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Hearing Loss: Come introduce yourself and connect with others
Hearing Loss | Last Active: 3 days ago | Replies (1517)Comment receiving replies
OK, I'll list what I can remember right now and that certainly won't be everything. Besides the battery life being less on the Phonaks there are other important differences between Phonak and Oticon. Remember I'm comparing Phonak Paradise and Oticon More.
Phonak advertised that they can pair with up to 7 devices and run 2 at the same time. I have not found that to be true. For instance when the app is open or even running in the background the remote controller doesn't work. And the audio won't connected to my computer when connected to the phone. The Oticon connectivity (with iPhone) is seamless but more limited in terms of devices.
The Phonak uses the hearing aid microphones for hands free phone calls. You don't have to talk into the phone. But people on the other end of the call hear any background noise around you. Not able to shut this off. Oticon uses both hearing mics and phone mic.
The Phonak outgoing calls connect directly to the hearing aids. But incoming calls answered on the phone go to phone audio and you have to manually switch to hearing aids. Calls can be answered with audio going directly to hearing aids by the "double tap" feature (double tap a hearing aid to answer). But the double tap is more like a double THUMP. It is hard to hit that tiny hearing aid with enough force to activate the feature. Oticon connectivity is seamless.
The worst thing for me is that the app, even while running has to connect to the hearing aids each time you want to use it which takes 10 to 20 seconds. The app disengages each time the phone goes to Lock Screen. The Oticon app is more user friendly with ore usable features.
The Phonaks do not have a "mute" feature to mute the hearing aid mics. I use this feature a lot when driving alone. I mute the mics and listen to streaming music without the road noise. There are times when I enjoy more silence and less stress.
On the plus side for Phonak I can hear a little better with them. The Oticons pick up sound from all directions (hence the name More). But I'm not able to tell where the sound is coming from. The Phonaks are better at that. And the Phonak allows me to hear for the first time the oven time on our kitchen stove. No other hearing aid has done that.
I"m sure I"ll think of more differences right after I hit the "send" button
Replies to "OK, I'll list what I can remember right now and that certainly won't be everything. Besides..."
Thank you so much for this! I have the Phonak Audeo P90-R devices. While they pair seamlessly with my iPhone, with my new iMac (M1 chip) it hasn't been seamless at all. I often have to power them off and back on to get the computer to connect. Plus the sound quality isn't great with Zoom calls, although in part that's because I hear my voice from the other person's computer if they aren't wearing earbuds. At first Zoom didn't work at all with the HAs but then I learned I had to change a setting from active to fixed bandwidth.
I'm happy to report the hands free phone calls have gone well. It is indeed a double tap, not a double thump, perhaps they fixed that issue. Incoming calls go straight to the HAs, too. I don't know about background noise, though, I've only tested it while inside our quiet house. Even before HAs, I generally avoided using my cellphone for calls because the coverage isn't great here. Luckily our phones and my headset work fine with the HAs acting as simple sound enhancers rather than Bluetooth receivers.
The app is definitely slow to connect to the HAs. Interesting about the mute feature.
Thanks again, you've given me a lot to consider.
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@arrowshooter
I trialed Phonak Paradise with Bluetooth…didn’t even last 2 weeks.
My hearing is profound bilateral so the phone was of no use to me…still need captions. The Phonak app stinks and it does take a number of seconds for them to connect and then they disengage from the app. I only connected 2 devices but gave it a vigorous trial everywhere. I will say , once connected, I was able to pick up voices further away…but still couldn’t understand speech unless the speakers were facing me.
I found myself constantly using the phone. My son was given a pair of older Phonaks (battery) by a client. They are Bluetooth. His lose is moderate . He uses the Oticon On 2 .4.0 app on his iPhone with the Phonak aids and says it works flawlessly . That’s all he is interested in but says listening to audiobooks has improved. My Audi doesn’t understand how he can use that app with Phonaks.
If you look at the reviews in the play store you can see
all the complaints about the Phonak app.
I use Innocaption for phone calls and the audio is great but I can still use my ear link and plug it into the phone using Tcoil. I do this for my iPad and sometimes when I use GPS in unfamiliar areas. Hearing the voice is a prompt for me along with looking at directions. I have had the ear links for years and I think you can still get them. They are shaped like a candy canes and hook over your ears but you need Tcoil.
Went a little off subject here.
FL Mary