What is the best CROS setup in 2024/early 2025?

Hearing Aids
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Looking to upgrade my current Phonak Paradise CROS P90 (RIC) setup.

I have no brand loyalty and would not mind switching to another brand if there’s a good reason for it. I’m fairly technical and do my own adjustments/testing at home, on top of my excellent audiologist’s tuning.

I’ve been reading feedback here, watching YT videos, and talking about it with my audi, but it seems like most of the models available at the moment have rather significant downsides attached to them - so I’m looking for more info to help me decide.

Thanks in advance

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Just this summer I was fitted with BiCros aids, Starkey Genesis AI 24, to be exact. I haven’t tried any other models, so have no basis of comparison, and would be interested in feedback about other brands.

I will say that Starkey is famous for their battery life, and it’s real. I understand CROS is notorious for eating batteries. Since one ear feeds audio continuously to the other ear, I think it’s the equivalent of streaming all day long. I can get through a 17-18 hour day with 30% battery remaining. These days I often turn off the CROS transmitter when I’m by myself and have no need to hear from my bad side, and can get through day using 40-50% of the hearing aid battery, and maybe 20% of the CROS.

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3

My friend has just got the Oticon Xceed 1 UP and the Oticon CROS.

She’s very happy. She was wearing Phonak before hand which weren’t Bluetooth and were quite old in technology.

4

Phonak now has CROS in their Infinio line. I don’t think it’s Sphere but still a quite current hearing aid.

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Thanks for chiming in. The Starkey Edge AI are one of the models I’m considering. They are very new so there’s not much feedback out there yet.

How’s everything else besides battery life on your Starkey model - do they work well with speech in noise? Any negatives?

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I have the Edge AI with CROS. They work incredibly well. Battery life is by the end of the day (about 16-18 hours) I usually end up with 30% left. Over the weekend I was at an event where the music was loud and I had trouble hearing a few people, so I enabled edge ai with the focus of speech. It completely filtered out the music and focused on the speech. I was so impressed by that.

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7

There will probably be a HearAdvisor.com test of an “ordinary” Infinio R90 + Infinio CROS setup,

maybe with a comparison to a unilateral Phonak Infinio Sphere 90.

@AbramBaileyAuD , do you know anything about that testing idea, i.e. with KEMAR which would simulate completely deaf one side and hearing loss on another?

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I have been using an Oticon Cros with my Oticon Real1 HAs since July 2024. The rechargeable battery life easily gets me through 13-14 hours with about 30% remaining. In general, I have been satisfied with the performance of the two units. Unfortunately if you want to use the newer Oticon Intents with a Cros, you are limited. As of last July, the Cros available uses the non-contact charger that the Real uses. But the Intents use a contact charger. Thus, if you want a Cros option with the Intents, you will need both the non-contact charger for the Cros and the contact charger for the Intents. This was one of the reasons I opted to go with the older Real1 instead of the Intent which was also available at the time.

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Thanks for sharing your experience! What was your previous hearing aid setup?

Have you experienced any negatives for the Edge AI after wearing them for some time?

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I had the Signia Pure Charge n Go 7IX. It was a total failure. I got it in March of this year, it went in for repairs 9 times because the microphone, speaker and CROS.

Prior to that model I had the Signia Pure Charge n Go 7nx. I had that for 4 years and it was a champ till the end. It started fritzing out with the speaker and microphone.

The Edge AI has been great. The only complaint that I have is the lack of the remote mic streamer.