 that has over 800 posts, LE Audio promises a universal, non proprietary streaming method that is 2 way and is energy efficient. The hope is that it provides streaming that “just works.” (as well as broadcast capabilities in venues)

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Music quality, latency, multiple synchronised streams, robust connections, power savings, interoperability through standardisation, and the tools to allow developers to create applications to address new use cases! And multiple-screen nirvana in sports bars!

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It’s definitely NOT about just music. In theory, the new BT standard will allow airports, shopping malls, churches, training and education facilities, and other public places to overcome the limitations of public address systems, especially in facilities with unfriendly acoustics, with much better quality BT transmissions.

BUT, my local Costco audi told me yesterday at my testing and buying appointment that he believes it will take a LONG time for any significant number of businesses to actually see and understand the advantages, and spend the money to equip themselves to do it.

Given that in our city of 100,000 population there are apparently very few T-coil loops, I see his point. The order I placed yeterday for the Jabra Enhanced Pro 20 (the model that just was released days ago) will bring me that new BT capabilty, but it might seriously be time for a replacement hearing aid before having that capability actually be an advantage.

But the ReSound response is curious, because both the Jabra and the ReSound products are in the same manufacturer’s (GN) group of brand names. And, the ReSound brand name is supposed to be the “flagship” line that ReSound would prefer to sell because the profit margin there is much higher due to selling through the hearing clinic channels. So it seems very odd that the Jabra product line would have a feature that the ReSound product line does not.

Perhaps this is just a temporary situaiton, caused by the newest Jabra product being ready to market before the newest ReSound product being ready to market?

I can see how that could be the case. Costco would want that new BT feature (along with any other improvements we may not yet know about) asap, and has the clout to insist on it. Costco’s high sales volume and sophisticated “just in time” delivery management, also means there is not a large inventory of EXISTING MODEL Jabra HAs in the supply chain at any point in time. I noted in my own case of ordering a Jabra Enhanced Pro 20 at Costco yesterday that Costco doees NOT sotck them at store level, but gets them in AND programmed pretty quickly (13 days) considering the logistics of product distribution in a country (Canada) of only 38 million people in a country that is 5000 kilometers wide.

However, the sales channel of chain hearing clinics sells off existing OLD product inventory much more slowly (Premium pricing will do that for virtually ANY product - that’s one of the penalties of premium pricing). ReSound would not want to publicly introduce a new model that would cannibalize sales of existing models already and still in the supply chain. So, there may well be an upgraded ReSound product line ready to go, but being held back until the supply chain manages to clear out most if not all of the inventory of EXISTING models.

Jim G

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I don’t think we should take this as an official announcement by Resound. A low level customer support person has made the correct statement that their latest product is the only one supporting LE Audio but hasn’t commented on whether there may later be firmware updates for Omnia for example.

That is certainly because he doesn’t know the answer. He only knows what is in the current scripts prepared by their marketing department, which similarly may not know, or deliberately don’t want to comment on, what is on their development roadmap.

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I already had this experience.

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With limited development resources and the risk involved in updating a product’s firmware, there’s a lot of reason for ReSound not to update Omnia.

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I’m sure there are challenges. The big issue is that when they introduced the Omnias, they implied in their marketing that they would support LE Audio. Whether credibility matters anymore, I don’t know.

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There isn’t much risk if the device was designed to have updateable firmware, which all recent Resound hearing aids have done.

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Actually I wasn’t even thinking of that. Rather I mean the risk of changing code and introducing bugs into the new firmware.

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That shouldn’t be a risk either, if the designers use proper design methods, document properly and do regression testing. After that it’s down to beta testing…

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Wow! Oticon “Customer Service” actually basically said “get lost”??

And those people have their dealers sell the Oticon Real 1 HAs for $10,250 in Canada ??

If I had a pair of $10K Oticons, and got THAT response, I’d be pretty pissed.

Jim G

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The new Jabra Enhance Pro 20 documentation says that they will support Auracast and Bluetooth LE Audio.
https://www.jabra.com/hearing/enhance-pro-20

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This is wild! What did you say to them?

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Before and after that message.