Phonak Ultra upgrade - how do we feel about it?

@hearingMac said:

If you ‘upgraded an Airlink to a Noahlink,’ maybe just explain how instead of dropping acronyms like we’re all in the lab with you

Everything about this, I learned on this forum. This forum is great, except for some of the nasty comments.

WH

Great post, TonyF — couldn’t agree more. I ran into the same thing with Injoy when I asked about the Ultra upgrade. They quoted me $495 just for the firmware update, and when I hesitated, the conversation somehow turned into a pitch that I should “just get a new pair of i90’s” for several thousand dollars in case my current I90’s wouldn’t take the update.

I ended up buying the upgrade but am now requesting a refund for everything except $200 to cover the actual flashing on my current I90’s. Experiences like this make it really hard to stay loyal to a brand, especially when the tech itself is good but the messaging and pricing feel off.

Hi @JordanK , Just commenting on this and your previous couple of excellent posts. I have been trialing the Spheres and Resound Vivias. It has been an interesting experience. With Spheres I felt that they were not reducing the background noise much but I did hear the speech better. With the Vivias it was the opposite. The background noise was dramatically reduced. I don’t have any empirical data, but it really felt that I could hear speech better without going to speech in noise mode! So I discontinued trying the Vivias and am still trying the Spheres while waiting far a firmware update to make a final decision.

However, my impression of the Spheres recently got turned on its head. I was checking out of Costco (no, not buying HAs) on a particularly busy day. The noise was so loud that I could not understand the cashier at all. I though there was something wrong with my program so I checked the MyPhonak app. Sure enough, it had somehow changed from Automatic to Music. I quickly changed it straight to Speech in loud noise and the difference was dramatic. The background hushed right down to almost unnoticeable and the cashiers voice was perfectly clear. Thanks, Jon

P.S. Is anyone else out there experiencing their Spheres changing from Automatic to Music without your input? It seems to happening to me enough times that I’m suspecting that it is not due to me accidentally changing it.

@idontwantha said:

Is anyone else out there experiencing their Spheres changing from Automatic to Music without your input? It seems to happening to me enough times that I’m suspecting that it is not due to me accidentally changing it.

This happened all the time with the previous firmware. I haven’t tried it with the new Ultra firmware. Typically you are in a very noisy place and the Sphere mode kicks on. Suddenly it turns off and speech recognition drops off a cliff. In almost all cases, there is some kind of speaker nearby or overhead blasting music. The Spheres pickup on the music and switch over. Weird thing is that you often can’t hear the music until the Music program kicks in.

Jordan

Only anecdotal, but I feel that one of the major improvements of Autosense 7.0 is that spheric mode is more ‘sticky’. Once it enters Spheric mode it stays there for longer and doesn’t switch in and out as much.

Before the Ultra upgrade, I had a manual Spheric mode to avoid switching back. I haven’t had to use the manual mode since the upgrade.

Dunno… I’ve experienced one or two mysterious program shifts out of Automatic, and my buttons aren’t programmed to shift the program. It doesn’t happen often, and I haven’t been able to figure out any pattern to it.

Do you have, or did you buy I90’s, or Sphere? The 2.0 firmware upgrade has limited effect’s to I90’s because they only have the ERA CHIP, whereas Sphere has the ERA chip and the AI Deepsonic chip that powers 90+% of the hearing benefits of the firmware update.

Looking forward to doing a comparison between the Oticon INTENT1 and the Phonak Spheres 90s. By the way my INTENT1 aids are going to be my backup aids and are getting new custom ear molds.

How does a person go about downloading the Target software to my PC? I looked on the Phonak website, but couldn’t find anything there. I’d like to take a look at it before acquiring a NoahLink.

I had my I90 updated last week. Total garbage. They will suddenly get louder with a tremendous amount of background noise and high treble pitch. Will last for 2-3 minutes before they will readjust or if I put my hands over my ears and release the will readjust. Had a appt with phonak rep because am having a tremendous time getting theses things to work satisfactorily. Have to have my phone always handy to adjust. Really sad that my audiologist said the rep may have to wipe my HA and start all over. I am 4 months in stuck like it or not. The rep canceled my appt and am having to reschedule another 10 days out. Very frustrating. I sometimes go back to my resound 362 just for stability.

Update: I have had a session with the Phonak rep. Totally wiped the aids and went from M receivers to P receivers and closed domes. Went through a series of speech clarity test where she pronounced certain sounds for me to repeat and adjusted the programming until I scored 100%. This has been a huge improvement and game changer. I have had this now to for about 4 weeks and am getting impressed with the improvement. I am going back for a very slight adjustment for low pitch voice clarity. I have recognized that may sounds now are very near natural. As some have said here before a good audiologist is priceless.

It’s a joke. Hope you can find it–let me know thanks

I’ll do it as soon as I figure out how the angiogram readings work! C’mon you guys. You want to to just take this from these HA congloms?

Why hasn’t your audiologist wiped your aids and reset them? Sounds like your problem is your audiologist to me. The right audiologist is worth a thousand times more than the aids.

Hah that’s helpful. My audiologist IS my problem!