Roger On as directional mic?

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I’m curious about the directional mic application with the Roger On. How good is it?
I’m imagining using it as a pointer in noisy environments. Saturday evening I was at a church function in the function hall. It was probably 80 people milling about and chatting in a room that is essentially an echo chamber.

I’m imagining it wouldn’t be quite as good as those parabolic microphones you see in movies, where they show people listening to conversations through walls :wink:
but real world, what sort of experience could I expect?
loud rooms like that?
or someone standing pretty far away in a relatively quiet place?
Would it be useful say for example in Mass, where the audio is broadcasted through the PA speakers in the ceiling, but the church has a very strong echo…could I point it at say one of the speakers up high in the ceiling to clear it up?

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I am new to Phonak hearing aids. I bought the Roger 2 in. I had to purchase this version because I needed the software to activate my Roger receivers. With that said I will refer to as just Roger 2 On. It is very versatile for me. I use it to stream my tv into my hearing aids. I use it as a table mic. I use it when I talk on zoom meetings and phone calls. I use it in crowed areas as a clip on mic. My favorite thing is to point towards the person I am listening to and it picks up their voice well just don’t be creepy with it. I found it to be very clear and useful. It’s a bit pricey for my taste but it works really well. Definitely worth a consult with the audiologist about getting one. I believe Dr. Cliff has done a video on it. Hopefully this helps.

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Yeah @Baltazard, in certain circumstances Roger On is wonderful, in other challenging acoustic situations it might be deemed as average or above average, Roger certainly helps, especially in “Lanyard or Presenter mode” in 1 to 1 situations it’s excellent… Table Mode is also very good, but everything is relative to the amount of background noise… Pointing mode can be a hit or a miss, again if the background noise is excessive, you may struggle? Roger could be deemed as very helpful, but not in every situation, everything is relative to the actual acoustic environment, and the distance between the speaker, and the remote Mic… Last week, I had someone in to my place for coaching (8 ball pool) they had traveled over 100 miles, a birthday present from their wife… My pool room has a hardwood floor, wood panel walls, TV softly playing in the background, so I put a “Roger Clip On Mic” on them, it worked perfect, so conversation was easy, even at a little distance… I would have struggled without the Clip On Mic, but with it, it was easy… Cheers Kev :wink:

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thanks! I can imagine it shines as a clip-on mic or in table mode…just having any microphone that can be remotely placed closer to the speaker has to be helpful
I’ve found myself in a few situations over the couple years I’ve had the hearing aids when I would have liked to have had something like that…but I just don’t see that as a primary need for me…certainly not enough for me to personally justify the high price of this thing!

@kevels55, you say pointing mode can be hit or miss
This is the mode I’ve had far more situations come to mind where I thought I could use a good device to point. It’s what I’m trying to get a better feel about…
how directional is it? I wonder if that’s why it’s hit or miss for you. Maybe if it’s so pinpoint directional that you have to aim precisely, then naturally I can see where that could be hit and miss… it would fade every time the aim is off.
but
with the directional mics being holes as they are, and not actually pointing linearly to a target, I can’t imagine the thing being that pinpoint precise. So, that leads me to wonder if it just simply has trouble determining target vs background sounds… no different than the aids do… Is that it?

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@bradw Correct me if I am wrong, but the way I see it is you have at least 3 situations:
a) 1 to 1 conversation
b) 1 to 2 or up to 5 (I guess)
c) In a meeting room/hall/worship situation

a) 1 to 1, I suppose the clip-on mic still does a decent job, the other person has to wear it (see clip-on mic manual), cheaper alternative to the Roger On.

b) 1 to 2 ~ 5, I suppose the Roger On will do a decent job in this case, using the pointing mode, assuming they are all standing up and chatting in a small group, but if they are all sitting around a table, then Roger On table mode, or Roger Select/Table Mic ii will do the trick.

c) In open space, I think if using Roger On, then one has to ask the speaker to wear it around his/her neck, pin-pointing to a small distance might work, but long distances, I don’t believe it is achievable.
The other option, is TV Connector to the venue’s audio system (assuming they do have a decent audio system), which then transmit the audio to the hearing aids via the TV Connector.

That’s my thinking, again, I could be wong.

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To be honest, I have lots of Roger ALD’s @bradw, none of which cost a small fortune, I am not prepared to pay Phonak’s exorbitant prices, I shop around eBay, I am patient, and I will wait for a particular Roger, at a price I think is reasonable… For instance, My Roger Clip On Mic cost me £30, plus approximately £6 postage, it was in absolutely pristine condition, and looked brand new, it came boxed, with all the accessories, including the TV docking station, there are bargains to be had, if you shop around :grin: I have 3 Roger Selects, 2 are the “In” version, one cost me £170, the battery was goosed, so I soldered in a new slightly bigger battery (with more runtime) I got 5 sets of licenses from that 1 Select, I lost 1 license, because I made a mistake, so in actual fact I got 9 (type 03) licenses, I am most fortunate to have 4 good sets of aids, the other licence went to my grandson whom only has a single aid, with a moderate loss in one ear, and no hearing whatsoever since birth, on the right, his mother had CMV… My advice to anyone wanting any or several Roger ALD’s (Assistive Listening Devices) is shop around the second hand market, that way you can have several devices, for the price of one… Cheers Kev :wink:

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ha ha…ebay is exactly what I had in mind to do! :wink:

At this point though I’m just trying to better understand what I might expect from the Roger On before I put the effort in to find one.

@ Baltazard, yes, I reckon you’ve summed up most of the use cases for the device.
For me though I get by with my aids alone pretty well in most situations

and I don’t see myself in situations where I would actually ask a person to take my mic and wear it. Maybe just once in a very long while.

Probably a little more often, but not much really, would I use table mode…if it ends up working well that way then maybe more…but regardless that is not reason enough for me to buy the thing

For me I see it most useful in pointing mode
either
a) in a small group conversation happening in a larger noisey space. Think reception or party.

or b) when a single presenter is speaking to a small group either with a mic or without(so the space would be relatively quiet). Think teacher in a classroom. The speaker might be fairly close or not so much depending on if I’m sitting up front or not…say maybe 10ft to 50ft away.

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I have found that at a very noisy party the Roger On is pretty useless. Even with the hearing aids muted, the Roger picks up and amplifies all of the background noise. When the party quieted down, however, and we retired to the presentation, the Roger was very helpful in hearing the speaker. I tried pointing the Roger toward a loud speaker in a church with poor acoustics and found it did not help.

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thanks @raylock1
extremely helpful!

So you said it was helpful during the presentation. Just to double check…
were you holding it and pointing it at the presenter from a distance?
if pointing, at what sort of ballpark distance?
or did you ask the presenter to wear it or otherwise hold it near them?

and I’m disappointed to learn it didn’t help you when pointing it to a loudspeaker at church. I was hopeful. That would be one use case for me.
I have an FM receiver with a telecoil neckloop that I use at my church. It helps a lot in cutting through the echo…except when I forget to bring it or when we sit too far away from the tranmitter’s antenna.
I was wondering about using this as a back-up system…or for use when visiting somewhere else that doesn’t have the FM system.

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@bradw

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@bradw Holding and point toward the speaker, probably 25 to 30 feet away. They had an amplification system behind them so I probably was picking up more sound from their amplification system that directly from the speaker. As a previous poster pointed out, this works pretty well in smaller groups. In a noisy restaurant, for example, I can use it in the pointing mode (Roger on the table) to hear the person across the table. For larger groups where noise is somewhat controlled I use two Roger Table Mic II’s. Again, if the background gets too noisy (crying kids at the next table) the utility of these mics is also reduced. That is my experience. Others may be, and probably will be, very different.

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Yeah @Baltazard, I have twin pack “Table Mic 2” it is a expensive piece of kit, woefully expensive, around £3k new, for the twin pack, here in the UK… I managed to get mines, for around £500, again in pristine condition… I then bought another remote fairly cheaply on here, @Zebras, kindly sold me, so I have 2 remotes, and 2 Table Mic’s, my plan was sell one and keep the other, but being the proverbial hoarder, I never did that, I prefer the peace of mind, knowing I have spares :upside_down_face: us hoarders, have a lot to answer for :rofl: :joy: :rofl:

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@kevels55 Same boat as you, got one for mi brother, but later on its battery died, so I might need to get him a battery, but since it is gathering dust, no rush, but in case he wants to use it, he can always stick a power-bank underneath it.

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I like the admonishment “don’t be creepy”. The Roger mic does work well enough to be creepy in certain situations, but the general description here is correct: functionality declines as noise goes up, as reverberation goes up, and as distance increases. Pointing mode is intended to work as about the distance you would naturally stand from someone as you have a conversation. If it’s noisy enough that the people around you are moving in to hear comfortably, Roger also has to move in. If your in a quiet enough situation that a normal listener could have a comfortable situation across a room, Roger can also probably help.

It’s also going to be impacted by individual speech clarity and speech in noise ability. If pointing mode can give you a 12dB SNR boost but you need a 20dB boost, it’s not going to be sufficient. If your max speech clarity in an ideal situation is 60%, Roger isn’t going to improve in that.

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@Baltazard , tahnk you! I was looking a few days ago for just those sort of videos but struck out. The first was for the product I’m interested in, but I suppose the others are basically doing the same thing. Also, even though he was demoing the table mode I get the sense that pointing mode would be the same when he put it into manual and walked around.
Then, in that 3rd video, the demo where everyone at the table was talking at once is I suppose pretty much what Roger On would give as well…

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My Roger Select iN works well in table mode when there aren’t multiple conversations in close proximity. In that case I must move it close to the desired speaker and limit the directionality of pickup by touching one or at most two of the microphone buttons among the many in the 360 degrees of potential operation. In noisy situations it is of limited use; it can only do so much. The most amusing aspect is that on more than one occasion when someone sees it they ask if I’m recording the conversation!

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thank you raylock1!!!

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Any comparison experience Roger On to the old Roger Pen here?
In the spirit of @kevels55 I was looking at ebay. Seems you can get the Pen for a lot less than the Roger On. Based on the form-factor I’m guessing it doesn’t really offer table mode or perhaps some of the other functions…many of which I might just well find more necessary than I know…but since I’m really mostly interested in pointing mode, I wonder…

Also, for the Roger ON, I see some listed as V2,
some listed with multiple lisences receivers, and such which I assume have to do with using them with non-phonak aids. My hearing aids have Roger built-in so I’m guessing I don’t need that stuff. Still, is there a particular model or version I should be looking for to interface with my Phonak Marvel aids?

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@bradw Hopefully someone else will chime in on the Roger Pen. I have never used a Roger Pen. I believe it was an earlier iteration of the Roger devices and is no longer sold except in the second hand market. The Roger On V2 is the newer version of the Roger On. Version 2 adds the headset mode to the other modes it offers. This means you can use the mic in the V2 to pick up your voice when making phone calls instead of the mics in your hearing aids. Sometimes callers have difficulty hearing your voice through the HA mics. I have not had that problem. You will need licenses in each of your HA’s hence the “In” models. The Roger Direct in the hearing aids just means that you can transfer Roger licenses from the Roger “In” devices directly into your hearing aids without using an intermediate device.

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Yeah @bradw I have the Roger Pen, I bought a fairly new one, my old ones battery was goosed, and TBH, it was fairly poor, in comparison to the newer Pen I bought, so obviously things improved! Roger On V1, is IMO better than the Roger Pen, so the Roger On V2 should be incrementally better, I don’t have the V2, so I can’t substantiate that… But I would be inclined to seek out a Roger On V2… You mentioned you have receivers built into your hearing aids, it’s a common misconception, as @raylock1 rightly said, you also need Licenses, there are 2 types, (type 03 & type 02) they are very expensive, here in the UK (type 03) cost around £350 each, (type 02) sometimes called educational, over £600 each, you will need 2 licenses, it works with 1 license, but only in one ear! And one ear, is a poor substitute…And there is worse to come, if you buy the physical Roger X Receivers (type 03 or type 02) type 02 works with everything, type 03 only works with certain Roger ALD’s, serial numbers have to be above 1744 in order to work with Marvel/Paradise/Lumity aids, so check before you buy! Also, you would need a Roger X Installer to transfer the License from Roger X to your aid, and they are as rare as hens teeth, and unless you have one, the receivers are useless, I bought my Roger X Installer from South Korea, about 3 or 4 years ago now… Or any friendly Phonak A.uD may install for you? The only other way/ways, if you have telecoil installed on your aids, a Roger Neckloop (type 02 or 03) will work, UK prices 03 is around £160 new, 02 is probably around £350 new? Lastly there are Roger “iN” ALD’s, the “iN” being the operative word, if it has an “iN”, it means the Licenses are pre-installed into the the Roger device, you transfer the licenses via a tiny button on the device, there are ways & means to get extra licenses out of these devices, but that’s another story… Sonova likes our cash, but I try to give them as little as possible, buy buying second hand, so apart from my aids, they will get sweet FA… :rofl: The prices they charge, are eye watering, but the Roger Eco System is the best out there, by a country mile…Good Luck, cheers Kev :wink:

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