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Costco Rexton Trax 42 (Product Information)

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So, how long have the 312 batteries ( standard) been lasting for you?
Do you use one of the pendant bluetooth devices? How long do it’s batteries last?
Do you think it is worth the money to buy the pendant ( and how much did it cost)?
I wonder if the pendant device is worth buying and wearing,for me. I don’t spend much time on the phone.

Shrike:

312 batteries have been lasting 7-8 days with the Trax 42 (Kirkland batteries)…which is impressive. Much better battery life than the Phonak.

Whether the Smart Connect (pendant) is worth it or not is entirely dependent on you. It functions as a remote control as well as a streamer. It also streams music from your bluetooth device to your hearing aids. That’s what I use it for mostly. It costs about $250. I had a streamer with my old ’s too, so I’m accustomed to having one. If you like to listen to music without removing your hearing aids, then the Smart Connect is definitely worth it.

Evil.

Shrike,

Be sure to read all the posts about the Trax sounding tinny for music that people have posted in this particular thread and elsewhere. It looks like the use of custom molds might be necessary in order to have a pleasant music experience. I’ve tried the semi-open (tulip) domes and the double domes, and I do not hear bass tones from my aids unless I occlude my ears by some means.

Yesterday I made a post in the forum section Bluetooth and Hearing Aids, in the thread ’ Rexton Smart Connect Bluetooth sound for Trax 42 is soft’ . My post, assuming you haven’t already read it, deals with my experience using the Trax and the Smart Connect; sound quality, weird behaviors/problems if using special the special Bluetooth audio streaming or Bluetooth Phone programs, increasing the treble/bass range available in the Sound Balance section of the phone app, etc.

I do like my Stream Connect. It allows me to answer phone calls without taking my phone out of my pocket— useful to me because my vehicles don’t have Bluetooth, and because I can also hear the phone ring while using my riding mower or in other noisy situations. I also like to occasionally stream the sound from my TV transmitter at soft levels to help with speech comprehension on some movies (while my semi-open domes allow my ears to receive the bass sounds naturally), or to listen to TV with the TV’s sound muted (so I don’t disturb my sleeping wife).

I have not tried the more occlusive, custom ear molds, but I believe they would be necessary for me to ever enjoy streaming music that had anywhere near a decent sound quality-- my regular domes just don’t cut it for that purpose and I’m better off with a regular pair of ear buds / headphones for listening to music. You’ll need to discuss your level of hearing loss with your , see what kind of domes/ear molds you need, and then just use comments by myself and others to develope realistic expectations about sound quality.

I rarely use the Smart Connect as a plain remote control-- I use the buttons on the the most, followed by the actual Rexton remote control that the HAs come with, followed by the phone app.

The Smart Connect was $ 230 and the TV transmitter was $ 90 .

I’ve been getting 7 days out of my Kirkland 312 batteries, and that’s using my HAs about 17 hrs a day.

Corey

Thanks for all the good info. I wouldn’t be listening to music, just answering the phone.

— Updated —

I’m also just getting one for my bad ear. L. Side is ok.

In reply to @CoreyF

@CoreyF said:

Shrike,

Be sure to read all the posts about the Trax sounding tinny for music that people have posted in this particular thread and elsewhere. It looks like the use of custom molds might be necessary in order to have a pleasant music experience. I’ve tried the semi-open (tulip) domes and the double domes, and I do not hear bass tones from my aids unless I occlude my ears by some means.

Yesterday I made a post in the forum section Bluetooth and Hearing Aids, in the thread ’ Rexton Smart Connect Bluetooth sound for Trax 42 is soft’ . My post, assuming you haven’t already read it, deals with my experience using the Trax and the Smart Connect; sound quality, weird behaviors/problems if using special the special Bluetooth audio streaming or Bluetooth Phone programs, increasing the treble/bass range available in the Sound Balance section of the phone app, etc.

I do like my Stream Connect. It allows me to answer phone calls without taking my phone out of my pocket— useful to me because my vehicles don’t have Bluetooth, and because I can also hear the phone ring while using my riding mower or in other noisy situations. I also like to occasionally stream the sound from my TV transmitter at soft levels to help with speech comprehension on some movies (while my semi-open domes allow my ears to receive the bass sounds naturally), or to listen to TV with the TV’s sound muted (so I don’t disturb my sleeping wife).

I have not tried the more occlusive, custom ear molds, but I believe they would be necessary for me to ever enjoy streaming music that had anywhere near a decent sound quality-- my regular domes just don’t cut it for that purpose and I’m better off with a regular pair of ear buds / headphones for listening to music. You’ll need to discuss your level of hearing loss with your HIS, see what kind of domes/ear molds you need, and then just use comments by myself and others to develope realistic expectations about sound quality.

I rarely use the Smart Connect as a plain remote control-- I use the buttons on the HAs the most, followed by the actual Rexton remote control that the HAs come with, followed by the phone app.

The Smart Connect was $ 230 and the TV transmitter was $ 90 .

I’ve been getting 7 days out of my Kirkland 312 batteries, and that’s using my HAs about 17 hrs a day.

Corey

I recently posted about the issues I was having with my Smart Connect which is similar to waht you said above about “weird behaviors/problems if using special the special Bluetooth audio streaming or Bluetooth Phone programs”.

My Costco fitter spent about an hour on the phone with Rexton. It turned out the “special Bluetooth audio streaming or Bluetooth Phone programs” aren’t meant for the Smart Connect. They are meant for the earlier streamer- the Mini Blue. Apparently Costco and/or Rexton hasn’t put that word out in the field very well. Adding those programs to the Smart Connect makes it not at all “smart” . It becomes very very quirky. (I think results may depend somewhat on your model of smartphone.)

In reply to @mjd2k

Are the rocker switches on the Costco/Rexton TRAX 42 aids multi function (i.e., quick press, 1-2 second press, long >3 second press) as they are on the Siemens Pure Binax?

Thanks much,

Oldprof (newbie, first post; hope I didn’t screw up).

In reply to @greghahn

@greghahn said:

My Costco fitter spent about an hour on the phone with Rexton. It turned out the “special Bluetooth audio streaming or Bluetooth Phone programs” aren’t meant for the Smart Connect. They are meant for the earlier streamer- the Mini Blue.

There must have been a miscommunication between your Costco fitter and Rexton. The dedicated programs are absolutely intended for use with the Smart Connect. Mini Blu RCU has its own separate set of programs. You can minimize the frequency of program changes by turning off alerts, notifications and other sounds on your phone so they’re not routed to your hearing aids.

In reply to @Oldprof

@Oldprof said:

Are the rocker switches on the Costco/Rexton TRAX 42 aids multi function (i.e., quick press, 1-2 second press, long >3 second press) as they are on the Siemens Pure Binax?

Yes, if you choose to configure the rocker switch as volume/program change and power on/off.

In reply to @greghahn

Im going to Costco today to find out if I should order the Trax42, doubledown mentioned I have a cookie bite loss and this might cover it. Last time I was told at Costco NH the Smart Connect cost $ 326.-, I read here the pricing separately from Blootooth remote and the TV streamer. I don’t need a TV streamer… Im confused as are there 2 units? I never had a streamer and the sling around neck not sure it’s my thing :frowning:

In reply to @rasmus_braun

@rasmus_braun said:

There must have been a miscommunication between your Costco fitter and Rexton. The dedicated programs are absolutely intended for use with the Smart Connect. Mini Blu RCU has its own separate set of programs. You can minimize the frequency of program changes by turning off alerts, notifications and other sounds on your phone so they’re not routed to your hearing aids.

But who would want that? The alerts and sounds on my phone, i.e. when I get a text message or email- are important to me. Moreover, why would I want my phone to change to a different program when I get a notification?

But the fact is- my phone did not work properly at all when using these dedicated programs. It would switch to the dedicated program and it may or may not switch back. For instance, when taking a phone call, it would get locked in to the “Bluetooth phone” mode after the call was ended. More than once I had to reset it through the pinhole. My observations was that there was a compatibility issue between devices, and my assumption based on that was there was some bad code in the software that could be fixed with an update.

But now that I see the way it’s apparently supposed to work, I can’t imagine why anyone would want the “dedicated programs”, because even if they fixed the transition issue so that it switched reliably, it still wouldn’t work as well as what I have now. So I’m sorry, but thinking my Costco guy heard right.

@greghahn said:

But who would want that? The alerts and sounds on my phone, i.e. when I get a text message or email- are important to me. Moreover, why would I want my phone to change to a different program when I get a notification?

But the fact is- my phone did not work properly at all when using these dedicated programs. It would switch to the dedicated program and it may or may not switch back. For instance, when taking a phone call, it would get locked in to the “Bluetooth phone” mode after the call was ended. More than once I had to reset it through the pinhole. My observations was that there was a compatibility issue between devices, and my assumption based on that was there was some bad code in the software that could be fixed with an update.

But now that I see the way it’s apparently supposed to work, I can’t imagine why anyone would want the “dedicated programs”, because even if they fixed the transition issue so that it switched reliably, it still wouldn’t work as well as what I have now. So I’m sorry, but thinking my Costco guy heard right.

I don’t know why in your case the hearing aids weren’t switching back to the Automatic program, but you need the dedicated programs if you want to customize the frequency response when streaming audio or phone calls. For example, if you want to optimize the sound quality for music. They’re also necessary in order to change the balance between the microphone input and the streamed signal. You can make one softer and the other louder.

My audi set the special programs for my Smart Connect on the direct advice of the Rexton rep. I don’t have issue with it. But I have to agree with rasmus. If you want to customize the music or phone settings you need a separate program space to do that.

For alerts and what not, the Smart Connect has to switch to phone program so you hear the alerts. That can’t be helped. My experience, with shorter notification sounds, is that these streamers can’t switch fast enough for the sounds. So you get a beep for switching programs, but no sound, because the sound was happening during the switching. I typically turn off the ringer for my phone when wearing my Smart Connect. I get the vibration alert, but no sound and no program switching. If the phone rings, I still get a ringing sound in my ’s, but not on my phone speaker.

Evil.

In reply to @rasmus_braun

@rasmus_braun said:

I don’t know why in your case the hearing aids weren’t switching back to the Automatic program, but you need the dedicated programs if you want to customize the frequency response when streaming audio or phone calls. For example, if you want to optimize the sound quality for music. They’re also necessary in order to change the balance between the microphone input and the streamed signal. You can make one softer and the other louder.

Well I can adjust the frequency response of the stream via the sound balance control on the phone app. Admittedly I don’t have a full equalizer, only a simple tone control, but it’s good enough. And I can do it whenever I want.

The microphone balance can also be set by changing the level of the stream- either changing the TV streamer level or if streaming from my phone, changing the bluetooth level on the phone. So I have that.

But the best part is that it stays in program 1- “automatic” for all streaming functions. I can still have the mics set for a custom directional pattern. And there is no change in what the room sounds like when I’m streaming.

@greghahn said:

Well I can adjust the frequency response of the stream via the sound balance control on the phone app. Admittedly I don’t have a full equalizer, only a simple tone control, but it’s good enough. And I can do it whenever I want.

The microphone balance can also be set by changing the level of the stream- either changing the TV streamer level or if streaming from my phone, changing the bluetooth level on the phone. So I have that.

But the best part is that it stays in program 1- “automatic” for all streaming functions. I can still have the mics set for a custom directional pattern. And there is no change in what the room sounds like when I’m streaming.

I have had similar problems and resolutions as GregHahn. I now have a greatly expanded Sound Balance (bass-treble) range over what is standard, and I have given up on the streaming programs because of their irritating behaviors with the Stream Connect.

Because I have fairly normal low frequency hearing, I am using tulip domes and have tried the double domes. With both domes, the Bluetooth streaming phone and the Bluetooth streaming audio sounds tinny and adjustments within the sound profile of those two programs seem to make little difference— it still sounds tinny. If I had special ear molds that blocked outside sounds and allowed my ears to hear the bass and other tones my receivers are putting out, I likely would have been happy with the special Bluetooth programs.

As I posted in more detail on 7-18-2015 in the Bluetooth and Hearing Aids section (in the post about the Trax 42 having soft sound), I too had the problems with the Streaming Audio program and Bluetooth Phone programs locking open and requiring manual button presses to get back to my Auto program. Every notification sound caused this, but I didn’t want to turn off my notifications because I don’t always have the Stream Connect in operation.

Worst offender was the Streaming Audio program, because I have a TV transmitter turned on and broadcasting all the time in my living room. I usually use Automatic, but if I run into a TV show that I need help with understanding, I use my smart phone app to open the Transmitter program to receive the signal the TV transmitter is broadcasting. The Smart Connect saw the Sttreaming Audio program as if it was a second transmitter. It would lock open with every notification sound, and single presses of the center button of the Stream Connect would do nothing to unlock it. I had to do two presses to 'switch ’ to the TV transmitter, and then use a single button press to find the Automatic or other program I was using. Depending on the frequency of the phones notifications, I found that I would have to run through this gauntlet of button presses/ tinny sounding programs every few minutes.

I lasted one day with this behavior and thankfully the Costco squeezed 10 minutes into her schedule to delete the Bluetooth programs.

My experiences pretty much mirror those of GregHahn, and with a greatly expanded Sound Balance range ( expanded by the HIS) I too can adjust the treble levels to make a difference in sound quality without the quirks of the special programs. I have decided that my HAs are doing their primary job of increasing my speech comprehension, but with my current domes and hearing loss, I am better off using a set of ear buds, headphones, or just normal speakers to listen to full-sounding music.

Corey

Getting the Trax 42 fitted tomorrow, woo hoo :smiley:

I’ll also have the KS 6.0 aswell which means I can compare both hearing aids within my lifestyle

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