I personally like the pointing mode myself but I also use the microphone on the table.
As the Pen sounded awful to me when on a table, it picked up SO much background noise, I bought myself a Roger Touchscreen Mic.
My audiologist said that the Touchscreen is better then the Pen for using it on the table and it also has the pointing mode.
The Touchscreen doesn’t pick up hardly any noise compared to the Pen but the Select is still loads better.
I’m new to the game. I got a Select iN to trial a couple of weeks ago.
I haven’t tried it, but I’m pretty sure that in a car you could have your spouse wear either a Select or Pen on a lanyard around her neck and you’d be able to hear her. I’m going to try that on my spouse next time we have an extensive road trip of any kind.
I found that the Select works pretty well on a table. I was at a dinner with eight people around the table, and a bunch more people at other tables. I could hear the people at my table quite well, so long as they spoke one at a time. The Select iN seemed to focus on the person currently speaking and switched back and forth around the table. However, if several people at my table were talking at once, then the Select got confused and hearing was less good. Still better than my HAs alone.
My understanding is that the pen is best if you want to spend your time pointing at people, and the Select is quite good at focusing on the appropriate person in a group if you don’t want to point. There are some directional capabilities in the Select, but I’ve yet to test them much.
It’s pretty neat technology. It’s sort of like someone is speaking directly into your ear. I should probably go bar hopping to give things a real test, but I’m not sure my spouse would approve. 
Perhaps I could just go to whatever bar had the good sense to hire my son for that night’s music.
Does the new Roger Pen iN communicate with the Marvel hearing aids via bluetooth instead of the T coil in the older version?
Harvey
I don’t know if it’s blue tooth per se, but it’s some kind of radio signal. It’s much different from T-coil.
When you get the Roger [pen/select] iN, the audiologist “inserts” receivers directly into your Marvels. The Marvels must be upgraded to the 2.0 version that came out last fall.
This means that the audiologist activates the existing hardware/software Roger compatibility by certifying (by use of a special activation device?) that the user is licensed by virtue of owning a Roger iN … right?
I think you’re right. They have something that looks like a little jeweler’s screwdriver and they use it to insert something that looks like a little, stubby pin into the HA, somewhere inside the battery compartment. This then essentially “licenses” one to use Roger devices (perhaps activates some kind of receiver in the HAs?).
You can then connect to multiple Roger devices once the insertion/licensing happens. I use my own Roger Select iN, and also poach from the feed of an older version of Roger Select that a woman at church makes my pastor wear. The woman at church, Janis, has an “old” Roger that requires she wear a myLink around her neck to receive the signals from her Roger that the pastor is wearing. The myLink then connects to her HAs. That connection might be essentially a T-coil one, I’m not sure. By virtue of my having 2.0 Marvel HAs, Janis’ feed goes directly into my HAs, no need for an intermediate device. I’m pretty sure my connection is not via T-coil. It’s pretty cool.
I have both. If I could only have one it would be the select because it can do almost everything the pen can do. But the pen is easier to use in some situations. The video posted above seems right on to me. Both are super.
Edit: I bought the select iN for full price but then the 1.1 pen for cheap on EBay.
Trying to make a quick decision regarding a Roger Pen iN and Roger Select iN because of EOFY specials. Any rapid thoughts appreciated.
I struggle in a mixed variety of settings and I’d probably have 3 uses.
I’m leaning towards the Roger Pen but have some uncertainties. My questions for anyone who has the Roger Pen or perhaps has tried both Roger Pen and Roger Select:
Does the Roger Pen work well in conference mode for settings 1 and 2 above. Would it work up to the 10 metres described? Does the battery actually last 8 hours? Would the Select have any advantages over the Pen e.g clearer or better sensitivity?
Conversely in a very noisy restaurant/bar setting over dinner, would the Pen work better than the Select. Does the Pen work in my example above by simply pointing it handheld to the relevant speaker. I can imagine the conversation switching from person to person, and I worry about the Select just picking up lots of noise and also being prone on the table top to having food or drink dropped on it?
Thanks
In my experience my Select is better at reducing background noise, but the form factor of my Pen means I use it more often. Both are effective in small meetings (max 6 people, round or square table) but neither work well in a boardroom. In our boardroom (seats 22, one at each table head and 10 along each side) I need to use 2 networked Table Mic 2’s.
The problem with both the Select and Pen in the boardroom is there is no way to adequately capture all of the voices around the table using just a single device when combined with your hearing aid microphones. Inevitably the group in front of the Pen or Select is too loud and overwhelms the rest of the participants.
I tested both yesterday, sitting outside at the restaurant, a bit of light wind to help with crazy hot day (28C), cars were passing by on cobble road, occasionally kids yelling around.
Pen in table mode was almost useless - too much static noise, poor clarity. Table was like 80 x 160 cm, 4 of us. Pointed towards someone was a bit better, but poor in comparison to select. Lanyard I tried by holding, useless. I guess at 4 cm from mouth it would pick something, maybe.
Select on the other hand, table mode, awesome. Hands down. However for quiet speaker it really needs to be as close as possible, that was around 50-60 cm from that speaker mouth.
I try to connect them, with select connected first to my HA, and pen to select (so pen was lanyard). Mainly for testing the order, since lanyard pen just couldn’t do it.
Test at relatively quiet home, with fan between me and person speaking normal voice, maybe a bit quieter, pen caught him at max 2m, after that noise around overwhelmed it. At 2m I was something farther away from the top of the fan, but when fan was around the middle of the distance, pen didn’t catch voice anymore (so at roughly 2.5-3m was useless)
So, my conclusion - pen could reach more if it’s quiet (or a bit of noise behind you), but only in interview mode. Table mode has really short distance, like 50-60 cm and in my case a lot of static (or as I say when the quiet is unnaturally loud). Lanyard maybe in total quiet. But granted I didn’t try it with actual lanyard yet.
Select in light noise works perfectly. I didn’t yet test it in crowded restaurant, but whatever it can catch it’ll be better than I can anyway.
I don’t see any of them being able to catch sound at 10m distance. I mean that starts looking like espionage equipment 
My current decision is that I’ll buy select iN new to get the licenses/receivers and then buy used regular pen 1.1 (which i tested now anyway). I see some use of pen, but not 900 eur worth as is the price here for new one. Select is around 1000 eur. Even if I manage to beg for a bit of discount, used pens from USA with shipping is 150 eur, plus tax here, is still below 200. My fitter just can’t match that with new one, since I think he has to pay double or even triple that to phonak, I forgot exact numbers.
Unfortunately as you know, these Roger mikes are so expensive. No way I can afford more than one as it all comes out of my pocket, no government or health insurance rebate.
I’m looking for the best all-rounder. Not sure if Select or Pen is better.
In a boardroom setting, are people more than 2 metres away simply inaudible or just soft. Is there some way of placing at the far end of table and does the app allow balancing Roger Pen/Select for distant people, while using HA microphone for closer people. If so does Select or Pen have a distinct advantage in what it will pick up?
Do you have any experience with the Pen or Select in noisy restaurant settings?
The one distinct advantage of Pen I see is that I could point it at people discretely in interview mode in a noisy restaurant. But does it do well for this? Otherwise I would get the Select.
Thanks greatly.
From your post I’m concluding.
You think Select does better job than Pen.
Lanyard mode for Pen needs to be really close to speaker. Is it any better in interview mode, pointing to speakers across the table in noisy restaurant? Can the Select mimic the Pen by pointing it at someone in any way?
You think table mode really pushing it for anyone more than 2m away. But does Select work better over longer distance in table mode?
Where does one look for used Pens in USA. Will the old ones pair with a new Marvel with integrated receiver like the new iN ones?
I don’t think, I heard 
I see I didn’t mark my paragraphs precisely, and which gadget I comment is burried in words. I’ll rephrase.
Pen table mode, in restaurant outside, useless. At home in relatively quiet, picked up up to 50 cm then not.
Pen interview at home up to 2m ok. Outside in restaurant couldn’t pick up the quiet speaker from what, 10-20 cm from her mouth, and was definitely less useful than select when I tried to catch other speakers. I’d say it does give a bit of boost but significantly less than select. Lanyard mode completely useless. I couldn’t hear my tapping on the mic itself. Even 5cm close to speaker mouth didn’t show difference.
Select table mode, 50 cm for the same quiet speaker same setup outside at restaurant, picked her up. Bigger distance not. But this person speaks insanely quietly. Her husband confirms he cannot get her, and he has good hearing other people caught fine.
For the first time I could really follow the talk we had with the same people. Yes, still with a lot of effort but exhaustion was lesser and I definitely understood like almost 90% of things. Jokes didn’t work quite well. With previous aids at restaurants it was a nightmare, I had to lip read, I didn’t follow even 20% of overall convo, and were completely exhausted. At our place in quiet was a bit better, like 50% success. But still, this with mics and new aid even outside was impressive.
From the point of feeling in the loop, this combo is clear win for me (m90 + select).
I didn’t test select lanyard mode.
I don’t think I’ll need that mode that much. I’m not keen to hanging 1000 eur worth gadget onto random people necks and in meetings I expect quiet environment anyway. I mean, if they start yelling I don’t plan to listen anyway
I checked how their network works, but since pen in lanyard was useless, only information I got from that test is that select can stay in table mode if he’s the primary.
In quiet, I’d expect pen to be useful. But restaurants, for me, nope. Select is way to go.
However I do have very rare, and hard to fit hearing loss type, so it’s really hard to help me, plus I wear open fit so I on purpose lose low frequencies (otherwise they distort speech that much that I’m below 50 wrs in quiet). However if I can get that much from select in all those conditions, it’s definitely worth it.
Pen maybe helps people with high frequency hearing loss better, to me it creates too much noise for high tones to be useful in even little noise.
And mind you, this wasn’t that noisy. I do have one good ear for comparison.
But with select I could turn my bad ear towards the table looking at something someone pointed out and still feel included in the conversation. I can’t confirm comprehension of everything, because my best WRS is 60-70, so that’s bad, but I definitely could catch some words.
Select in table mode, I’d say distance from mouths were 50cm for quieter speaker and 150cm or a bit more for normal speaker towards a bit louder.
If it’s quiet room and people take turns, speaking in normal voice, I’d expect it can catch somewhat further. Don’t have numbers yet though. But one round table for 6-8, I’d expect it covers in quiet.
For marvel you need at least one iN device to get those receivers/licences (or 2x roger X devices and transfer the receiver/licence from them, but it’s usually more expensive path).
After you have hardware activated by that transfer, you can use whichever additional roger mic (non edu) you want.
So my advice would be to buy either select iN + regular pen 1.1 OR pen 1.1 iN and regular select.
And then any other just regular ones (table mic 2, more pens etc)
Since prices regular vs iN often differ to include price for those 2 rrceivers that come with it.
Regular pen 1.1 used - ebay, just search ‘phonak r9ger pen 1.1’. There’s two sellers from I think illinois, have similar names, I think rashi something both, 100% positive score, similar prices, @Zebras had recommended one based on her positive experience, I can’t remember from the top of my head which one, but they both look good.
Just did small test. Home with bg noise from the cars on the street (roughly around 40 db), select in table mode, I could hear that mic is picking up my hubby’s voice from around 3m and I could use it, even if it was really faint, I had a feeling I get some input even with him at 5m from the mic. Not to mention hearing my slippers rubbing the floor when I move them, they were like 50cm distance (mic was on low coffee table).
So, definitely good tech. Pen couldn’t do more than 50cm the other day when I tried. And even in interview mode, I couldn’t hear rubbing fingers after around 50cm distance.
Hope this helps
Invaluable info. I think this makes the Select more likely what I will get. Can I just check you are using both Select iN and Pen iN?
Nope, select iN, and pen 1.1, regular version. Because they don’t import pen iN in Germany, official phonak representative’s answer was that market is too small. 
I even saw someone in Switzerland saying they can’t buy pen iN there for the same reason. Yes Phonak is Swiss brand 
On the other hand, there’s really no point in having more than one iN device - you need licence/roger receiver only once per HA, not per mic. So you get 2 with one iN device and you’re good to go, all other devices can be regular ones.
Of course if you’re only thinking about single device, then pen iN vs select iN dilemma makes sense, and I’d choose pen if my only use case would be in quiet and aiming over some distance (eg meetings) or in corridors where there’s echo, or outside when pen in hanging on someone. If there’s remote chance that I’d use it more on the table and especially in restaurants, I’d go for select.
However, chances are that you’ll want more of them. I think they’re like pokemons, you get the urge to have them all
Route previous to the releasing Marvels was that you need to buy additional HW called roger X which is then connected to you HA (through additional HW called DAI shoe/boot) or your streaming device (if you have non phonak HA or HA that doesn’t have DAI boot available). Or you can skip roger X and buy roger mylink instead which is then using Tcoil to connect to your HAs, of course, if your HAs have Tcoil in them.
If your market doesn’t have pen iN available and you only want pen and nothing else, then you have to go through this previous route no matter if you have marvels. Mind you, in Germany price for one roger X (and you need two if you want sound to come to both HAs) is around 600-700 eur, pen is around 700-800, ordinary AND iN select are both around 1000 (don’t ask me, don’t tell them in UK difference between the two is 2x licence/roger X price, which there is roughly 300 gbp), roger mylink is around 700 eur. Tcoil sound is lower quality than of the roger receiver on DAI shoe which is somewhat lower quality from roger receiver in marvels, as far as I’m reading around. All three are with almost no lag compared to streamer or BT solution (like I saw if you use resound multimic and roger X plugged in it, you can feel sound coming at different speeds if you have open fit, or like me, one good ear without HA). Crazy.
User @RogerPM mentioned that better distance (mic to HA) which can be seen in datasheet of iN mics is related to built in receivers in Marvel HAs. And iN pen doesn’t have BT because Marvels have integrated BT (on the same chip that’s for roger receiver btw), so for phone calls you’re supposed to use HA to accept/reject calls as opposed to BT regular pen where you do that with buttons on the pen. However, regular pen and Marvel HA hate each other at the moment you turn on BT on the pen. Hate means that turning on BT on pen, no matter if they’re paired to phone (paired, not only connected), HA will go crazy with turning autosense on every 2 seconds, which is accompanied with those beeps. In other words, if you buy Select iN and regular pen, glue those call/BT buttons to not accidentally click them
You can find in my previous posts where I tested what’s happening (question was would it be possible to use pen as BT mic together with marvel HA - answer is clear no).
Granted I didn’t test pen iN since I can’t get my hands on it, but beside longer range than regular pen 1.1 I didn’t saw any other difference about quality, from phonak’s data sheets. Pen from first gen had issues with poor signal if HA and mic aren’t in line of sight (like if speaker turns away from you while having pen around their neck). Regular pen 1.1 doesn’t have those issues 
I believe only reason iN gadgets exist is because of that issue with BT and HA going crazy. Nothing else from specifications points to any difference in performance between regular and iN versions. And then they added licence/roger receivers in them for convenience and marketing, like ‘look, now you don’t need anything else’ (but we won’t give proper information to our dispensers how the heck those licences/receivers now work ).
Last question. Does the audiologist need to link up the HA to the iN device? I’m buying online for first time, not with my regular audiologist who says they can’t match price. It’s not as simple as pressing connect button is it?
Both Select iN and Pen iN available. Glad to know I only need to get one iN device.
Seems the Roger licence seems to “unlock” that functionality in the hearing aid and so you only need it once.
I think I’ll go Select. Both you and Alvin seem to suggest it may work better. I’d mainly use it for work for attending conferences (on lectern) and in meeting settings. I can cope if I can’t use the Select with handheld functionality in a restaurant (but maybe on table it might be OK, if nobody spills their drink on it), but I’d be disappointed if a Pen didn’t work very well on table mode in a meeting or lectern.
Checking out Ebay US and Pen 1.1 seem to be about $100-150 USD + international postage for pre-owned. Don’t know if these are reputable sellers. So I guess options to get it if I really want it.
Not much more complicated than that, you need a small wire to click the hole (opened paper clip will do). However it can be a bit tricky, I think there’s very short window of opportunity within the time from turning on HA when they’re able to link, so be patient and fast. I think hardest part was to not touch touch part of the mic while clicking on the bottom
Instructions are here
Scream if you’ll need help
Start with checking the number of receivers/licences in the select iN. You should get two green lights. Then transfer one, check the number of licences. You should have one red and one green light. That means you’re done with one HA
Then, after ‘licences’ are transferred, you need to connect those three (HAs and select), for that you just that button on the bottom, with a link embossed on it.
I keep saying licences because hardware is already there, software is already there, so it’s just a matter of activating it eg having key. And phonak insists on calling that roger receiver, calling hardware roger direct, having both hw and sw as ‘marvels are roger ready’. If I remembered correctly. Why they use receiver for such different things (speakerphone in ear and roger licence), I have no clue. Looks like no one there ever installed legal Windows with a key I wonder what’s next that’s gonna be called receiver
To cover other questions. Yes, you need licences only once. However, they can be transferred back to select iN from marvels, for example if you want new HA. Don’t ask me what happens if your marvels broke and you didn’t have the opportunity to get them back in select iN device. Let’s hope phonak can sort that one out.
You probably don’t want handheld anything in restaurants, but want to eat in peace. Select covers that perfectly. I put mine on tumbled over ashtray and just kept the biggest box out of the way (with knifes and whatnot) because waitress put it directly beside my mic . Although with very clumsy people around I’d probably think of something else. Also, I have a cover for it, I believe it’s for headphones, round hard foam thing with zipper all around, so mic was on that which was on ashtray, that gave it around 5cm elevation in total. Glass turned over could give even more if needed.
From direct spilling or spitting in laughter I’m not sure there’s help, but since it’s so good, maybe it can work from the small plastic ziplock bag?
Tested just now, works like a charm (test was with rubbing fingers from at least 20cm distance, no problem).
My problem with pen is that it just lets all sounds in, which I don’t find useful. Select has good noise control. Plus, let’s not forget automatic focusing on who is speaking now that select has, plus ability to turn off some area (like your direction for example of you don’t need your voice that loud).
Also, you get one magnet strip or something, to put select onto someone, like lapel mic mode instead of lanyard mode with the necklace thing. I found that to the limited ability I can put that magnet strip on mic, and around my finger and point around. No too sudden movement though.
However, you can’t point ‘down’ like you can with pen, because select is primarily table mic and if its gyroscope detects too much elevation, it’ll just switch into lanyard mode.
My main reason for wanting pen is that I can point it down, eg I’m standing at the doctor’s office and nurse is behind a counter but sitting down. Select can’t help with that, I’ve tried. However, that single feature isn’t worth 900 eur to buy new, for me. Neither with that interview beam, because I can simulate interview with select on my finger. It’ll look odd, but everything will look odd anyway and if my goal is to understand and my speaking partner’s as well, then who cares how it looks.
So if your source of sound is upward from the position of the mic, select will cover that really well. You can also tilt select to some degree, but don’t overdo it to not change mode
I saw them mostly from 2 sellers, both have similar names (I think both have rashi), and both have 100% positives and are long time members. From one (I think it’s asm-rashi) Zebras had ordered with only good experience. I’ll pick one of them based on who has the red pen
But to me, they said delivery time is sometime between August and October, so I won’t be able to give you any timely feedback on them
Alvin mentioned me somewhere that for pen to do better as table mic, some hard surface to lie it down is better than holding in hand. My test was in hand. But some my tests with select were also from my hand and it definitely worked better.
Plus, select is newer tech. So maybe pen 2.0 will be something really impressive, we’ll see
One thing in favor of Select is that it also can replace the TC Connector. So if you want the TV Connector the Select can be used for the same function.