Wow, Steve, you are being quite harsh, without a clue as to extenuating circumstances of @cvkemp .
For example, I had issues with the Oticon OPN S from the VA in SoCal, and my audi was able to update me to the Mores after 15 months of use, so your “I don’t buy it” statement is invalid.
At Ease, Steve!
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Not all VA clinics are equal, and not all VA regions are equal. I am fortunate, I live in a rural area within a state that takes Veterans Health needs seriously. Here we have community clinics in most towns with at least 30K population. The wait time for appointments aren’t the same as in the big city clinics. I have seen both types of clinics. When I was in Dallas the wait time could be months, when I was in the Austin area there were the main clinic and then there were smaller emergency clinics. The smaller clinics didn’t take appointments just walk ins. The main clinic took appointments and walk in’s at scheduled times. And I have noticed something else, the difference between service levels for veterans with disabilities and veterans without. I have also seen both of these sides.
I have also seen doctors, nurses and office workers that cared deeply about their jobs and the veterans, and I have seen the ones that just went through the paces.
I feel so sorry for the ones that are in the extremely populated area of the country and have to deal with the extreme wait times. And also for the doctors, nurses and office staff that are being overwhelmed and overworked and burning out and working for less than they can get elsewhere.
I appreciate all your posts.
An aside–I had an experience in a tire shop. I had a fast little VW. A customer there suggested I should have bought a diesel.
You are very kind. I snapped at the person saying I bought the car for me and I liked it. I don’t usually snap.
Thank you for your service. Truly.
On another forum I have a friend who served as well. He was going through a hearing experience and buying his own, but not buying well. I suggested he needed to check VA.
DaveL
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Thanks very much for your post. Your response was perfect and far better than mine might have been.
I had the good fortune to live in the US from '57 to '59. I had never stayed in the same places so long. Navy Brat.
Service wives deserve medals and recognition.
Thanks for your service. Truly.
(I went to 13 schools by the end of grade 8)
I’m sorry this is so long.
My Father never talked about his service. Then later they would meet and talk. He edited 4 books from those meetings called “Salty Dips”. They were stories of wartime experiences of Canadians who served at sea.
He wrote a book titled, “Orion, Mighty Warrior” which he served attached to the Royal Navy, though he was Canadian. He was an engineer who worked as radar officer on ships. Often on deck when they were in battle.
So my thanks to all vets comes from my heart.
DaveL
Toronto
ps. I worked for Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing for 15 years in Canada.We never had hearing protection back then. I worked often in the Power House where they would later measure sound levels at 110 dB. After measuring them they handed out the little foam widgets you put in your ears to protect your hearing?
Now I believe there is a class action lawsuit for US vets to claim for lost hearing.
I believe that every generation of hearing aids is improved enough to generate sales. I hope that AI hearing aids are much better and the price is reasonable. I expect that price reductions is a useless hope.
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Define AI hearing aids. Would that be a hearing aid which could have an intelligent conversation with me or one that would decide if the conversation was worth listening to and veto it?
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Too much. 
Not sure how AI will help with hearing because AI is just an AI.
What user want to hear still up to user decision. It would be fantasy good if AI can read my mind and know what exactly I want.
Talk about Fantasy, I want mind reading hearing aids instead of AI.
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the user could use its gaze to focus speech… this is not a fantasy… it is coming
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No one here is talking how AI could help in the context of the fitting software making sure
the Audi makes correct choices …
that could also be an important area … we will see big changes in the next 5 years…
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No matter how good the receiver is, it does not matter if the cochlear is dead.
Profound hearing looses tend to have dead cells zones… Even if target is matched it wouldn’t
make a difference …
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Still a long way off general usefulness.
So AI may take your job?
Someone has to be responsible I suppose. You cant sue for malpractice the AI right?
I tend to think the AI innovation could come from the fitting software
Actually people could probably sue the company that programmed the AI.
Isn’t Phonak’s Autosense a form of AI?
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Yes, it is. And Phonak says as much on their website.
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Sadly, for me, it just isn’t there yet. I’ve disabled it, and use manual switching
During the two years my hearing aids weren’t set up properly I would have sworn there was no Intelligence there! Key word is swore. Did that a lot.
Now that I can finally hear enough that I leave them alone to work as they might, perhaps there is some sense there. And a lot of marketing. After all they’ve gone out of their way to cap the intelligence in my Phonak Audeo Paradise P90’s that I can’t upgrade from autosense 4 to autosense 5.
DaveL
Toronto
Sounds like where I was for two years with the setup on my P90’s. At one point I had the audi try selecting the music program as start-up. Then later I had him adjust compression, mids and highs replicating the CLARITY button on the App because it really helped the ersatz setup I had.
Finally, my new practitioner has made great improvements. With good reason, he has used the same audiogram. He has used Target’s Quick Fit or whatever it’s called. Then boosted mids and high frequencies, and tweaked volume. My autosense is working now. I’m putting my HA’s in and forgetting about them, and forgetting about using the APP. Word recognition needs some help, even in quiet environments I hear about 65%.
Edit: rant removed. Hopefully AI brings an improvement. My Paradise P90R experience has not been good the way they were setup. 2 years. Oh my.
DaveL
I think the use of DNN in speech separation could be the next logical step
maybe with a big enough battery it could imagine the amount of computational
power needed for this… I wonder 2027-2028?
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