I am planning to buy a pair of HAs for my mum. She’s 76 and has high frequency hearing loss in both the ears. Her audiogram is updated. I am looking at either Philips Hearlink 50 or the Rexton Reach at costco. I have a few questions I couldnt easily find answers to on the internet, so thought of asking here.
Her Current condition is that she can hear us at normal speaking distance of 3 to 4 meters without us raising our voice as her low frequency hearing is still decent. Beyond that we need to be a bit louder. Also she tends to keep the TV volume slightly higher than what I use. And when we are outside, say in a mall and she is 5 to 6 meters away, I need to call her quite a bit louder for her to hear me. She spends almost 5 to 6 hours a day either watching TV or watching youtube videos on her phone. And another 2 hours on phone calls with family/friends.
My questions are:
The audi and ENT docs we met told us that if she does not start using hearing aids, her hearing will get worse sooner. Is that true?
If the above is true, for how long does she have to use them per day to preserve her existing hearing for as long as possible?
Since she spends more time on calls and consuming media, we are looking at HAs that have solid LE Audio connection and also the mic on them should receive her voice clearly for 2 way communications. I read somewhere that Philips are better than Rextons for this? Is that your experience too if you have tried both for 2 way hands free communication?
Are custom ear molds worth it in her case? She’s home most of the time. She does not listen to music.
Does either of them have the ability to connect to Phone and TV at the same time? I understand she would need BT LE audio phones like pixels/sammy and a latest TV supporting LE Audio. But is it possible to connect to both at the same time?
Welcome to the forum @Clark_Kent . I am sure you will get some responses once the weekend is over. However, both hearing aids you mentioned are excellent aids and the good thing about Costco is you have up to six months to decide whether you like them. She should wear the hearing aids as much as she can. There is a need for the brain to be re-wired a bit to adapt for the hearing aids and that process works faster the more she wears them. I put mine in when I get up in the morning and take them out when I retire for the night. I will let someone else comment on the MFA (made for Apple) Bluetooth connectivity. I use Phonak aids which uses classic Bluetooth and has very good connectivity so you might want to also check on the Sennheiser aids which are sold at some Costco stores. They do not have LE Audio yet but quite frankly that is probably not too useful for the next few years. Good luck.
We are starting to see churches install Auracast. So I wouldn’t sell LE Audio short
If I get a new pair of hearing aids this year, they will have Auracast, and I’m going to push our square dance caller to install an Auracast device on his setup to use it.
That is good to know. I haven’t seen it in my area yet. Whether it will be helpful for some of us old folks will depend on our lifestyle. That said, I guess Phonak will upgrade the firmware in my Spheres at some point. Still at my age, I would not be looking for Auricast as a must have in my decision process.
Thanks. At this point Auracast isnt in my “list of wants”. Just Good mics on the aids for 2 way comm, noise suppression, comfy to wear, and if available - ability to connect to 2 devices so that she can answer her phone quickly if she recieves calls when watching TV. Dont want to switch to apple devices as it would be too much work for me to teach her the new OS. The back button on androids is very much needed for her. We live in Aus, dont think we have Sennheisers yet and as far as i have read, they are not as good as the reach/hearlink?
I don’t think her hearing will get worse but her understanding might if she lives long enough. Then there’s the argument that untreated hearing loss is somewhat correlated with dementia. Both arguments sound like audiologists trying to sell hearing aids but both may actually be true (to some extent).
I’ve got the Philips, no experience with the Rexton. LE Audio connection is solid to my phone (Pixel 8 Pro). There have been two occasions when the other party on phone calls hasn’t been able to hear me. My voice sounded completely garbled to them. That might have been fixed by updates since (it’s been a while since this has happened). Otherwise, it’s been fine for hands free calls. They can only connect to one device at a time.
As far as I know the Sennheiser are the same as the Phonak Lumity 90’s. They pair with six devices and connect with two at the same time (e.g. phone and tv connector). For better speaking reception in noise the newer Phonak Infinio spheres are better but more expensive and not available at Costco. I don’t know what is available at Costco in Aus.
What happens when the Phonak has been paired to six devices and then you want to pair to a seventh? Does it drop the oldest in the pair list or something else?
Thanks, I felt the same when the doc told me about further hearing lose and dementia, that they wanted to sell some HAs. But who knows, better not risk that path and HAs are anyway eventually required for her.
How are the mics when you are in a noisy situation? Do they still pick up your voice well on 2 way comm or do you have to speak a bit louder?
The Spheres are probably the top of the line among all brands? Coming to Lumity, she did try out unitron moxi vivante 3 and 5 which are the siblings of Lumity 30 and 50 as well as oticon Zircon 2, and for her, they all sounded the same. She did complain about traffic noise being loud when we came to the streets during the trial, hence the need for some noise suppression. I am assuming the Lumity 90 does not add much to the 50s? If the Costco Senns were even just the vanilla infenio, I would have waited for them because of the generic BT support. Now I need to splash a good amount on the Sammy S24+ or S25+.
And if you are wondering why we trialled Unitrons and Oticon Zircons, because i didnt know about Costco back then.
Yes, I did enough research in december to know whats there on the market, but waited as I was travelling.
I agree, its better to test the call quality when testing out the HAs, but unfortunately we dont have an LE Audio supporting phone yet. Her current phone is 2.5 years old and does its job perfectly for her needs. I was thinking of buying HAs now and get the phone later because thats another 1000AUD investment and now that US has mandated LE Audio on all the phones, I thought there will be more options an year down the line
No of course not, it’s all in the “ear” of the beholder, what works for one doesn’t mean for everyone, but obviously you’d need to trial each brand to know for sure which is top notch or best for you, hearing is a very subjective experience.
Used market is a good option too. I am thinking of S24+ or 25+ as 24 onwards the software support is 7 years IIRC. I thought let me deal with the HAs first and think of phone later. The iphone 16e at 999AUD is also a good option with MFi but I read they have BT issues and you never know when apple would release BT LEA though MFi should still suffice.
Agree its completely subjective. I just mentioned it as top of the line because i read more comments saying those who tested spheres against other HAs went back to the spheres. Though I am sure there will be cases where people went the other way too.
Probably the noisiest it ever gets for me is shopping mall noisy. No complaints from the other party then. And I agree with you. Hearing better is its own reward.
I did see that, but am actually looking for the plus series for a bigger screen. But what I am wondering is that why does philips website does not mention S24 or the S24+ as supported? I know that S23 used snapdragon chip globally, so does the S25. But S24 series had snapdragon only on the ultra series for the international version and the 24 and plus had exynos. Just wondering if there is some compatibility issues?
Today April 1 (really, this not a fool thing), I called Samsung support (they answer from a support desk in California) and they looked into it and said that the Galaxy S24 series and the S25 series absolutely are supported. She opened ticket to request an update to the website’s compatibility list.
