The Sphere is getting all the attention. As it should. It’s what appears to be groundbreaking.
But part of this new release is the plain Infinio without Sphere. Infinio appears to be an upgrade in the Audéo series over the Lumity. New ERA chip. The one advantage it has over the Sphere is that it’s not an energy hog, which means longer battery life. Not an insignificant advantage in the world of Phonak.
I’m more interested in the Infinio R-I90 at this point.
Has anyone tried this? Has anyone seen a review of this non-Sphere version?
In a foot note, I wonder if the Infinio R-I90 might pop up in Costco at some point. There have been rumors that Phonal and Costco have been talking. There seems to be little other reason for Phonak to have made a premium version of this hearing aid without its flagship defining feature. Has anyone else ever done something like this?
New ERA Chip
APD 3.0 – A New Hearing Prescription
AutoSense 6.0
It has enhanced Bluetooth – plus Auracast ready and a
30% longer-lasting rechargeable battery.
It’s worthy of a “new platform” a good all rounder to replace the Lumity for those mild moderate (the bulk of sales) these people probably don’t need Sphere? can’t be price as hearingtracker has the same cost for both?
I think your right this would fit right in with Costco, put Phonak back in wholesale prices with the competition, they need it!
I think I’m genuinely misunderstanding something. @billgem & @Zebras , why would you choose the Infinio without the Sphere option if the price is the same, or even close to the same? For that matter, why would anyone choose not to have the Sphere option? I don’t understand why Phonak would even make an I-70 or I-90 model without the Sphere option.
Is there any advantage to having the non-sphere version other than the smaller size? It seems to me that a buyer who felt they would never use the Sphere option could just turn it off in the app and get the exact same performance and battery life as the non-Sphere Infinio. Then that user would have the option of enabling the Sphere option if they ever decided to try it.
Manufacturers make small hearing aids because they think that the customer will buy a nicer small hearing aid rather than a larger one. The regular infinio will be sold because buyers mostly don’t know what’s under the hood. They do not follow news and innovation.
Good points, @ziploc. I don’t understand either why Phonak would even make the Infinio without the Sphere option. So I’m guessing that their long game is to have a “premium” model that they can sell in Costco but one which is also not as fully featured as the one which they offer to their private providers.
The advantage to me in buying the non-Sphere option is that the non-Sphere option is covered by my insurance and the Infinio Sphere is not. The cost to me for the non-Sphere I-90 is $1800, which is pretty close to a Costco price.
I don’t find myself in complex hearing situations all that much any more, so I don’t know how much benefit I’ll actually get from the Sphere, and it’s not like the non-Sphere doesn’t have a program for Speech in Noise. It’s probably very similar to the Speech in Noise program that the Lumity had, which is probably good enough for my needs these days.
My primary interest in Phonak is for their Speech Enhancer feature, which is included in the non-Sphere I-90 package. Believe it or not, I’m having more trouble with Speech in Quiet these days than I am with Speech in Noise. Weird, huh?
With regard to your question about any advantage to the non-Sphere, my answer is battery life. Yes, I could buy the Sphere and turn it off, but that’s essentially what the non-Sphere is. So, given my insurance benefit and my hearing needs, it’s a no-brainer for me to take the non-Sphere.
In line with your thinking, I am only seeing a $200 up charge for the Sphere over the non-Sphere I-90 on Zip Hearing. If it were not for my insurance benefit, then the no-brainer decision - as you suggest - would in fact be to buy the Sphere for the negligible cost difference and live with the battery issues, which still have to be managed one way or the other.
The fact that an insurance company is already unable or unwilling to make the Sphere available with coverage suggests to me that the decision comes from Phonak, not from the insurance company. It would seem that Phonak is simply unwilling to negotiate a reduced wholesale price for the Sphere just a Oticon refused to make the intent available through insurance companies. All of this makes me think that Phonak has prepared the way for the non-Sphere to be the discounted version of the Infinio but also a defeatured version. That way they don’t even have to change the branding as Oticon has with its so-called Philips version. They can simply sell it as a Phonak while being completely transparent about what we’re losing with the downgrade unlike Demant and the others who leave us guessing about what the difference is between an Oticon and a Philips - if any. Hence, I expect to see the non-Sphere for sale at Costco somewhere down the road.
The latest anecdotal reports are reporting no battery issues. 14 to 16 hours of use with over 50% available at the end of the day - even when using the spheric mode for 3 to 4 hours.
For first-time users, they’re probably right. I remember feeling so self-conscious at first, certain that everyone could see them and they were going to ask me about them and I’d have to figure out what to say. Of course that was ridiculous, no one noticed at all, and I’ve long since stopped caring anyway. My Lumities could be several times the size they are now, and it wouldn’t matter. And I wouldn’t have given up a useful feature just have a smaller aid at the same price point anyway. But as you said, most people don’t get into that level of detail about what’s under the hood.
Does anyone know whether the wholesale price is the same for both versions? I can see certain customers being willing to pay the same amount for a less-powerful-but-smaller aid, but surely the Sphere is more expensive to produce.
I think both cost the same when they are made. But the sphere is more expensive because phonak sells them as a premium product. Sphere is, in my opinion, a prototype, a product with which they wanted to test the market to see if they would accept a larger hearing aid and neurosonic sound processing. Now we see that the hearing aid is in great demand that it is difficult for them to supply everything. I have a feeling that sphere in the next version (new name) will be the basic phonak and that they will reject the ordinary smaller infinio because it has become a product that does not bring profit. Have you noticed that the Life version is gone, now the waterproof feature is integrated into the sphere hearing aids.
I’m in a position where I’m debating this at the moment. I’m due for new aids and have moved since I got my last pair, so also switching audiologists. The audiologist in town is not dispensing the Infinio Spheres because the pricing was too high to fit under their current pricing scheme. Their ‘Premium’ price tier tops out at the Infinio I90s. This suggests the wholesale price is at least somewhat different for the two. The audi in town said she was hoping to negotiate with the Phonak rep to see if they could get a better deal on the Spheres but wasn’t optimistic…
The closest audiologist I’ve found who definitely would dispense the Spheres is about a 2 hour drive away. So I’m debating the lower tech level for the convenience of easier service, and adjustments, etc. Haven’t decided which one is more important to me at the moment… Any advice is welcome! I’m at almost 7 years with my Widex Beyonds right now, and was probably switching to Phonaks anyway given further declines in my hearing, but would be kind of sad to miss out on the Sphere feature if I go that route. But I’m also assuming any newer aids would hopefully be an improvement (and at the very least better suited to my current loss) so even if I go with ‘just’ the regular Infinios, it might seem like a significant improvement.
Given that the local audiologist can’t or won’t dispense the Sphere, perhaps she would be open to a conversation regarding providing service for your hearing loss and the use of a pair of Spheres which you obtain elsewhere. Then you could investigate one of the on line dealers who offer deep discounts and buy a pair of Spheres on the cheap.
Somebody earlier in the day pointed out that ZipHearing was pricing the Sphere $200US more than the I90-R. Not much difference. Even if one does not need the sphere function very much, there may be an advantage in having the Sphere because of the bigger battery. This is my first day wearing the Sphere, but after 12 1/2 hours so far today including one hour in a noisy resturant, my battery is reading 61%. Again, one day doesn’t mean much but I would keep an eye on the battery as a possible advantage.
Thanks for the thoughts! That’s a good idea. In any case it seems worth following up again with the local audiologist, especially given the information posted by PeterH that the price difference between the R and the Sphere might be less than I would have guessed. That alone is interesting because the way she talked about it to me it sounded like the Spheres were significantly more expensive for them to carry…
Yes. If you look at the Specsavers website, the new models are up. It’s £3,000 for the Sphere and £2,800 for the non AI Infinio version. Very small difference in price.
Battery life is surely an issue with Phonak. I’ve had the Lumity 90’s for less than two years and I can’t get a whole day with them without a boost charge in the late afternoon or evening.
Yes. This is unfortunate. I managed to get a full days charge with the KS10s, but others like yourself were not so lucky, based on the anecdotal reports.
However, Phonak did bring out a disposable battery version of the Lumity - too late for some I guess.
The new Infinio version (sphere) has had some good reports about battery life (rechargeables) so far.
