Hearing aid brand’s explanation of their ability to understand speech in loud noise can be compared to car makers’ and manufacturers’ claims for fuel efficiency. I guess their claim for fuel efficiency sells more cars…
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Just took delivery of my Intents today. Excited! Unfortunately got to wait for new microshell moulds to come back before we can program but will be up and running by end next week if I’m lucky. Went for black colour this time I thought a break from the usual beige would be a good thing.
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Interesting……
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A few things I picked up from this article mentioned above in post 224 that wasn’t clear to me before:
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In their item 2, they mentioned that the Intent frequency response has been expanded to 10 KHz. I did mention that I thought that before the Intent, the Real and More only have up to 8 KHz, but somebody on this forum (a registered provider on this forum, @user246 , shut me down saying that all previous Oticon models already have the range out to 10 KHz. Judging by Genie 2, however, I don’t see the Fine Tuning allowing any adjustment beyond 8 KHz. So what’s the point of Oticon claiming that the Intent goes up to 10 KHz but then not updating Genie 2 to provide the 10 KHz gain for adjustment? Most HCPs only do audiogram testing up to 8 KHz anyway. I don’t recall ever seeing any audiogram that has 10 KHz data points. So I have to call BS on the 10 KHz range based on what Genie 2 allows you to adjust (only up to 8 KHz).
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The MoreSound Amplifier 3.0 having a higher dynamic range for the Intent compared to the Real. I suppose this would be best appreciated by musicians and music lovers. There’s also specific mention of the dynamic range extending out to 10 KHz in the Oticon Intent marketing material. But again, I’m not sure how it would prescribe a 10 KHz gain if there’s no adjustment allowed for it inside of Genie 2 in the first place.
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This technical article (with the link in post 224 above) says that “The Intent uses even smarter algorithm for feedback control (compared to the Real?)”, yet the official Oticon Intent online page says nothing about any kind of improvement to the MoreSound Optimizer for the Intent. So I call BS on this item 5 in the article.
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The article above says that while the Real Wind handling feature is already very good, the Intent “takes it to the next level”, citing a link that talks about the best hearing aids for golfers. Yet, this link calls out the Oticon Real as one of those aids. There’s not even a mention of the Oticon Intent in this article. So how does citing this golfer article prove that the Intent takes wind handling to the next level over the Real, when the Intent is not even mentioned in the golfer article? It just goes to show that there’s a bit of unsubstantiated BS’ing in this article. I read the whitepaper for the Intent, and although it does talk about the wind handling feature, there’s no mention of any improvement of this feature compared to what they have in the Real.
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They did claim 10KHz on the More launch.
The problem is, although the receiver had some level of response above 8Khz it rolled off so much you couldn’t actually use it. If they’ve got 50-90dB out of a new receiver in the top octave then it’ll be usable.
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Whenever I try to respond to things on my phone instead of my computer, I come back to find it just littered with typos and incorrect words. I’m glad that you guys seem to be able to catch my meaning anyway. 
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Wrong, look at the frequency response they do get to 10,000hz. Also wrong audiometers can have the option of measuring high-frequency. The 8000hz band goes up to 10k. This is not new it was done with the epoq xw , what is new is in the lows which starts at 80 which gives a better music experience.
OK thanks for the clarification. I’ll take your word for it that even though Genie 2 only allows for adjustment up to the 8 KHz point only, this adjustment does extend out to 10 KHz. But I personally think it’s kind of lame that although the response can go up to 10 KHz, yet the 10 KHz data point is not available to be set. What if the hearing loss at 10 KHz is different enough from the 8 KHz that it deserves its own amplification value? If it’s significantly less than at 8 KHz, then the amplification at 8 KHz which extends to 10 KHz would not be correctly sufficient for 10 KHz. Or the other way around would apply just as well.
I’m also not saying that audiometers cannot measure up to 10 KHz or beyond, I’m just saying that all my experience has been that all my audiograms done so far over the years only go up to 8 KHz. For me personally, my hearing loss is so bad at 6 KHz already that audiometer measurement at 10 KHz is a moot point anyway. I wonder if anyone reading this post has ever seen their audiogram showing the 10 KHz data point? Especially those who have only moderate or moderately severe hearing loss at 10 KHz. Please chime in to share. Thanks.
It still doesn’t change my calling BS on that article boasting that Oticon has widened the frequency response on the Intent from the Real to 10 KHz (implying that the Real didn’t go up to 10 KHz), considering that you and @Um_bongo both confirms that the 10 KHz range has already been there in previous Oticon models for a long time now. It’s not something new on the Intent like the article says it is.
In general, the insurance companies don’t decide on what hearing aid brand/model their in-network providers sell, from what I can tell. But I have seen some insurance forcing people to go to a specific provider to buy hearing aids from them only, not just any in-network providers. But that’s a different thing than what your audi told you.
So is your audi saying that he/she would sell the Oticon Real or More to you and get reimbursed by your insurance company, but they would not sell the Oticon Intent to you unless it’s through a direct cash payment as opposed to through an insurance reimbursement? It doesn’t make much sense. Money is money. And last I checked, the Intent has only been recently announced and released. It’s not like it’s already in such high demand that Oticon and the HCPs can be choosy about whom to sell it to.
The only thing that makes sense is that the insurance company requires a discounted price from their in-network provider, and Oticon sells the More and Real to their HCP at a low enough at-cost price to meet this discounted price demand from the insurance company, with still (maybe barely) enough profit margin left to the HCP to be in business. But maybe now with the Intent, Oticon demands a much higher premium price (compared to the Real or More) that it would no longer meet the demanded discount price that the insurance company sets, thereby not allowing the in-network provider to be able to meet this discounted price, or not be able to make a decent profit anymore with the Intent.
If I can confirm that this is the case when I start calling around for my in-network providers to inquire about buying the Intent using my insurance coverage, I’ll share with folks here on this forum.
Nevertheless, if this is true, the point your audi made to you about Oticon wanting to “help” the HCP make more profit margin on the Intent compared to the Real or More is not true. Oticon only wants to help themselves here by increasing the Intent price, and leave the HCP holding the bag and risk losing potential customers. People who can take advantage of their insurance coverage to buy hearing aids are never going to forgo this financial advantage and instead be willing to fork out the whole amount out-of-their-pocket just to buy the Intent. They would settle for the Real and the in-network provider would still end up making a paltry profit margin like before. Only Oticon would come out ahead compared anybody here, but at the expense of pissing off loyal customers who balk at the price increase on the Intent.
Perhaps some of our registered providers on this forum can chime in about this. Is Oticon really doing something to help their HCPs make more profit on the Intent compared to before, by not allowing you to sell the Intent to insurance-covered customers?
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I just looked back at 25 years of audiograms and the highest value possible on any of the graph/report forms was 8K.
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I don’t sell in a country that uses a private insurance model, so I can’t confirm that.
There’s always the ‘notion of exclusivity’ vs. ‘Shifting units’ argument about product introduction though. Usually the manufacturer wants to give the impression that they’re a cut above, while wanting to move as much product as possible. Its basically why Jaguar cars still exist as a brand.
I saw a new Jaguar on the road recently and did a bit of a double take. Now you’ve got me thinking a bit sadly about the old guy who used to visit his ailing sister down the road every other day- each time in a different, lovingly-restored-or-maintained Jag. He must have had at least six of them. Wonder how he feels about it all if he’s still alive. Waaay off-topic. Sorry.
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I’m Canadian, so I’m not clear on exactly how insurance programs work in the states. I’ve gotten the idea, however, that insurance there is a weird middle man that forces HCPs to lower their prices to a point where they can no longer sustain their business. They try to dictate what hearing aids the patient can access, sometimes with no relationship to medical necessity. In many cases, it looks like HCPs are forced to provide services at a loss until they eventually pull out of bad contracts. It looks like the insurance companies also regularly tell the client one thing (“you have 80% coverage!”) and the HCP another thing (“80% coverage up to $500!”) leaving the HCP looking bad, and then they also arbitrarily rake back money, or refuse to pay things that they already approved. Generally, relationships with insurance down there seems to be very toxic and there’s a constant conversation going on with providers who are just dropping all insurance options.
That said, I don’t see how this choice that Oticon has made helps?
It’s possible that it also means that up where I am the intent will not be an option for patients with WSIB coverage? Which is no problem, we’ll just pick something else.
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This is a list of Intents “rebrands”, coming from Bluetooth Certification Consortium.
Philips being the most known since it’s being sold by Costco. While the hardware inside appears to be the same (and they look identical outside too), the software and features might be not, as apparent by differing fitting software that they use.
That being said I’ve already seen comparison between features of newest HearLinks and Intents and they’re closer than ever.
Oticon Intent miniRITE, Intent 1 - Intent 2 - Intent 3 - Intent 4 - Intent DemoFlex
Bernafon Encanta MNR, Encanta 400 - Encanta 300 - Encanta 200 - Encanta 100 - Encanta DemoFlex
Philips HearLink 50 MNR, HearLink 9050 - HearLink 7050 - HearLink 5050 - HearLink 3050 - Hearlink 50 DemoFlex
Oticon B miniRITE, B500 - B400 - B300 - B200
AGXO B miniRITE, B500 - B400 - B300 - B200
Amplifon ampli-energy 5D R, ampli-energy 5 5D - ampli-energy 4 5D - ampli-energy 3 5D - ampli-energy 2 5D - ampli-energy 5D DemoFlex
Audika B miniRITE, B500 - B400 - B300 - B200
HHM B miniRITE, B500 - B400 - B300 - B200 - B DemoFlex
Multisound B miniRITE, B500 - B400 - B300 - B200
KINDsevan miniRITE R, KINDsevan 5 - KINDsevan 4 - KINDsevan 3 - KINDsevan DemoFlex
SoniTon Personal Plus R, Personal 1.5 - Personal 2.5 - Personal 3.5 - Personal 4.5 - Personal.5 DemoFlex
Vio T 6 Li, T44 - T34 - T24 - T14 - Td4 DemoFlex
Bernafon A1 MNR, Maico A1 MNR, A1.100 - A1.80 - A1.60 - A1.40
Multisound A1 MNR, A1.100 - A1.80 - A1.60 - A1.40
SoniTon A1 MNR, A1.100 - A1.80 - A1.60 - A1.40 - A1 DemoFlex
Sonic A1 MNR, A1.100 - A1.80 - A1.60 - A1.40
SBO A1 MNR, A1.100 - A1.80 - A1.60 - A1.40
Bluetooth Certification Consortium presumably only cares about BT interoperability, not any other aspect of a product. So it’s quite a leap to go from there to “rebrand”, even with caveats.
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It is not, since nowadays BT chip is integrated into SoC, which is certified as whole. Also, all the “rebrands” which got released (Philips, Bernaforn, …) look exactly the same.
Thank you for clarifying this. But I still think rebrand is a stretch. SoC is hardware along with some system-level software, right? If a non-Demant company secured a supply of this particular SoC and developed their own hearing aid, would it still be a rebrand?
I remember going through a similar discussion to this once when somebody on this forum found the FTC certification to reference the same certification number issued for the various William Demant brands. They concluded that they’re all rebrands due to having the same FTC certification number. But upon reading it more closely, the certification is only on the communication part of the system.
If you want to believe that certification for just the BT part implies certification for the whole SoC as a whole, that’s your prerogative, of course. And if by judging that all 3 new brands’ models look exactly the same, therefore they’re all exact rebrands of each other, then that’s also your prerogative.
Although there seems to be very few Bernafon users on this forum, there are plenty of Philips users and Oticon users here. And there has been several debates on this forum about the Philips aids being the exact same rebrand of the Oticon aids. If this turns out to be true, I think we would have seen everyone flocking to buy Philips aids and the Oticon aids sales would have been cannibalized. But that hasn’t happened.
I would encourage anyone who truly believes that they’re all the exact same rebrands of each other to find which one has the lowest price amongst them and go buy that brand instead. Right now it’s probably the Philips brand sold through Costco. It only makes sense to do so if that were true.
To me, the whitepapers of Oticon and Philips just don’t support that they’re the exact same rebrands when it comes to their core technologies. The Oticon aids use a DNN AI (that is trained on whole sound scene samples) to rebalance the whole sound scene and thereby uses this rebalancing capability to provide SNR support for speech. Meanwhile, the Philips aids seem to be using a different AI that is trained specifically to address noise reduction for speech only (using noisy speech samples for data) without rebalancing the whole sound scene. The 2 sets of data used to train the respective AIs are completely different type of data used.
It all comes down to money and what’s cheaper.
Perhaps I’ve used the term “rebrands” too loosely but I strongly believe they ‘only’ differ on a software level. They’ve gotten to the point where they don’t even change the shell for Philips’s version.
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Yes, but the software difference is what can make the core functionalities different.