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Please help me choose between Rexton Reach vs Hearlink 50

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Hi Team,

I am planning to buy a pair of for my mum. She’s 76 and has high frequency hearing loss in both the ears. Her is updated. I am looking at either Philips Hearlink 50 or the Rexton Reach at costco. I have a few questions I couldnt easily find answers to on the internet, so thought of asking here.

Her Current condition is that she can hear us at normal speaking distance of 3 to 4 meters without us raising our voice as her low frequency hearing is still decent. Beyond that we need to be a bit louder. Also she tends to keep the TV volume slightly higher than what I use. And when we are outside, say in a mall and she is 5 to 6 meters away, I need to call her quite a bit louder for her to hear me. She spends almost 5 to 6 hours a day either watching TV or watching youtube videos on her phone. And another 2 hours on phone calls with family/friends.

My questions are:

  1. The audi and docs we met told us that if she does not start using hearing aids, her hearing will get worse sooner. Is that true?

  2. If the above is true, for how long does she have to use them per day to preserve her existing hearing for as long as possible?

  3. Since she spends more time on calls and consuming media, we are looking at HAs that have solid connection and also the mic on them should receive her voice clearly for 2 way communications. I read somewhere that Philips are better than Rextons for this? Is that your experience too if you have tried both for 2 way hands free communication?

  4. Are custom ear molds worth it in her case? She’s home most of the time. She does not listen to music.

  5. Does either of them have the ability to connect to Phone and TV at the same time? I understand she would need LE audio phones like pixels/sammy and a latest TV supporting LE Audio. But is it possible to connect to both at the same time?

Thanks a lot.

7 people in this conversation8 min readJump to latest
Edited

Welcome to the forum @Clark_Kent . I am sure you will get some responses once the weekend is over. However, both hearing aids you mentioned are excellent aids and the good thing about Costco is you have up to six months to decide whether you like them. She should wear the hearing aids as much as she can. There is a need for the brain to be re-wired a bit to adapt for the hearing aids and that process works faster the more she wears them. I put mine in when I get up in the morning and take them out when I retire for the night. I will let someone else comment on the MFA (made for Apple) Bluetooth connectivity. I use Phonak aids which uses classic Bluetooth and has very good connectivity so you might want to also check on the Sennheiser aids which are sold at some Costco stores. They do not have yet but quite frankly that is probably not too useful for the next few years. Good luck.

@raylock1 said:

They do not have LE Audio yet but quite frankly that is probably not too useful for the next few years

We are starting to see churches install . So I wouldn’t sell short

If I get a new pair of hearing aids this year, they will have Auracast, and I’m going to push our square dance caller to install an Auracast device on his setup to use it.

That is good to know. I haven’t seen it in my area yet. Whether it will be helpful for some of us old folks will depend on our lifestyle. That said, I guess Phonak will upgrade the firmware in my Spheres at some point. Still at my age, I would not be looking for Auricast as a must have in my decision process.

In reply to @raylock1

Thanks. At this point isnt in my “list of wants”. Just Good mics on the aids for 2 way comm, noise suppression, comfy to wear, and if available - ability to connect to 2 devices so that she can answer her phone quickly if she recieves calls when watching TV. Dont want to switch to apple devices as it would be too much work for me to teach her the new OS. The back button on androids is very much needed for her. We live in Aus, dont think we have Sennheisers yet and as far as i have read, they are not as good as the reach/hearlink?

I don’t think her hearing will get worse but her understanding might if she lives long enough. Then there’s the argument that untreated hearing loss is somewhat correlated with dementia. Both arguments sound like audiologists trying to sell hearing aids but both may actually be true (to some extent).

I’ve got the Philips, no experience with the Rexton. connection is solid to my phone (Pixel 8 Pro). There have been two occasions when the other party on phone calls hasn’t been able to hear me. My voice sounded completely garbled to them. That might have been fixed by updates since (it’s been a while since this has happened). Otherwise, it’s been fine for hands free calls. They can only connect to one device at a time.

Edited

In reply to @Clark_Kent

As far as I know the Sennheiser are the same as the Phonak Lumity 90’s. They pair with six devices and connect with two at the same time (e.g. phone and tv connector). For better speaking reception in noise the newer Phonak Infinio spheres are better but more expensive and not available at Costco. I don’t know what is available at Costco in Aus.

What happens when the Phonak has been paired to six devices and then you want to pair to a seventh? Does it drop the oldest in the pair list or something else?

In reply to @d_Wooluf

Thanks, I felt the same when the doc told me about further hearing lose and dementia, that they wanted to sell some . But who knows, better not risk that path and HAs are anyway eventually required for her.

How are the mics when you are in a noisy situation? Do they still pick up your voice well on 2 way comm or do you have to speak a bit louder?

In reply to @raylock1

The Spheres are probably the top of the line among all brands? Coming to Lumity, she did try out unitron moxi vivante 3 and 5 which are the siblings of Lumity 30 and 50 as well as oticon Zircon 2, and for her, they all sounded the same. She did complain about traffic noise being loud when we came to the streets during the trial, hence the need for some noise suppression. I am assuming the Lumity 90 does not add much to the 50s? If the Costco Senns were even just the vanilla infenio, I would have waited for them because of the generic support. Now I need to splash a good amount on the Sammy S24+ or S25+.

And if you are wondering why we trialled Unitrons and Oticon Zircons, because i didnt know about Costco back then.

In reply to #9

Yes, I did enough research in december to know whats there on the market, but waited as I was travelling.

I agree, its better to test the call quality when testing out the , but unfortunately we dont have an supporting phone yet. Her current phone is 2.5 years old and does its job perfectly for her needs. I was thinking of buying HAs now and get the phone later because thats another 1000AUD investment and now that US has mandated LE Audio on all the phones, I thought there will be more options an year down the line :slight_smile:

In reply to @Clark_Kent

@Clark_Kent said:

The Spheres are probably the top of the line among all brands?

No of course not, it’s all in the “ear” of the beholder, what works for one doesn’t mean for everyone, but obviously you’d need to trial each brand to know for sure which is top notch or best for you, hearing is a very subjective experience.

In reply to @raylock1

Used market is a good option too. I am thinking of S24+ or 25+ as 24 onwards the software support is 7 years IIRC. I thought let me deal with the first and think of phone later. The iphone 16e at 999AUD is also a good option with but I read they have issues and you never know when apple would release BT LEA though MFi should still suffice.

In reply to @tenkan

Agree its completely subjective. I just mentioned it as top of the line because i read more comments saying those who tested spheres against other went back to the spheres. Though I am sure there will be cases where people went the other way too.

In reply to @Clark_Kent

@Clark_Kent said:

How are the mics when you are in a noisy situation?

Probably the noisiest it ever gets for me is shopping mall noisy. No complaints from the other party then. And I agree with you. Hearing better is its own reward.

I’ve been seeing some good deals on ozbargain.com.au for Samsung phones lately eg Samsung Galaxy S24 256GB Onyx Black $749 Delivered @ Telstra - OzBargain1. Personally I wouldn’t buy a new phone that didn’t have .

I did see that, but am actually looking for the plus series for a bigger screen. But what I am wondering is that why does philips website does not mention S24 or the S24+ as supported? I know that S23 used snapdragon chip globally, so does the S25. But S24 series had snapdragon only on the ultra series for the international version and the 24 and plus had exynos. Just wondering if there is some compatibility issues?

https://www.hearingsolutions.philips.com/en-au/support/Compatibility-guide?product=663067&deviceBrand=&deviceModel=

Compare Samsung Galaxy S23 vs. Samsung Galaxy S24 - GSMArena.com3

Samsung Galaxy S23 specs compared to Samsung Galaxy S24. Detailed up-do-date specifications shown side by side.

Today April 1 (really, this not a fool thing), I called Samsung support (they answer from a support desk in California) and they looked into it and said that the Galaxy S24 series and the S25 series absolutely are supported. She opened ticket to request an update to the website’s compatibility list.

In reply to @hbillsmith

Seems like people have been having issues with S24 until recently -

Samsung S24 and Resound Nexia
@Samir, Thank you for the feedback! My partner is excited to get the update as well. She is in the US on Verizon so I am expecting to have to wait a couple more days.

https://eu.community.samsung.com/t5/galaxy-s24-series/s24-and-hearing-aids/td-p/9807851

Bluetooth quit working on Samsung Galaxy S24
@studeimus Last night when I went in to look up my firmware version the app would not display it, This morning I tried the same thing and I was presented with a new privacy agreement to sign, after which it seems to be working. I can confirm that my most recent firmware update was to 9.68.1.1, which I believe occurred around November of last year. This is also when I discovered that this class of firmware updates is not the type that can be done OTA (over the air). I had to personally request m…

Also its not just philps, even oticon does not list S24 in the support list and neither does Resound

https://www.oticon.com.au/hearing-aid-users/support/information/compatibility?filters=Oticon%20Intent™%20miniRITE;twoWayStreaming:true;selectedBrand:Samsung

Compatibility1

ReSound Smart Hearing aids enable you to stream from virtually any audio source and personalize your sound on the go. Find more information here.

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