Phonak unveils Lumity hearing aid platform

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#169

My audiologist said Phonak told him Lumity would be shipping by the end of the month (and he said that in August). So that timeline seems possible. But my audiologist also said he’d order them as soon as he was able to, but afaik he hasn’t yet.

[Edit: actually he did order them, and they should be shipping next week]

#170

This is a GREAT video - clean, clear and to the point. I had to GUFFAW that the reviewer here (Matthew Allsop) had THE IDENTICAL experience as me trying to figure out from pretty photos supplied by Phonak what-all the actual BENEFITS are of these new Lumity aids.

I sent my audi the link to the video, cuz she is also trying to get the straight scoop on these from her Phonak contact. I suspect she talks to someone in sales/marketing, and we know how that goes! Shots of smiling seniors splashing each other in kayaks with their so-called “waterproof” aids on, LOL!

(edited to add reviewer’s name)

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#171

FYI to anyone looking for more info on Lumity, the Phonak Pro website (Links to phonakpro.com) has added the Audeo Lumity section.

#172

I see brand new Phonak Lumity PL-RL HAs have popped up on eBay via Cyprus for about USD$2,900 a pair (Sep 2nd, 2022). Presumably no warranty beyond the 30 day return policy of the seller. But hey, they are offering remote tweaking by “qualified professionals”.

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#173

@platypus

I saw this seller.

It’ll work out more expensive buying from this seller and then buying from an audiologist, here in the UK.

#174

Just a word of caution on “remote tweaking” by qualified professionals. Sometime is does not work or not able to connect. I bought a pair of More from Holland but could not connect remotely to Holland. Even Oticon is not able to solve the problem (almost 2 months)!

#175

I’m in Canada. My audiologist messaged me yesterday to let me know he just got his launch package for Lumity from Phonak so I may get to try them soon.

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#176

It would be really nice to hear about them from regular people. Thanks!

WH

#177

Does anyone know if the three pin receivers for the Audeo Paradise Life (Audeo P-RL) are compatible with the new Audeo Lumity Life (Audeo L-RL)?

My audi (UK) has agreed to swap my Audeo Life HAs for the new Lumity HAs as I only had them for two months before Lumity was announced. Told me that Phonak were involved in the process of agreeing the swap but I’m not sure if that’s true. Anyway getting my Lumity Life HAs next week apparently!

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#178

I’m curious to know the answer to this too BeLo. Do you happen to know (for sure) if the regular Paradise 3 pin receiver is the same one used by the Audeo P-RL aids? I ask because 3 pin Marvel/Paradise receivers tend to get replaced on a regular basis and are readily available on eBay. If the Paradise and Lumity Life aids use a different receiver, then that raises the question of where to obtain replacements online (for us DIYers).

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#179

The size 2 power receivers that I have for the Audeo P-RL are 054-0817 (Right) and 054-0816 (Left) and are called “P Receiver 4.0” .
They were sold to me as a “Pair Of Phonak Audeo Paradise, Marvel / Unitron Jump receiver 2P Left and Right”
I can’t verify that they work for those other HAs but they are definitely compatible with Audeo P-RL

#180

The Activevent receivers work on both. I can’t see them really changing this up much. Would it make sense to come out with another activevent receiver? I would think it wasn’t economically feasible.

WH

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#181

So! I got an email from my ol’ audi! He’s going for a week’s training at Phonak on their new Lumity platform. Natch, I’d told him about my having killed the Paradise Life aids after a couple of swims, so he’ll press the tech folks there on their claims of “waterproof” and let me know what he learns from them.

I’m due to pick up my new Lumity Life aids this Friday and am now faced with the dilemma: do I KILL them with a couple swims just for the fun of it? Or do I treat them like all other hearing aids: NO water exposure at all despite the lofty claims?

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#182

Sorry for being a little off-topic hear but maybe HA OEMs need to take some lessons from Apple that can design a smartwatch that’s waterproof to a depth of 100 meters and can be used as a scuba diving computer to coach decompression on the way up, etc. The device has 3 microphones and two speakers. One part of the video actually shows the speakers clearing themselves of water automatically back on the surface! And the device costs $800, not $7,000! Perhaps for the waterproofness, the audio fidelity is nowhere near that an HA needs to be - but just an HA that could shrug off a 3 m submersion might be a giant leap forward. The video link is to the part in the Apple Event where an Apple exec discusses water submersion.

Apple disclaimer on Ultra water resistance: “Apple Watch Ultra has a water resistance rating of 100 meters under ISO standard 22810. It may be used for recreational scuba diving (with compatible third-party app from the App Store) to 40 meters and high-speed water sports. Apple Watch Ultra should not be used for diving below 40 meters. Water resistance is not a permanent condition and can diminish over time.”

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#183

Wear one for a swim. If it is damaged, claim for a new one. Blame it on sweat or rain. You still have the other good one to wear.
“Just for the fun of it” - if you can hear with the other one…

#184

Excellent. Let me know how it goes! I’m in the Brampton area and am just waiting on my insurance documentation to figure out what my coverage is.

#185

This afternoon I was fitted with my Lumity HAs (L90-Rs). Obviously it’s only been a few hours so I’m going to need some time to adjust, some time to play around with the settings in the app, and probably take a trip back to the audiologist for some tweaks.

I’m coming from Phonak Marvels, and I’ve never used Paradise aids, so I can’t speak to what’s new between the Paradise and the Lumity. But some initial reactions:

  • Sound quality: Everything seems pretty natural and clear. In the past, sometimes when I’ve gotten new HAs things have sounded a bit harsh, clangy, or metallic (e.g., paper rustling or putting away dishes is overly loud) until I’ve worked with the audiologist to really dial in the settings. No such issues with these.
  • Own voice: Surprisingly quieter than I’d expect. Not in a bad way, but just a surprise.
  • General speech: Everything is perhaps a little quieter than I’d expect (the gain is set to 100%). I think I’ll be able to dial this in over time. I may also get used to it (I recently had to send my Marvels in for repairs and had to use my Ventures for a couple of weeks; everything sounded too quiet when I got my Marvels back and then readjusted in 24 hours). But I expect I’ll need to do more tweaking here.
  • Noise cancellation: I don’t think my Marvels had special noise cancelling features. These clearly have noise cancelling. Driving in my car, air conditioners running in the house, oven fan blowing… all were being tuned out in ways I wasn’t used to and were pretty impressive. In some ways I think the speech being a bit too quiet may actually be a symptom of overly aggressive noise cancellation. I’ll need to play around with dialing that back to see how that works.
  • AutoSense 5: I don’t know how to assess this yet, but I will say that when I was driving and glanced at my phone (when stopped at a red light, obviously), the MyPhonak app said my current mode was Speech in Car (Automatic). I was pretty impressed that it knew I was in a car!
  • Bluetooth streaming vs background noise: With my Marvels I found that ambient noise (e.g. traffic on the street, wind, etc.) drowned out Bluetooth sounds until I had my audiologist mute the microphones in the streaming settings (this was before it was an in-app setting). With Lumity, my audiologist suggested that wouldn’t be necessary. So far I think he’s right. I drove in a car, down a freeway, listening to a podcast and had no issues with the volume.
  • Bluetooth weirdness: In listening to some podcasts, it sounded a bit like everyone was Darrell Hammond playing Sean Connery on SNL’s Celebrity Jeopardy (“I’ll take Swords for $500, Alec”). And by that I mean that a lot of the s sounds were subtly but noticeably a bit more “sh” than “s.” Words like “security” because “shacurity,” “slack” became “shlack”, “suited” became “shooted.” I haven’t noticed this in regular conversation yet, so it seems to mostly be a Bluetooth issue. Not sure what’s going on.
  • Tap features: This is new to me, but not to Paradise. My audiologist said he turns this off for 99% of his patients because things like putting on glasses or a mask can trigger Siri or play/pause. I asked him to leave it on. At the default settings I did turn on Siri once with putting on my glasses. I then tried the setting on “firm” and the good news is that putting on glasses wouldn’t trigger Siri… the bad news was that I couldn’t trigger anything short of whacking the side of my head :joy:

According to my audiologist, the big focus for Phonak with Lumity was speech in noise. In that regard, I haven’t really put these through their paces yet. But I’ll be at a wedding in a couple of weeks, so that will probably be my best opportunity to really challenge them.

For those of you that have had Paradise aids, have you created your own custom programs in the app? That was something that wasn’t really useful for me with the Marvel aids (I’m not even sure I could create programs, and even if I could the available settings were much more limited). Any tips on custom programs or settings that are more useful? I already tried creating one that dialed back the noise cancellation a bit.

Overall I’m excited to get to use these! So far, I think the ability to pair to more Bluetooth devices, the noise cancellation features, and expanded in-app controls will be big wins for me coming from Marvel (although I think all of those, except perhaps some of the noise cancellation features were already on Paradise). And if I can dial in the speech volume a bit more and if they live up to even a small percentage of their promise for speech in noise, I think this will be a really meaningful improvement for me.
—-
Update 9/9: The s—> sh sound isn’t just limited to Bluetooth. I can hear it when I listen over speakers, but it’s much more noticeable for a podcast/radio than people in IRL.

Other things I’ve noticed:

  • on the iPhone the battery life for the HAs now appears in the status bar.
  • The battery measurements in the app are more granular (42% vs 40%).
  • The case is much easier; the HA’s just drop into the slot and lift out. No more pushing them in and pulling hard to get them out.
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#186

Excellent review; thank you! I’m in the same boat in regards to currently having Marvel and eyeballing Lumity.

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#187

Friendly Rant Alert!:
The key phrase to watch out for is “Water resistance”, it should be “Water proof”. Apple also admit that this resistance can diminish over time. How many dives do I get before it might fail on me?
I’m a PADI ex-instructor and there is no way I’d recommend that as safe for diving, at only 40m rating it is next to useless in an emergency which is exactly what it is there for, a dive should be fully planned and not executed on the hoof. There’s no way I would trust it even if I believed Apple’s claims, which based on past experience would be a little foolhardy (‘supercomputer’ Power Mac G4, I’m looking at you there in the back).

Apple are very, very good at marketing the products that they design and that are made by Foxconn but they are not technological innovators, never have been. This isn’t an uniformed opinion but one based on working with Apple hardware and software for 30+ years as well as working alongside the company itself for a number of years.

Back to HAs!: the weak point is always going to be the receiver. I have the Audeo Life HAs and it’s only the body that can be safely submerged they don’t make any claims for the receivers.
I have an open dome in one ear and a power dome in the other so if I went swimming I’d expect a higher chance of the open dome failing due to water ingress but at £25 for a receiver it’s not a major problem.
Also I don’t think that premium level HAs are more than $1,500 each wholesale (right now I can see a pair of Lumity L90-RLs advertised for less that $3k on eBay) so they are nowhere near $7k devices. I’d imagine that the actual Bill of Materials is pretty cheap but that the development, testing and regulatory aspects take up a majority chunk of their cost.

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#188

Absolutely amazing review. I’m going to be moving from KS9’s to Lumity’s eventually - Hopefully within the coming months. So far from your review, it sounds like something I’m absolutely looking forward to.

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