Phonak Launches Infinio Ultra and Ultra Sphere: Improved Processing, Battery

In Phonak Target you can set when the Phere will turn on at what noise level. Some people mentioned 70db here.

Phonak had to make a compromise to save battery. If it was turned on in quieter places, the battery would drain faster. If someone wants the sphere, they can always turn it on with a separate button in the app.

@markoo355 said:

In Phonak Target you can set when the Phere will turn on at what noise level.

I’ve increased the sensitivity as much as possible in Target. IIRC, it may also depend on voice level vs. noise level (have forgotten details). And I do have several manual Spheric noise reduction programs with different settings preset. Since there is or was the safety time limit, IMHO, Phonak could have given the user more control in the MyPhonak app to tune the trigger limit to their liking, with the understanding that overuse is going to seriously impact HA runtime.

@jim_lewis said:

It would be nice if the firmware update made Spheric noise reduction come on automatically more readily.

Reportedly, from what I read and watched (2 videos from Hearing Tracker and one short from Dr Cliff +Karl Strom’s article), AutoSense OS 7.0 should be better in activation Spheric program more readily.

Regarding own volume, have you considered that it could be underamplified? (I may be wrong). I ask because I am 1-2x per year at my friend’s for a week and always he pointed out to me that I was talking too loudly. During this year’s visit (the first time with Sphere) it was the other way around.

I don’t perceive occlusion (Unitron thick silicone power domes with quite large earplug effect even measured with REOG; waiting for remake of cShell with pressure vent, because previously I got unwanted AOV).

@jim_lewis said:

I have an improved sense of sound localization, too; my brain seems to be telling me much more decisively than before that sound is coming from a particular direction.

High-frequency sounds are particularly helpful in localisation, so your assumptions about them may be correct.

Will this repair the streaming problem of breaking up sound?

Yes, I haven’t tried the Target option. That would seem to be an unreversible switch to the phone microphone until one changes the setting back in Target.

But iOS 26 seems to offer a user choice switch between HA and iPhone microphones. Here are some screenshots.

When an app that uses the iPhone microphone is active, a microphone icon will appear in the Dynamic Island (notch area in top center of screen): (see Phone Controls orange area)

If you tap on the microphone icon, you see the following microphone input control options:

Tap on INPUT to switch from the default hearing aid/headset option to the iPhone microphone input option:

So, I’ve tried neither the Target handsfree option nor the iOS 26 one yet, but since I love to experiment, I should follow up on this…

You can do it, I did it yesterday. 11.1 leads you through it.

Thanks! So it sounds (sorry :>) like it would be much more convenient if Phonak could enable this ability on the app. Otherwise one would need to commit either handsfree or phone (unless one wants to carry around a laptop with Target on it and a Noahlink wireless) Definitely a plus for an iPhone.

Hi

i can’t find “disable handsfree calling” setup in target11.1

anyone could tell me where it is ?

thanks!

jack

Yeah, it was a challenge. Before you even select a client, click on “Setup” at bottom right corner, then “Fitting Session” and then “Fitting” Then select possibility to disable hands free calls. This is apparently not for the intended use I thought but for security reasons in secure facilities.

Hi MDB

thanks for your kindly reply!

Unfortunately, it’s still not possible to use the phone’s microphone during a call.

jack

So it does. You first need to update Target which you do on the first screen before opening a session. After the update is done, you restart, open a session, connect and it asks you if you want the ultra upgrade. Now I need to know if I need a new REM. Not sure if the upgrade is making a difference. I look forward to testing and to hearing other people‘s impressions.

@Teewens said:

Now I need to know if I need a new REM.

Probably not, especially when your gains (G50, 60 and 80) don’t differ much.

@Teewens said:

Not sure if the upgrade is making a difference.

The difference is mainly with battery life with Spheric program. I think in another cases changes will be hard to notice.

EDIT: @Teewens, just updated firmware of my Sphere. It seems that there is significant difference with my P receiver potential, which is more powerful, especially above ~3200 Hz, which is very desirable. Now I have no time to check it more.

Thanks for the clarification.

@Bimodal_user said:

Regarding own volume, have you considered that it could be underamplified

@Raudrive said:

Typically if a person talks to loud it’s because they are not hearing things loud enough, more gain is needed.

With the settings I chose initially with the Spheres, I could hear the voices of others fine. It was just my own voice that sounded muffled. I found in manual programs that I could compensate for this by using the Equalizer to turn up mid-tones and treble and turn down bass, as well as use Dynamic Sound Control (or whatever it’s called) to turn up the volume of soft sounds. With these adjustments, my own voice almost sounds like what it does without wearing hearing aids, but room sounds and other voices can then be way too loud. So, whatever the firmware update did to my gain profiles, it made my own voice less muffled while maintaining an acceptable volume of room sounds and other voices. I should stop speculating and look at my frequency response curves before and after the update.

I’ve been off on Cloud 9 dealing with other things, since I got my Spheres, so I don’t recall Phonak’s descriptive terms very well. But I remember Phonak making a big deal out of exactly how their frequency responses are tuned relative to one another in the APD 2.0 profile. Perhaps in APD 3.0, they’ve made a further improvement. So, perhaps part of any perceived sound improvement from the firmware update is a perceptual gain balance thing rather than just the absolute gain adjustments at any specific frequencies.

They are not the early birds on NAL-NL3. There is still only NAL-NL2 in the fitting programs section of Target.