GN Hearing introduces ReSound ONE

In the first post -

ReSound ONE is available from August 27, 2020 in rechargeable and non-rechargeable models.

Thank you I completely overlooked that

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@chrisbabolat Going to need a little more than a link that I’ve already seen with no additional text to explain why you’re posting it in reply to me…

Now one just needs a phone that does BT 5.2! But I’m still going to wait to see what all shakes out, including whether Phonak does anything about BT 5.2 - maybe the Paradise HA’s are firmware updatable to BT 5.2?

There is a new version of the Smart 3D app in the Google Play Store and the blurb for the update says the purpose is to make the Smart 3D app compatible with ReSound One. Haven’t downloaded it yet to see how it works with “old” Quattro’s.

Software does not open up a device to be forward compatible with BT unfortunately for Phonak and the Paradise lineup. IMHO, they missed a key component for me as i shop and want some future proof in tech for my HA for at least a few years. Glad to read Resound did not skip on the BT, they just lack on having a water/sweat proof top of the line device in the ONE

yes you are right I just checked, my update added it also

In the update notes for the latest version of ReSound’s Smart 3D app just issued, it also says that the update also includes improvements to stability and connectivity. I find that to be so.

In the two years that I’ve owned my Quattro’s (almost) with various HA firmware updates and Smart 3D app updates plus two Android OS updates as well as monthly security updates, my BT connectivity and the behavior of the 3D app in Android have deteriorated a bit. When I’d walk and swing the phone about that I’m using as a podcast player, the BT connection would occasionally “blerp” out briefly. If I switched from the 3D app to my Android home screen or blanked out the phone screen, streaming would briefly cut out. The latest 3D update seems to have fixed both issues. BT connectivity was uninterrupted by any blerps on a 1 hr walk and I was able to switch in and out of the Smart 3D app without having any momentary pauses in streaming. A lot of others things change on my phone on a regular basis, e.g., launcher updates, but the change in ReSound BT connectivity and Smart 3D interface behavior pretty much coincided with the latest app update. So the latest 3D app version does seem to have improved functionality as well as being compatible with ReSound Ones.

So the ReSound 1-hr course today on Audiology Online on the ReSound One was pretty interesting.

The presenter was Dr. Laurel Christensen, the Chief Audiology Officer of ReSound. She was a very clear and articulate speaker. At the conclusion, she said that Audiology Online would later offer access to the presentation as recorded. There was a set of slides for the talk but page one of the slides cited copyright law and said that distribution of any of the material outside of the talk was strictly prohibited - 1st time I’d seen a notice like that but I haven’t taken an Audiology Online course recently.

She began by emphasizing that since 1988 ReSound had been a leader in bringing technology changes that the rest of the industry by-and-large adopted. She cited ReSound introducing digital compression of sound intensities in 1988, introducing an open mini-BTE in 2003, and introducing 2.4 GHz direct (proprietary) BT connectivity with MFi in 2012. In her opinion, the mic in the ear canal introduced in 2020 is going to be another similar industry-changing event that others, too, will adopt (but she didn’t say that most hearing loss is age-related and in the mild to moderate range, which is the state of affairs that would support widespread adoption).

Much of the beginning of the talk emphasized that BTE or RIC is for the most part is just a stock hearing solution that uses an average pinna correction in putting the mics behind the ears and said most people do not think with BTE or RIC that their hearing sounds like they used to remember it. It’s not natural and sound usually is perceived from coming in the middle directly in front of them. That ITE wearers, because the mics are in the ear are usually happiest with the sound of their hearing aids. But she said that “the plastic” gets in the way of ITE wearers having as close to a natural fit as possible - so I think that they really are, for that reason, emphasizing an open fit as much as possible on the presumption that most would-be wearers have reasonable low-frequency hearing and to take advantage of that, along with the mic in the ear, for the “natural” sound and better spatial localization.

Much of the talk focused on the loss of spatial localization by putting the mics behind the ears and how the mic in the ear improves spatial localization and helps users focus on sound coming from a particular direction, somewhat improving speech recognition in noisy situations. Paradoxically, the new HA’s will have an ultra directional focus capability, entirely controlled by the user, to employ if necessary in the noisiest situations.

Two of the more interesting slides of the talk focused highly on spatial localization. One showed that whether you had hearing loss or normal hearing, you did better at localizing where sound was coming from UNAIDED, not wearing hearing aids at all (they did the test both with normal and hearing impaired people, with the normals also wearing or not wearing HA’s with various sound localization strategies). The slides, naturally, showed that the ReSound One gives better localization than other brands which were all about the same, including the Quattro, I believe, but still not as good as folks not wearing HA’s (normal or with loss). The other very interesting slide was a “totally objective” hearing test with HA’s on a mannequin or just mics in the artificial ears on the manequin, I guess (she didn’t define exactly how “normal” was determined or I was thinking about something else at just that instant) that plotted sound intensity by frequency (y-axis) vs. angular direction the sound was coming from (x-axis). It showed for normal that there was great variation in sound intensity over the range of hearing frequencies according to the exact direction it was coming from. That sound intensity discrimination appeared to be lost with the average BTE/RIC HA mics and was much better restored with ReSound One. The kicker is that she used a color-coded heat map and the dB increments at which you decide to change colors can really make a difference on how dramatic the effect that’s displayed is. She showed the colors with no numbers, i.e., no legend of what the colors meant in absolute dB or dB differences. But it was a very dramatic slide. She said that the bottom line, with the mic in the ear canal, almost all listeners felt the sound quality was more natural and much more spatially localized with the mic in the ear canal vs. all mics behind the ear and she basically said that the listening quality was better for the ReSound One than the Quattro. Right now she said that 79% of wearers are either RIC or BTE so she felt that the great majority of users could experience improved sound quality by such a solution as compared to all mics above/behind the ear lobe.

(I’m skipping a bunch). She emphasized a newer, faster processor, two radios instead of one in each HA, 220% more memory in the HA’s. And the ReSound One’s still have all the connectivity options previous ReSound HA’s had - all accessories will still work. That the fitting process for ReSound One’s in Smart Fit fitting software would be different and more individualized than a generic recipe typically used in fitting all brands of HA-much more individualized adjustment of advanced settings, I think she said. The premium charger with Li-ion batteries holding 3 full charges in reserve would still be available but a less expensive charger that only ran on direct AC would also be available. Someone asked her which one would be standard with the ReSound One’s- she didn’t know but thought it might be the AC-only one. She said that in spite of the 2 radios, battery life for the rechargeables was better than ever. Still 30 hours with no streaming and she said 24 hours with UNLIMITED streaming (before it was 24 hrs with 12 hours streaming). She said that basically if you charge your HA’s fully at night there is no way you can run out during the day now with the rechargeables.

At the end, she came around to questions of feedback. Said that up to a 75 db loss can be fit at 2, 4, or 6K while still keeping feedback in bounds for most. She said that if feedback were an issue, one could move up to tulip or power domes if necessary but they had a new dome intermediate between tulip and open available to help. No problem with wearing custom molds, if one wanted (I imagine if one wanted very occluding molds, one might just be putting oneself in the position of ITE wearers with little venting). Someone asked her about wax in the microphones. She said a trial with 156 participants found very little problem. Only a few had problems with wax in the microphone and for almost all, wax in the receiver is still the only real issue. The HCP just needs to be more vigilant if a user starts having a wax problem and if necessary, then one could just use a standard receiver (no mic on receiver) with the ReSound One - didn’t cover in that rare situation how well you’d get by with only the 4 mics on the 2 HA bodies vs. 6 mics, 2 in the ear, for the usual setup.

She didn’t say blip about BT LE Audio (and no one asked her). The other thing that really surprised me is that she said previously only iPhone users could have LIVE Remote Assist fitting (I thought Android users could, too). Now with ASHA, both iPhone and Android users can have LIVE remote adjustment. She emphasized how the demand for remote adjustment has grown with COVID-19. Someone asked her, related, if to get Remote Assistance activated, one still had to visit the HCP. She said she thought it was going to be changed so that Remote Assistance could be activated without a trip to the HCP.

I guess for me, my biggest reservation is only having up to medium power receivers. Some of my loss is bordering at 75 db in the high frequencies. With the Quattro’s, I have always felt I could just move up from MP to HP receivers but there certainly is a mile-high barrier there if one goes with the ReSound One’s.

So interesting and engaging talk by a very good speaker. When the recorded talk is put up on Audiology Online, I’d say it’s certainly worth listening to (it’s an audio talk with slides being presented, no view of the speaker except as a still image at least during the live talk).

But I’m still waiting for BT LE Audio to show up in full along with the maturation and more complete roll-out of 5G across the land before I even begin to think about any new HA’s and any new smartphone to go with them.

@jim_lewis said:

No problem with wearing custom molds,

Jim - so if one went the custom mold route I assume the “mic in the ear” would then be encased in custom mold acrylic or possibly silicone. Is that possible with the ReSound One? For the mic to work with a custom mold it would have to have outside (mold) access to detect sounds. Is ReSound saying the ReSound One will perform just as well with a custom mold versus a tulip or power dome set up?

@jim_lewis said:

Said that up to a 75 db loss can be fit at 2, 4, or 6K while still keeping feedback in bounds for most.

So the 75 DB loss limit is due (guessing) too “mic in the ear” which possibly limits/restricts the range of the hearing aid? Getting back to the custom mold option - if that is available it should allow the hearing aid a greater range of amplification or certainly more then 75 db.

As you mention “medium power receivers” so I assume anything more powerful will have a negative effect on the receiver in the ear. Either distortion of some type or feedback.

In any case thanks for detailed report.

I asked the presenter at the end of the talk if the ReSound One’s could be fitted with custom molds and she said Yes - the microphone is on the end of the receiver that the wire goes in and the silicone molds that I have, you can easily pull the receiver out to clean the mold so the microphone should be exposed to the outside world. I think the problem is if they don’t make the HP receiver with the ReSound One microphone in it, you can’t use it! Even if you have a great, occlusive mold! I asked her about HP receivers just as she was about to stop talking (they use Adobe Connect and it has a messaging feature) but she ignored my message, which she got while saying, “And if there are no more questions, that’s it! Thanks for coming!”

I was thinking even with occlusive molds blocking the ear canal out route, you still have the problem that sound from the broadcasting end of the receiver can be conducted through the case of the receiver to the in-ear mic to some extent - so you’ll inevitably have problems if you crank up the amplification loud enough - it’s ironic because she said at the beginning of her talk that the 1980’s HA’s were linear analog devices with no great compression and lousy feedback control and since they were in the ear, feedback always made use hell and now they’re coming back with digital wizardry to try to put at least one of the microphones back in the ear canal.

I think I’ll only be in the market for HA’s after whatever follows the Paradise and the ReSound One.

Jim,
My thanks also for your report. My loss requires an HP receiver in my left ear, so I may have to wait.
Was there any mention of Resound One being capable of BT connection to two devices simultaneously?

Thanks for this very detailed info. My biggest question is: Do these new features provide enough of a benefit to upgrade from the Quattro’s?

Jordan