Two Months With Lumity 90 after 3 Years With Marvel 90

Hearing Aids
#1

After having Marvel 90 aids for 3 years I decided to upgrade to Audeo Lumity L90 aids hoping that speech in loud noise would be improved. I have the new aids on a 90 day trial.

The previous Marvel aids would help at home with a group of 8 people round the dinner table other than when a number of people were simultaneously talking across the table. My eldest son is very softly spoken and I always had difficulty hearing him reliably even one to one.
With the Lumity aids - those problems have been eliminated much to the relief of my wife who for years has had to put up with my poor hearing.

In a noisy environmemt such as a restaurant the Lumity aids are much better than the Marvels - but very loud surrounding noise, especially in a public place without soft furnishings (making it virually an echo chamber) - remains a problem. We have to be selective on which restaurants to visit. I guess it is unreasonable to expect aids to cope with such high surrouding noise. I wonder if they ever will.

The Lumity aids are also a great improvement over the Marvels in our car - especially when using the “Speech in Loud Noise” setting which almosts eliminates tyre noise unless the road surface is very rough

Battery life is disappointing and no better than the Marvels. I am 85 and retired. I am an early riser and late to bed having no more than 6 hours sleep a day. I regularly now use the Marvel aids until about 11 a.m and swap them for Lumity aids for the rest of the day when I am most likely to be socialising or using my phone.

I have impaired feeling in my fingers and always had difficulty with the Marvels using the rocker switch on the aids. The Lumity aids are better - the ends of the rocker switches are easier to feel and the tap feature for me is great. Because of my impaired dexterity the charger is also an improvement being much easier to insert and remove the aids.

I have 30 days left on the trial and have yet to find a reason not the keep them

24 Likes
Phonak Autosense OS vs Real Ear
#2

@Alanho: Congratulations. That’s great news with which to ring in the New Year!

1 Like
#3

@Alanho: Congratulations. Ring RIng - HAPPY NEW YEAR!

#4

About 5 weeks ago I upgraded to Phonak Lumity (L90RT) from Paradise (P90R) and agree that speech is much improved. However, I am experiencing odd behavior from the aids and am wondering if the aids are faulty or if this is just the norm with this model. Specifically, when in a noisy environment, I will periodically and momentarily hear a blast of sound so loud that it is startling, it’s like the volume was suddenly turned up to the max. It only lasts about a second or 2 and then goes back to normal, but it’s upsetting when it happens. Have you experienced anything like this?

1 Like
#5

Six days ago I too went from Phonak Paradise 90 w/molds to the Phonak Lumity L90 w/molds…have not experienced sudden “blast of sound” in noisy enviroment.

Wholeheartly agree Phonak Life provide exceptional speech understanding.

3 Likes
#6

Have your audi adjust the sensitivity of Autosense.
Explain exactly as you did here, and they can set the timing to avoid that sudden burst.

3 Likes
#7

The only additional issue I have with my Lumity aids is that connecting to My Phonak on my Samsung S10e Android Phone is sometimes flaky inside a restaurant. Even after switching them off and back on again into sync mode. It is the same with my Marvel aids. I have therefore developed the habit of connecting them before I go into a crowded place and they stay connected.

#8

I’m so impressed with your report. You’ve touched on all the things that bother me with my Paradise P90R’s.

Your key on the rocker switch really helps too. impaired feeling in my fingers too.

I’m glad you like them.

Good post. Really helpful!

DaveL

1 Like
#9

Thanks for your comment. It really helps! Speech understanding is so important.
DaveL
Toronto

2 Likes
#10

I experience that occasionally with my Lumity aids. It is normally because my phone has played a sound over Bluetooth which has suddenly disabled the background noise cancelling.
Another time it can happen is if a video auto-plays whilst scrolling on my phone and this again kicks the aids into Bluetooth mode which has no noise cancelling.

This means when this happens I’m suddenly overwhelmed with background noise. If that happened in a noisy environment I can imagine that it would be a bit startling.

This may not be what is happening with you but it’s worth turning off Bluetooth for a bit and see if it still happens. If it is the cause then you can mute notifications when your aids are connected to fix the issue.

4 Likes
#11

I am a bit confused here. I don’t understand why you should be connecting and reconnecting you HA’s with your phone. I have Paradise currently, Marvels as spares. Using the Phonak App I connected my HA’s to my Samsung Phone. Unless there’s an issue, I do not disconnect. Normally, if I am in public, I do not use my ha’s to answer the phone. Regardless my pairing with my HA’s is permanent.

#12

It was about 5 weeks ago I upgraded from M90’s to P90’s, I have rejected the p90’s, and will get my L90’s this coming Thursday. It’s not that there is a problem with the P90’s, the decision was a lot simpler then that. The VA gave me the Marvels about 3 years ago, the Paradise was introduced after my rejection period was over. I was eligible for the Paradise in October, however, my Audi was ill, so receipt was delayed until mid November. After discussions with my Audi, I have elected to drop the Paradise in favor of the Lumity L-90’s. Basically, it’s a techical end of life decision, The Marvels were superseded by the Paradise, the Paradise have been superseded by the Lumity, I have elected to go with the latest tech.
I don’t expect to be too wow’d by the Lumity, mostly because I have been playing with the Paradise for 5 or so weeks.
In addition I got the newer charger (stand alone), which dries and cleans (sanitizes) you HA’s. You still have to brush clean them every night, however, the charger dries them, and has two wee UV lights down in receiver area, which sanitizes them.
I am pretty sure they work on the Lumity (Non-Life) models as well. (I will report on that next Thursday (1/12). There is a small disadvantage to new charger, It doesn’t accept a battery, and it takes 3 hrs for the entire process, the older charger with battery only takes 2 hours, however, it is doing less.

1 Like
#13

You sound like an advert for Lumity aids, leaves me wandering how genuineyour post is.
I have had mine for about 3 weeks now and I am not as impressed with them. Sure the TV link is brilliant but as for all the other programs, i find them gimmicky. There is so little difference between that it is pointless changing them. The big test is always in a noisy restaurant and they failed miserably.

Frankly for the huge cost of them, they are not worth the money. A cheaper HA would have done a similar job. That said, any HA is better than none

1 Like
#14

I think you need a bit more than that to accuse someone of being a shill. We already have one maybe two people who do that on a semi-regular basis. Frankly, it’s irritating.

6 Likes
#15

@ PaulS
Unlike me you did not indicate which aids you are comparing with or post an audiogram to illustrate your hearing loss. I can only assume that your existing aids are better than my Marvels.
To answer your concern about whether my post is genuine. I should explain that I am simply an 85 year old retired male in the UK whose hearing is gradually worsening. Over the last 26 years I have used hearing aids, starting with free NHS Siemens then specsavers Phonak rebrands, Unitron, Unitron again and Phonak twice.
Before I had Marvels I trialled the latest aids from Omicron and Starkey which I found equally good - but chose the Marvels because they were less expensive and from an Audiologist closer to home and thus less difficult to get to.
I am no longer as mobile as when I bought the Marvels and saw all the good reports about Lumity on this forum. Hence trialling them for 90 days from the local audio was a no-brainer for me.
My original post was an honest subjective report on my experience with the Lumity aids compared with the previous Marvels and not to Advertise on behalf of Phonak

I’m not the only one to appreciate my Lumity aids - my wife and the group of four friends we meet up with most weeks in a local busy restaurant are also pleased to see me more able to participate in the group chat.
It’s still not perfect but a good step forward.

Regarding your comment about the all the programmes being gimmicky - I am inclined to agree with you.
My Lumity aids came with the following programmes - some of which I no longer use :-
Automatic
Speech in loud noise
TV connector + mic
Comfort in echo (Not used)
Restaurant (Not used)
Music (Not used)
TV (Not used)
Party (Not used)

7 Likes
#16

I truly appreciate your post and the knowledge you share.

I’ve had my P90R’s for about a year and a half. The last visit to the audiologist we achieved miracles.

@Alanho

t’s good to hear that the new HA’s are so good. My audiologist has been excellent and so supportive. However, it’s taken too long to set them up as they are now.

Congratulations on your success. May you see continued improvement. Please let us know when you do.

DaveL
Toronto

#17

I am pleased for you that you have improved hearing from your HAs but I am not so impressed. I am not so convinced that audiologists understand the capability of the Target software that fine tunes HAs. I have just acquired the software so will learn it and fine tune my own.
best wishes

1 Like
#18

Please let us know how that goes. Many people here do that. I am interested too. I tune my cpap equipment.
DaveL

1 Like
#19

It might be a while. I’m in learn the software mode while i wait for the NoaLink device to be delivered.

#20

Wow. Not much to like about that post…