Remote Hearing Aid Fitting

Thanks O, Costco in Australia have limited brands, requires subscription and few stores. The seller in question also has brick and mortar audiologists near me so I guess as you say they do the initial setup and follow up probably. Will be checking it out. Don’t know about the USA but did my initial hearing test with audiologist and offered some premium ric aids for $8900 ( 30day free trial).They only offered one brand. Same aids direct with supplier audiologist $6800. Looks like a market place where pricing and product offerings are not transparent , easy to overcharge.

Costco offers only major brands with the premium features which are rebranded for them at a MUCH lower cost than you quoted. Probably worth checking out if possible.

I see Spec Savers offer Phonak, Signia and ResoundGN at discounted prices. Costco offers Phonak but others seem to be 2nd tier. Any thoughts re Phonak, Signia or Resound. I am leaning towards Oticon Intent 1 based on reviews. Seems better for hi freqency loss (me) and more natural sound and vgood speech from sound discrimination also good bluetooth and rechargeable.

If you are good with their price and they offer a money back trial period for the Oticon Intent 1, I would go in and get tested and try them out. If you can get online adjustments after the initial fitting that would be worth trying out.

I’ve had my Oticon Intent 1 for ~ 2 months and I’m happy with them. I’m a long time Oticon user and that is why I went with them over the Phonak Audeo Infinio Ultra Sphere 90.

The Sphere’s are the highest rated right now and I could have gotten them for the same price.

@ceeldee said:

Costco offers Phonak but others seem to be 2nd tier.

That’s incorrect, Costco offer premium models only, they just released Sennheiser Rise (Phonak) .

@ceeldee said:

I am leaning towards Oticon Intent 1 based on reviews.

Only you’ll know for sure which models you like best after a trial, what works for one doesn’t always work for others, Costco have Phillips which is from Demant, so take any reviews with a pinch of salt as which is “best” good luck.

@ceeldee said:

Costco offers Phonak but others seem to be 2nd tier.

All the hearing aids at Costco are top of the line with an asterisk next to the Sennheiser. The Sonite R (as opposed to the Sonite Rise being rolled out) is an older generation HA, but they are all at the top of the option levels and made by the major HA mfrs. Rexton = Signia, Jabra = Resound, Sennheiser = Phonak/Sonova, and Philips is a Demant product. The Philips are physically the same as oticon, but with different firmware.

WH

The technology goes obsolete quickly, so unless you are in upper management at one of the companies, you can’t know if they even make any money before their product has been beaten out by a competitor. The components are only worth a few bucks, but the R&D to make them work better than their competitor is where their costs occur.

@Steve12 Thanks for that. I didn’t realize that the actual components were relatively cheap. That seems to mirror many items in the pharmaceutical industry. Ex.: GLP 1 drugs. I take an expensive GLP 1 for diabetes. The company is a well known American drug company. The drug itself is now made in China, says so on the injectable cartridge. I surmise that the actual drug is now pretty cheap to manufacture. And the R&D is where the big money is spent.

l

It sure is expensive for drug r&d because it takes years to do expensive trials and your med can fail in the last trial. AI companies are now selling solutions to be more predictive, so maybe if that works the costs will be lower because pharma will make trials more discriminatory, to test specific groups only (race, body weight, sex, other diseases they share etc.) of people that the AI identifies to be more reactive in the initial trials to the drug. Lots of drugs that failed tests across varied populations failed to get enough % beneficial from the trial group, so the pharma company wrote them off as failures. Those meds would have benefited specific people, but without AI it’s not possible to know which people. ////// I lost a Phonak 5 years ago and found out there is virtually no metal in it when I swept the short-cropped grass with a big construction magnet. It never showed up. For a test, I put the other one in sight on the grass but the magnet could rarely pick it up. So you can imagine how cheap the material is for the aid.

@ceeldee said:

opthalmic specialist says they are just as good for reading as prescription. What does differentiate expensive from moderate price ?

Off the shelf reading glasses might be just as good as prescription if your eyes only need help up close and are relatively even in the need for help. If someone’s eyes are different in Rx needed, then this probably isn’t true for them. My eyes are somewhat different. Off the shelf only works for me if worn over my contact lenses. This kind of approach has an analogous approach in hearing care. If one’s losses are even between the ears, mostly less than moderately severe loss, and match the characteristics programmed by one of the few available in particular otc aids, they probably will work. Worse hearing (mid-severe + worse) and greatly imbalanced, then probably won’t work.

WH

Hi WH, Yes any significant difference between eyes would make off the shelf readers a problem. I have just bought some Oticon Intent 1 HA’s / Next week get fitted by a Dr. of Audiology. But I noticed that OTC HA’s can be individually adjusted via the supplied App. can’t do that with readers. Some household names too eg. Sennheiser. In general the pricing of HA’s in Australia is not transparent. Audiologists advertise brands but mostly do not reference price. So older first time users just go with the Audiologist like they would with a doctor. Searching on the web I found that the exact same HA’s I bought were $2000 dearer at my local Audiologist than the Audio Clinic I bought them from. By the way your President changes his story every few days. Seems to be floundering. What do you guys make of it ?

Blink three times if you need to be rescued.