Resound Omnia vs Phonak Lumity

Hearing Aids
#226

One thought related to this then is, isn’t it “flaky” then for HA apps to give you the ability to deviate from your “best” fit by altering the amounts of bass, midtones, and treble with sliders? When one does so, one is undoubtedly deviating from “natural” sound and altering the fit. With my Quattros for speech clarity in difficult listening situations, I will typically increase treble (whatever that is) by 5 or 6 units in the 3D app (whatever those units are, decibels?), midtones by 3 or 4, and decrease bass by -1 to -2 units or decibels (to minimize noise), as well as possibly applying noise reduction processing.

I’m glad to see the number of fit adjustments allowed by the myPhonak app, particularly not just in relative frequency amplification but also in sound processing. Relative to that, the automatic reversion to the Automatic settings has its pluses and minuses. I vaguely remember a discussion(s) somewhere in the forum on having the HCP create new Automatic settings (or DIY).

If I were ambitious, I could always check out my fit by doing an in situ audiogram. But especially since Phonak might be collecting data on user behavior from a trial set of HA’s, I don’t want screw things up for my audi by mucking around with HA’s that aren’t my own. If I DIY with my Quattros, in the past I’ve immediately dropped off the remote assistance horizon because I couldn’t connect up with ReSound’s servers during the fitting process.

#227

Comment was not about you, but about audiologist. Was thinking if the big plus of the Lumitys is the soft speech, I think it’s likely that Resound should be able to adjust the 35dB level on the Omnias to get louder soft speech. If you’re not tied into TrueHearing somehow, Costco’s Jabra should get you something close to Omnia with possibility of LE Audio and for a lot less money. If LE audio doesn’t come to it, or if aids advance notably in a couple of years, you’d have less than $2k sunk into the aids. Pretty should they should work with your Resound accessories too.

#228

Jordan

#229

I’m not 100% sure but I think the Phonak Speech Sense enhancement specifically amplifies soft speech. The enhancement for ReSound aids that you mention probably just enhances all soft sounds. I’ll ask my audi about that. Before I went back to my audi, I thought about going to Costco as you suggest. But Costco didn’t have the Lumity equivalent and the Jabras are not the Omnia equivalent. By ReSound’s very own admission/bragging, the Omnias are vastly improved in speech-in-noise beam forming vs. the Ones/Jabras. In using up my insurance for three years, I’d rather get “the best there is” rather than make do with something while in a holding pattern hoping for something better (like sticking with the Quattros while awaiting the Holy Grail BT LE Audio! :smile:).

I didn’t think in your flaky remark that you were referring to me manipulating my settings. Just pointing out that such a big deal is made of the perfect fit. But then folks come back to the HCP and tell the fitter that they want more or less treble, bass, or whatever or they fiddle with the app and do it themselves and find settings that they subjectively like, no matter what the HCP adjusting the prescribed fit to within a few decibels at each frequency channel means. Even different algorithms give you different fits. And in real life, the HA’s are constantly doing things like noise reduction or relative frequency amplification changes (compression) that eat into real, true-to-life sound reproduction. My subjective test in the end is that if I have excellent speech compression, I am close to a good fit. Perhaps my audi, too, after conducting an extensive conversation with me wearing not hearing aids at all, as I’ve lived for the past 3 weeks or so, felt “Adjustment means very little for this guy. He already hears pretty well without any hearing aids at all, and he hasn’t complained about his previous fit.”

1 Like
#230

Reminds me of a thread I started long ago asking people if they’d rather spend top dollar for the latest and greatest and keep it longer or spend less money and update more frequently. I think most were in your camp.

1 Like
#231

Thank you. Very interesting observations and helpful in knowing what to expect. I have L-90’s on order.

2 Likes
#232

I received my L-90’s yesterday. I previously wore Phonak M-90’s. On the way home from the audi I stopped to get a hamburger at a place I’ve been to many times. I immediately noticed that I could hear the music playing in the background. I usually hear it only as background noise, but this time I could actually HEAR it. It was playing “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” since it is the holiday season. It brought tears to my eyes.

I also noticed a marked difference at home. (Being able to hear what my husband is saying from another room). I can’t wait to test it in other environments (especially speech in noise)!

10 Likes
#233

Hi @jonifoz ,

You just highlighted the most amazing thing about Lumity vs other hearing aids I have used and tested. Not sure if it’s the new Autosense 5.0 or what but these hearing aids seem to be far more aware of what is going around in your environment and have the ability to very quickly zoom in on voices and other background sounds. Net effect is that you end up hearing all kinds of stuff you didn’t hear before. Discussions in other rooms, music in a store, the furnace going on in the basement, the sound of your car’s engine…the list goes on. Voices and music are particularly good.

Please keep posting your observations.

Jordan

4 Likes
#234

Hi @JordanK,

So far this morning I could hear my dog’s toenails on the hardwood floor, and I have noticed my parakeet’s squawking is much louder (not sure if I’m happy about that :joy:)

Like you, I have the TV Connector. I got it 3 years ago with my Marvels. I had to turn it up quite high with the Marvels, which meant that it muted the sound in the room around me. If my husband wanted to talk to me he would have to pause the tv, talk, then resume the tv program. Last night I found I only needed a little assistance from the TV Connector with the Lumina. I can leave the TV Connector turned down enough to where I can hear what my husband is saying while the tv program is playing. I can even hear the tv without the assistance of the TV Connector, but I have been spoiled by its Dolby sound!

Also, I’d like to add that while I was in the restaurant yesterday hearing the music there for the first time, Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas” came on. It is my favorite Christmas song. I got pretty emotional. It was a very special moment for me.

I’ll be sure to follow up with more observations. They are coming fast and furious this morning. I’d better save them up and post them all at once!

7 Likes
#235

i’m noticing the same thing with Nucleus 8 sound processor too which they upgraded scene classifier dubbed as SCAN 2… Resound omnia isn’t very good at zooming in at sound but it sound very natural to me…

#236

@jonifoz I’m really glad to hear the good news, and I’m growing evermore confident in the Lumity devices with each glowing review I read. Can I ask you the age old question - did you have REMs performed?

#237

The Apple Watch is a paradox when it comes to MFi HA’s. It can only do classic Bluetooth. So, with the ReSound Quattros, a notification can’t go directly to your HA’s. It can only play on the watch speakers without using an intermediary device like the Phone Clip+ and is easy to overlook watch alerts .

As has been discussed elsewhere in the forum, I found I could pair my Apple Watch directly with the Lumitys. It’s a little tricky in that you can only maintain a Lumity connection with two BT devices at once. To get pairing with my Apple Watch to occur easily, I found I had to turn off BT on both my computer and my iPhone.

Once paired, I invoke Siri and have her talk directly to the Lumitys. That’s great! But there are several problems. Perhaps as noted by others, an active BT connection to the watch seems to disconnect the Lumitys from my iPhone while any watch interaction is in progress. Also, if I set a countdown timer or an alarm via Siri on the watch, the alert only plays on my Apple Watch, not in the Lumitys. Bummer! I haven’t yet found any media routing choices on the watch or in the Apple Watch app on my iPhone. Would appreciate advice from anyone who knows how to fix this problem or whether it’s basically unfixable. Same goes for the problem of the watch “stealing” Lumity BT connectivity from my iPhone. TIA for any helpful advice.

If the Apple Watch could play all alerts and notifications directly to the Lumitys without mucking up the iPhone connection, that would be a tremendous paradoxical advantage over MFi HA’s vs. the Apple Watch. I think there is discussion elsewhere on the forum about trying to route phone calls picked up by a cellular version of the Apple Watch to Phonak HA’s, but I haven’t dug into that yet.

P.S. Another annoying problem with the Apple Watch to Lumity connection is there doesn’t seem to be any control over the volume of Siri’s voice. Played from the watch into the Lumitys, Siri’s voice is almost painfully loud. One can tell Siri repeatedly to turn down the watch volume until she tells you it’s as low as it can go. And one can check that the volume is otherwise low by playing a podcast from the watch to the Lumitys - the volume control is displayed by twisting the crown on the watch while playing media. Both the volume indicator and the volume of the playing podcast are indeed as low as they can go. But Siri’s voice still thunders in my ears. Probably, I need to take this whole post and send it Apple Feedback way and hope someone does something about it if I should decide to get the Lumitys and take advantage of their Apple Watch connectivity. Seems like it would be great if it only worked right.

1 Like
#238

Hi @Louie . No I didn’t. I live in Montana and honestly, I don’t believe hearing aid providers around these parts even know what REM is.

That being said, my audi has 30 years experience and is very knowledgeable. That, and along with the fact that the Phonak setup program works so well, I can’t believe it could get much better. I passed the word recognition test with flying colors, even from another room.

I also got custom molds, which I didn’t have before.

If I had access to REM I’d get them in a heartbeat.

Joni

1 Like
#239

Answer Found! Apparently, Siri’s voice volume is independent of Media Volume. The way to change Siri’s voice volume when played to the Lumitys is the following. First, to get an idea of where things stand, ask Siri, “Siri, what’s your volume?” She might reply, “I’m currently speaking at 53%.” So, then you can tell her something like, “Siri, set your voice volume to 30%.” And she might reply, “I’ll dial it down.” If you just tell her, “Set the volume to 30%,” she may change the media playing volume rather than her voice volume.

So, I’ll see if I can fix the remaining problem of getting alarms and alerts to play into the Lumitys. Maybe as for Siri’s voice volume, the alerts to a headphone-like device is a different can of worms than playing media from the watch to “headphones.”

2 Likes
#240

I’ve now been wearing my Lumity L90-RT hearing aids for two and a half months and thought I would post an update. As you know, I’m the guy who originally started this discussion thread. I was so thrilled with Lumity that I ended my trial early and bought them outright.

It’s now a few months later and I am still thrilled with these hearing aids. They are excellent on so many different levels and in all honesty, I can’t really complain about anything.

That being said, I’ll start with the only (slight) negative. I’ve seen the endless back and forth arguments for and against rechargeable batteries on this forum. I’ve seen the complaints about the shorter (18 hours) battery life of Lumity and the fact that you cannot get a non-rechargeable version. After two and a half months of using Lumity, I can honestly say that rechargeable battery life has NOT been an issue for me. Just to give you context, I’m a 59 year old executive in the IT industry. The myPhonak App shows I wear the hearing aids for about 16 hours a day with 3-4 hours of streaming per day. The streaming I do consists of phone calls and Microsoft Teams meetings. I watch a bit of TV from time to time but prefer to read a book or do active things (working out, walks, etc).

So here is the deal with rechargeable battery life after using the Lumity hearing aids for a while. On light streaming days, I get through my entire day with no battery issues. I usually finish the day with 20-30% remaining. On days with heavy streaming, the battery level on Lumity is close to zero by the time I turn off the lights to go to sleep. The good news is that I have never run out before going to sleep. I do try to drop the Lumity hearing aids into the charger for 20-30 minutes after my daily workout (while I am in the shower). Lumity charges really quickly (3 hours from zero to a full charge) so 30 minutes in the charger typically extends the battery life by at least 3 hours. This is more than enough to get through even a very heavy streaming day. Bottom line…the argument against Phonak’s decision to make the Lumity line 100% rechargeable is really a non-issue for me. Just my opinion.

Now for the positives. Everything about Lumity is better. The key thing that makes these hearing aids better is the Autosense 5.0 automatic program. I have no idea what it is doing but it is fantastic. So good that I almost never force the hearing aids into a manual program mode or even use the myPhonak app to adjust anything. I just set and forget these things in the automatic mode and they do their thing.

The second incredible thing about Lumity is their awareness of the environment and their ability to zero in on speech coming from any direction and adjust focus to in any type of sound situation. In other words, you hear voices behind you. You can hear someone who sits beside you in the car or at a restaurant. When you go for a walk, you hear the person walking beside you. When you sit in a large room for a public meeting and people are speaking from different parts of the room…you hear everyone. Lumity seems to respond and focus very quickly and I have not worn nor tested any other hearing aid that could do this. This ability in itself is reason enough to buy these hearing aids.

The next thing I want to mention is music and environmental sounds. As I have stated many times, music is incredible. Doesn’t matter if it is streaming or just listening to live music. The Autosense program kicks in and suddenly there is bass where there never used to be bass and the music is alive. Same goes for environmental sounds. You hear so many things that you haven’t heard in a while that at times it’s confusing until you remember what you just heard. Everything from the furnace going on in the house to the garbage truck going by outside. Something beeping in the kitchen or the sound of someone’s footsteps on the floor above. It’s almost like the Lumity hearing aids open up in quiet environments to let in sounds that many other hearing aids tend to filter out by default. The net effect is that the world seems much more alive. I’ve now been wearing these hearing aids for 2-3 months and I’m still noticing things I haven’t heard in many years. As another person posted, it’s actually quite emotional at times.

The last point I want to mention is bluetooth. It’s just rock solid. I honestly didn’t think there was anything better than the MFi on my Resound Quattro hearing aids. MFi on my iPhone was good. Bluetooth Classic on my iPhone with Lumity is better. It does chew through the batteries faster but the connection is so solid that I rarely experience any kind of drop off. It doesn’t even matter what the bluetooth device is…everything is rock solid. I use Lumity with my iPhone 14 Pro Max, my Dell work laptop, the TV (via the Phonak TV Connector) and even on my Peloton exercise bike. I never lose a connection and it works every time. The ONLY thing you have to do to avoid issues is to make sure you never leave more than two bluetooth devices on and connected to Lumity at the same time. Never had any bluetooth issues following this process.

That is my update. I don’t work for Phonak. I don’t have good hearing (check my audiogram). I am just a happy customer.

Jordan

15 Likes
#241

One more thing I forgot to include in my update: Speech in Noise. Noisy Restaurants, etc.

As a long term hearing aid user, I can say that this is certainly the biggest thing that doesn’t work with most hearing aids. Lumity does extremely well with speech in very noisy environments like restaurants, parties, etc. It’s not perfect by any means but after using Lumity for three months, I can say that it’s a good 20%-25% better than my Resound Quattro’s. It’s even better than the Resound Omnia’s that I also tested. There are still situations where you just can’t hear and the only option is to take extra steps to move to an area of the room where there is less noise. Lumity can only do so much when there is too much noise and not enough speech signal to process. I attended a charity fundraising event for United Way this week that was sponsored by one of my largest customers. The event was held in a bar in downtown Toronto and there were easily 200-300 people crammed into the restaurant. In many cases, I was standing shoulder to shoulder with people on all sides of me with many conversations going on at the same time. Surprisingly, the Lumity hearing aids did ok. I would say that I was able to follow the conversation about 70% of the time. Big issue was too many simultaneous conversations in very close proximity with tons of noise all around. It really boiled down to the speaker and the type of voice they had. Soft spoken (usually female) voices were a challenge. Louder people seemed to come through ok. That being said, I was happy with the results because my Resound Quattro’s would have crashed and burned under these circumstances. I was actually very jumpy and nervous in the car on the way downtown because I was horribly worried I that I wouldn’t be able to hear anything at this event. 70% far exceeded my expectations and my confidence got quite a boost after being there for 20 minutes and adapting to the noise. Lumity wasn’t perfect under these extreme conditions but IMHO, Lumity was probably giving me the best performance of any hearing aid that I have tested in a situation like this. To sum it all up, Lumity should give most people a bit more confidence in dealing with the parties and events that fall around the Christmas season without too much trouble. I’m hoping the other folks testing Lumity share their experiences with these types of noisy restaurants. Curious to see if their experiences are the same as mine.

Jordan

15 Likes
#242

Great report. As I said earlier I have L90 RL’s on order. We going to Disney World over Christmas to be with the granddaughter who works there. I think that will be a good initial test. Thanks for keeping us informed.

4 Likes
#243

I’d disagree on this point. There are several areas in a ~2 mile neighborhood walk where I presume EMI coming from houses causes BT streaming to break up with great reliability. With my Lumity L90-Rs, there is noticeably more interference with streaming than with the Quattros using an iPhone 14 Pro Max with iOS 16.x. The Quattro streaming has had its ups and downs but since I got an iPhone 14 with iOS 16.x, it’s been noticeably much more solid than times in the past. With either HA, I almost never totally lose the connection but as soon as I walk beyond the point of interference, streaming resumes. Both the Phonak and the ReSound HAs are subject to interference at the same spots in the neighborhood but the Lumitys much more so. I guess this is a YMMV thing.

I have found one thing on Autosense where Phonak could use better programming. When the wife and I are in the bathroom, if she’s talking to me, as soon as either of us turns on aerated sink tap water, speech recognition goes south because for some stupid reason, the Autosense prioritizes noise reduction of the rushing water over my wife’s voice and the noise reduction really bites into her speech.

Minor things. The myPhonak app is very stupid about telling you whether the Lumitys are turned off. Instead it goes into “Searching… This is going to take some time.” mode. Also, the Lumity disconnects from my iPhone much more easily than the Quattros if I leave my phone behind and walk through the house, with attendant chimes as I go out of range and come back in. The Quattros will stay connected on the same trip through the house. And it takes considerably more time in launching the app for the Lumitys to register. I don’t think any hearing aid including the Lumitys will do a great job with speech in noise for anyone with good low-frequency hearing unless you wear an occlusive ear mold. You gain much more dB amplification of the SNR with directional beam forming that way. So, it’s too bad for me that I’m just using slim tip domes with minimal vents during my Lumity trial.

These are relatively minor annoyances to live with. Speech Enhancer is great. Reading the latest Target user guide, it now says in quiet environments at a 30 to 50 dB background sound level, Speech Enhancer will kick in if speech is >0 dB above background noise level (used to require with Paradise >10 dB speech above background noise) and Speech Enhancer will boost soft speech by as much as 10 dB - and Speech Enhancer only amplifies soft speech, not soft room noises. I don’t see anything like this for the Omnia looking in Smart Fit under a simulated fitting. So, when I get to try the Omnias, I’ll see how my wife’s voice sounds. But it’s so audible and clarion-clear with the Lumitys, I suspect that’s what going to make me want to go with them in spite of my modest annoyance with what I have mentioned above.

I didn’t ask my audi to implement NAL-NL2 as my fitting algorithm for the Lumity trial. I’m just using the standard Phonak algorithm with experienced or long-time user settings. I do think there is less amplification of high frequency sounds than in my experience wearing the Quattros with an NAL-NL2 fit. The beep of the microwave and our security alarm are not as noticeable with the Lumitys as with the Quattros. As I was being fit, I glanced at the audi’s screen, and the higher frequencies curved down much more than they do with NAL-NL2. ReSound’s Audiogram+ is the same way.

The Lumitys are really great HA’s! But so far, Quattros have been the only other HA’s I’ve worn.

6 Likes
#244

Hi @JordanK! I just want to say that your posts have been invaluable to me! I can’t thank you enough for all the detailed information you have included in them. I have been inspired and given new hope by your experiences, and now I’m happy to say that I’m experiencing some of the same things.

I received my pair of Lumities on December 6 (Lumity Life L-90 with custom molds). I have borderline profound hearing loss. Since I previously had Phonak Marvels (3+ years), I had some idea of what to expect regarding Lumity connectivity and rechargeable battery life. I have never had a problem with connectivity. For reference I previously had a Samsung Galaxy Note 9 phone and now have the Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra.

I agree with you wholeheartedly on your rechargeable battery data. The Marvels were my first rechargeable aids, and made me wish I had gone rechargeable a long time ago. I don’t usually stream as much as you do, but on days that I do I just pop them into the charger while I’m doing something where I don’t need them.

So far since I got them on Tuesday I’ve spent most of my time at home, so I haven’t tested them in a noisy background situation. I’m looking forward to doing that. I’m also a runner. I live in the mountains of Montana and I regularly run on a local country road when there is no snow. There is not a lot of traffic on this road, but occassionally people drive pretty fast. With my Marvels I could hear a car coming from quite a distance, but I couldn’t really tell from what direction it was coming. I’m curious to see if that will change with Lumity. It probably won’t be until some time in April with the winters in Montana being what they are. If it’s anything like the experience I’ve had just around the house it will be incredible.

I’m hearing things around the house that I haven’t been able to hear for many years. Yesterday I was playing Christmas music in the living room. That is, in and of itself a miracle because for many years music has just been background noise to me, so I would never play it. The most amazing thing happened yesterday. I don’t know if it was autosense, but when I walked down the hallway into another room I could still hear the music at exactly the same level that I could hear it in the living room! I couldn’t believe my ears! It was so astounding that I even walked back and forth between the rooms to be sure I was hearing what I thought I was hearing! Turns out I was! I could hear the beeping signal on the microwave from the bathroom yesterday. Previously, I had to really focus to hear it while standing a few feet away in the kitchen! It will take a while to get used to hearing things coming from other rooms!

I’m also a bird watcher. I have heard bird calls outside that I hadn’t heard in years! I stepped out on the porch yesterday and heard the distinct chickadee-dee-dee call of a chickadee. It was quite an emotional event for me.

My husband can’t believe how well I hear. I use the TV Connector to hear tv. With the Marvels I had to have it turned up pretty high. For anyone reading this who is unfamiliar with it, the higher the TV Connector is turned up the more it suppresses background sounds in the room. The only way I could hear anything said to me while watching television was to pause the tv. With the Lumity I can turn the tv connector down substantially, to the point that I can hear what my husband says to me WHILE we’re watching television together. He was so impressed by this that he tested me last night. He made me repeat everything he said while the tv was going and was amazed when I heard every single word. I guess he’s going to have to watch what he says around me now if he doesn’t want me to hear it! :rofl: I can even hear the television at a fairly normal volume without the tv connector. It’s a little bit of work on my part, and I’ve become so spoiled by the quality of the Dolby sound coming through the TV Connector that I just use the TV Connector.

I’ll post more updates when I have a chance to test these aids in other situations. I’m most eager to hear how they perform in noisy situations, as that is the main reason I switched to the Lumity.

Thank you again, Jordan!

Joni

11 Likes
#245

Did your audi run the feedback management? I’m guessing that’s why the highs curved down. The domes just can’t tolerate highs without generating feeback.

1 Like