That will save you a lot of money. Most of us have chosen to buy something that helps us NOW, rather than wait for better technology. By not buying because better tech is coming, you will avoid spending cash on your initial and the follow-on HAs that most of us buy every few years as tech advances. After all, better tech is always on its way, so waiting for better tech means never buying.
requires sensing what the HA feeds to the eardrum. That means a sensor is needed, and the sensor needs correct placement. At home REM may be coming ‘soon.’ I can see the sensors getting down to a throw-away price, but placement - that takes some skill. So ‘soon’ may mean ‘in our lifetime’.
Remote adjustment has been available for some years, but it hasn’t captured the market. My guess is that it’s used only for clients who have significant trouble getting into the office. I’d bet that a soft ultimatum would work, too. I mean something like, ‘I’d really like to buy, but I just can’t travel. Will you use remote adjustment?’
Personally, I wish I had started with HAs long before I got my first pair. That might have slowed the deterioration of my hearing, and I’d be better off now.
My private shop has a 3 week ‘return’ policy, or rather trial policy, where one can try out their in house brands one after the other if you so wish. So you can trial different brands out in the real world, one after the other, and make a choice that way. However, I’m one who thinks proper fitting is more important than brand. For this, having a long standing relationship with you fitter, who has your past records available, is more important than anything. That, and convenience of seeing your fitter. With Costco, I think it’s more of a “you’ll see whoever is available that day” situation. HAs require a good bit of after sales testing and tweaking to get the best out of them. If you’re not a DIYer, this means working closely with an audi/tech for some time after acquiring your aids. For me, having a shop that’s ten minutes away and ready availability for repairs and cleanings (all walk in) and often a one week availability for being seen by my tech, plus a really wide offering of models, is worth the extra up front cost. An hour or two drive to a Costco, or more, to see one of their techs, is worth considering. I’m lucky that I have a great shop nearby, and most people don’t. So Costco could easily be the best choice, depending on personal circumstances.
I’ve learned a lot from this forum over the past year, so I’ll offer this as one person’s experience rather than universal advice. One option I don’t see mentioned much here is buying high-end hearing aids online and doing the fitting/adjustment work remotely or yourself. That obviously isn’t for everyone. If you’re not technically inclined, or if you need a lot of hand-holding, a good local audiologist or Costco fitter may be worth every penny. Proper fitting matters, and can be very useful. But after going through the /audiologist route, Costco-type thinking, multiple fittings, REM, trial-and-error programming, and the usual brand debates, my own conclusion is pretty simple: you are paying for someone else’s time, learning curve, equipment, and experience. Sometimes that is absolutely worth it. But if you are willing to learn the software, understand your , work carefully, and make changes gradually, there is a real /remote-fitting path that can save a huge amount of money while still getting you into top-tier technology. With Phonak Target, for example, once the audiogram values are entered correctly, a lot of the initial fitting is handled automatically by the software. In my case, the remaining adjustments were mostly minor, and the software is intuitive enough that I could understand what I was changing rather than just guessing blindly. And today you can also get useful guidance from multiple sources, including experienced users, online communities, remote professionals, and chat tools that can help explain what settings mean and how to think through changes carefully. I also discussed my DIY approach with my ear surgeon, who was supportive of it in my particular case. His view was essentially that, because I was paying attention and seemed to understand what I was doing, I might well get a better result than simply accepting a quick, generic fitting. That doesn’t mean everyone should do it, but it reinforced my sense that careful self-adjustment is not automatically reckless. For me, the lesson was “live and learn.” The most expensive path is not automatically the best path, and the cheapest local path is not automatically the best either. The real question is how much support you need, how good your fitter actually is, and whether you’re comfortable taking more control yourself. So I’d add a third category to the usual ENT audiologist vs. Costco comparison: online purchase plus remote/self-fitting. Not for everyone, but for the right person it can be the best value by far. This is my own experience and opinion, edited for grammar and clarity with AI help.
I agree that the quality of the fitter matters enormously, but my own experience was a little different on the Costco/private-shop divide.
The Costco I used was actually very good. I trialed two pairs there and returned both, but the techs were professional, thorough, and better than some audiology offices I have dealt with. So I wouldn’t automatically assume Costco means lesser fitting or lesser service. As always, it depends on the individual people at that location.
I also had an excellent independent audiology visit — very professional, very thorough, and probably the best diagnostic/fitting-related visit I’ve had. Here is what I paid:
I don’t regret doing it, because at the time I thought was going to be the final capstone on my fitting. But looking back, I would not personally pay that again as a routine matter. I own a Redux machine, so the moisture treatment is already covered for me many times over, and I’m still not sure what a $55 hearing-aid cleaning adds that I can’t mostly handle myself. And while REM is useful, I no longer think it is automatically necessary to get to a good, usable fitting — at least not in my own case.
So for me, a thorough independent audiology visit may be worthwhile every couple of years, or when something is clearly wrong, or when you need objective testing. But I don’t see it as something I would keep paying for just to maintain a fitting that I can now manage reasonably well myself.
That’s why I don’t think the answer is simply “private audiologist good, Costco bad,” or the reverse. A great local fitter is worth a lot. A strong Costco department can also be excellent. And for some of us, online purchase plus remote or self-fitting is a third path worth considering. One additional point: after my ear surgery, my surgeon slightly widened the canal and repaired the eardrum. When I later did a new in-situ and feedback test, the fitting improved noticeably. My guess is that the changed ear/canal acoustics allowed the feedback test and software to produce better settings than before.
That experience changed how I think about REM. I can absolutely see its value on paper, especially as an objective verification tool. But in real life it still depends on technique, probe placement, and interpretation. For my own ears, my own listening, and my own ability to adjust carefully, the best result I’ve had so far came from updated audiogram data, feedback testing, and careful self-adjustment — not from treating REM as the final authority.
So I’m not anti-REM. I just no longer see it as automatically essential in every case, or as a substitute for how the fitting actually sounds and works for the person wearing the aids. This is my own experience and opinion, edited for grammar and clarity with help.
Given what really high-end phones currently cost, I would call the S25 more of a mid-range phone.
When I went to Costco to be fit for hearing aids, I was allowed to go the hearing center without being a member. Purchasing the aids required buying a membership first. This may have changed.
I’ve been to an audiologist for testing, but I buy my hearing aids at Costco; I’m on my third pair. I’m comparing Philips 9050 with the SoundGear model some Costco’s sell (I think it’s the Starkey Edge, last years model, but still almost state of the art).
The quality of the fitting and the friendliness of the experience very much vary from person to person and in the case of Costco from store to store. But in my limited experience the audiologist and the Costco hearing aid specialists were similar in how thorough they were.
Advantages of Costco
Price
They will clean the aids and replace the domes, filters, and receivers at no charge, usually without an appointment. For me this was the deal maker: I travel a lot, there are Costco’s in most places. In my youth I would easily do this sort of thing myself, but as the years have flown swiftly by I cannot change the domes easily
Disadvantages of Costco:
They don’t take insurance
Their aids are sometimes last year’s model. Still premium, but not truly the state of the art
You have to pass by the food court to get to the hearing aid section, and if you don’t have self control and buy a slice of pizza it will be bad for your cholesterol
Which may or may not work depending on the insurance. Insurance where I last worked required you to go through their affiliated company. For me, doing that would have resulted in a higher cost to me than Costco’s total cost. A few years earlier it was possible to use the insurance (a different company) at Costco.
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