Have you seen pricing yet? Will there be a difference in price between Sphere and non Sphere Infinio? Basically wondering if Sphere will be priced like typical high end hearing aids or are we talking a new tier of pricing? Thanks.
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It’s interesting. Have they already hit the ceiling of what people are prepared to pay? If they price the sphere at current premium prices, then that puts downward pressure on pricing throughout the industry. Assuming that other manufacturers accept that the sphere is in a different class to their flagship devices. . Which they probably won’t I guess.
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No, not yet. If I had to guess, it would be a couple hundred $ over the 90 or 70 pricing? A bit like the Life was at first? But maybe that’s optimistic, I really have no idea.
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@Neville
There’s been a couple of different Phonak study groups, looking for volunteers recently, including ALDs in the UK. Sadly it wasn’t cost effective for me to volunteer, which is a shame.
I can really see the Sphere Chip featuring in a new ALD. The battery problem would be sorted (with a large rechargeable), and they’d still profit with the extra licensing, keeping it all exclusive. I would imagine they’d wait a while though, so the flagship HA gets high sales.
Peter
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Here is my take on the new Phonak Audéo Sphere…
I’m a busy exec in the IT industry and I have been wearing Phonak’s Lumity L90 for the last two years. The Lumity hearing aids are excellent and I have been very pleased with their performance. They do have two major gaps that I am hoping the new Sphere hearing aids can address:
- Battery life: The hearing aids will last a full day but more than 3 hours of streaming via Bluetooth Classic will chew up the battery much faster. I’ve worked around this limitation by dropping my Lumity’s into the charger for 20-30 minutes a day (usually when I shower after a workout). I am hoping that Bluetooth LE Audio will help extend the battery life by 2-3 hours a day. I currently get about 16-18 hours of battery life today so if the new platform delivers 2-3 extra hours, these hearing aids would be perfect.
- Speech in very loud/busy restaurants: Lumity does a great job with speech in noise. It struggles with speech in noise where the noise is many simultaneous voice conversations in close proximity. This could be a restaurant, a party in someone’s home, a sports event or even a large family dinner at the dining room table. It will be interesting to see if the new AI chip in Sphere can help with speech clarity with this worst case scenario. So far, there really is no hearing aid technology that solves this problem. Being able to effectively hear in this environment is a huge quality of life upgrade so this feature alone could be a game changer for me.
The real question is whether the improvements will be worth spending another $6K+ after spending a similar amount of money on Lumity only two years ago.
These are the main questions that need to be answered. In other words…has Phonak really changed the game on these two issues. Hoping a 4 week trial will provide clarity.
Just my 2 cents…
Jordan
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I love my Oticon aids my INTENT1 aids have MFI/ASHA and le audio. I don’t choose my aids for connectivity. I choose my aids for being able to survive almost like a normal hearing person. Connectivity is just something nice to have occasionally. While I stream music and audiobooks I prefer to use over the ear headphones. And my headphones can be used for phone calls too. But my aids work great with my Samsung S23 phone.
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Fit Hearing which is online seller with no store front as such has Luminty 90 @ $2,998.00
Infinio Sphere70 @ $3,398.00
Infinio Sphere90@ $3,798.00
These people are very good to deal with with Audiologist for the online adjustments.
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Is this per pair? or per aid?
Edit: Answered my own question. I see Infinio Sphere 90 at $3,798 per pair.
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Yeah but really not a lot of price difference between wholesale, I just think it goes to show yet again that they simply don’t cost much to manufacture to begin with, mind you the price quoted for Sphere in this post is not your typical clinic, they’ll still be asking 6-7k or more ( it’s the latest,with AI, you’ll hear “everything” bah bah)
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Mysecondear inital offer 2.290€ per aid for Audéo Sphere I90 , for orders until 29.08.2024.
Release in Germany is beginning of September , then the Sphere i90 will cost 2.590 €
I just looked at the US Veterans Affairs (VA) report on hearing aid purchases for the last month available, June 2024. Avg cost for rechargeable RIC was $460.21 . Brands available were GN Resound, Oticon, WS Audiology, Sonova/Phonak, and Starkey.
State of Maine(updated Sep 2023) pays $1,550.00 for a pair of Phonak Audeo L90-R HAs. $1,798.00 for a pair of L90-RL.
Just for some different frames of reference. None of the costs of testing, counseling, fitting, cleaning, misc like domes & receiver replacements, etc.
WH
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Yeah that’s about 4.5k Aus dollars.
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I expect (hope?) it to be a significant boost in speech in noise situations, but whether it’s enough of a boost will still depend on the person. If your hearing loss requires a 12dB signal to noise ratio and modern dmics could get you 7dB and adding AI gets you 14dB, that’s a slam dunk. If your hearing loss requires 22dB it’s still not going to do it for you. Likewise, of your hearing loss requires 6 dB it will probably be neat but overkill.
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When digital noise reduction was first introduced by Widex in 1997 there was a lot of hope about the gains in SNR and a race by other manufacturers to add noise reduction. In the end digital noise reduction added no SNR and the improvement came from directional microphones.
So, a lot of marketing hype but still no solid proof about real improvements in SNR from DNNs. Not saying it can’t happen, only that it has to be proven by independent studies.’
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Will Bluetooth LE eventually replace the TV adaptor? (i.e. when TV’s have it)
I think you’re thinking of Bluetooth LE Audio. Bluetooth LE has been around awhile in the form of Made for iPhone and ASHA. Most of us are thinking that LE Audio will eliminate the need for a special TV adapter but who knows? Manufacturers may think of a reason why a TV adapter continues to be “better.”
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12:49. Matthew Allsop is standing beside Dr. Cliff. But the real question is: who is the third guy on the right? 
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Anybody know if those have the same “waterproof” features as the “Life” model? Doesn’t seem to be advertised?
Is the Bluetooth Audio LE supported on all all iPhones? The Oticon web site says IOS 15.2 for the Intent but I’ve seen elsewhere that IPhone 14 and up?