Roger Select, A Huge Investment - I'm disappointed - Phonak and My Audiologist both failed me

He never asked how they were connected he just said if you are using your hearing aids you can’t use them with anything else. And I said I want to connect to TV and he said the same thing “once again the same principal applies” he wasn’t trying to help he was rude and condescending. So I said then I guess I was mislead thinking that is exactly what hearing aids and Roger devices are advertised to do but he shot me down.

This is all a game to them. The price they charge is a closely guarded secret using the audiologist as an intermediary so you don’t know you’re getting ripped off. They told me it was to enhance my hearing aids and now he told me they can’t be used together. It makes no sense but I can’t get any instructions. Within the first minute talking to him he might as well have hung up on me because what was left to discuss? Of course I used my hearing aids to talk to him as I can’t hear without them. I would not be on the phone if I wanted to watch TV so what he said made no sense.

I called for information Why I can’t connect the device to my TV with the connector that came on the box and they play dum saying they don’t know what I’m talking about so they can’t tell me how to use the other items in the box because I have to describe it to them after which they say they haven’t a clue If they are support specialists they should know what is in the box they sell.

I’m thru trying to talk to them but I will share what I have discovered so more people aren’t deceived into trusting Phonak. I’m not a stupid person who has trouble understanding so the failuure is on PHONAK. Getting hearing aids is like the same game endured with car salesmen where you aren’t told the price you have to play their guessing game while they enjoy toying with and cheating people.

Even their website is confusing because I registered my hearing aids on their site over a year ago but when I search for Phonak a site opens where it’s not shown where to log on without endless searches and more game playing. I WILL NEVER again Believe or trust Phonak or any of their overpriced shoddy merchandice. My audiologist has disappeared behind the green curtain and left me holding an empty bag of tricks.

That’s not what my audiologist told me and why I got a Roger select instead of a Roger pen so I could connect to TV. She said I could do both enhance conversations and use it with TV. You get more instructions with a box of cracker Jack’s.

That pdf file on the link that @flashb1024 shared works fine on my phone, so I’d strongly recommend that you try to get that pdf working first. It looks like there’s some misunderstanding and I think reading through the user manual could clear up many things.

Under ‘work together’ many people have many different expectations. Manual is surprisingly useful, and definitely proper source of truth, unlike many fitters.
And also, it helps we all speak ‘the same language’, eg what some option really does for this device.

When you manage to calm yourself from this huge disappointment you feel now, read the manual. If this link doesn’t work, google for it ‘roger select iN user manual’.
But, give yourself time to be able to read it coolheaded.

I have a huge feeling there’s been a huge misunderstanding. Especially in that what must be a very frustrating phone call.

So, after some time, when you’ll have a will to read it, and read it, come here with questions for which you didn’t find answers to in the manual. However, I doubt there will be many after that. Manual is surprisingly good

Again, I’m sorry you had a difficult call. In my area, the first time Phonak has ever opened a line for the public to call was a few months into the pandemic. So they are not experienced taking user calls. Additionally, even as a provider I call a different line when I want to talk about Roger products, so there’s a reasonable chance that the person you called didn’t have much training on Roger products. This doesn’t really fix the fact that you had a disappointing call, but let me reassure you that your Roger Select CAN be connected to your television to stream audio to your hearing aids.

You may need to download adobe to read that pdf file if it doesn’t just open for you when you click on the link. It must have been an error that you weren’t provided with a physical instruction book when you initially got the Roger Select.

@Psych1 said:

but some people just can’t be helped.

I think no angry, frustrated, disappointed person or someone who doesn’t want help can be helped. I never seen a person who will understand helping tips while they are enraged. Or anything, for that matter.

OP came for help, so he wants being helped, so that leaves us with emotional backlog. For that, calming down, taking break, coming later is the only way. Coming with fresh mind and fresh set of eyes.

So, yeah, in a sense, I think your comment isn’t appropriate.
We all have full right to be angry or frustrated with anything. That doesn’t make us dumb, invalid, disabled or whatever.

You haven’t stated that you’re using a computer or mobile phone. What device are you using? If you have a computer or smartphone, you can search for PDF reader app and open that link. Where did you buy the Roger Select? It should have a quick guide booklet that came with the Roger device.

Kcummerkc
A couple of things re this situation that I don’t think have been mentioned.
I think you could benefit from watching some of the YouTube videos by Dr. Cliff - a hearing aid business owner in Arizona. He does great explanatory videos on hearing aids, hearing issues and hearing testing. His graphics are good and he also uses captioning so you can read what he says. In particular there are ones on the Audiogram testing procedure. In here he explains each test and also explains the “hearing in noise” issue. That is - how come you can hear the noise but not the speech. Very helpful. Some things in here can’t be fixed by a hearing aid and he points this out.
The point of mentioning this is that the Roger Select is a hearing in noise helper. That’s what it is designed to do - as are the Roger pens.
When you are in a noisy situation the noise normally goes to your ears through the microphones on your hearing aids, or cochlear implant if you have one. So to help the Select concentrate just on the speech you want to hear hear it will reduce, say by 50% or even shut off the aid microphones to cut this noise source while the Select picks up the speech close to the speaker.
So when I have my Select hooked up to my laptop to listen to a podcast I am not distracted by any other noise in the room. If my wife comes in to say something I can’t hear what she says unless I shut off the podcast. Its the same with the TV. When I’m hooked up to the TV, other sounds including my wife are shut down - but I hear the TV speech much better. That’s the way it is. It is similar with Tcoil hookups from hearing aids - reduce or shut down the HA microphones so you can hear the telephone speaker.
Keep in mind that without my hearing aid and Cochlear implant in place and working I am essentially deaf. So I will do what I have to do to gain word recognition back.
There are compromises with this equipment and one needs to learn them. The instruction booklet for this device is not a 5 minute read. It might take you an hour. And you will probably need to read it a few times to get the picture.
It’s not something you are going to pick up in a 5 minute phone call to a Phonak rep.

To me the Select is the best piece of assistive hearing equipment I have and I have 3 kinds of Roger equipment. It works well for phone calls in that my word comprehension is better with it than with any other of the devices I have to work with my iPhone. My hearing at the Christmas family dinners this year were much better than prior years thanks to the Select. Perfect? No. Better? Yes indeed. Still can’t handle two conversations at the same time.
Put some work into learning how to use this device. It is worth it.

@hear2day said:

. In a situation where there is background noise or people all talking at once the devices will not work well.

Your thoughts or your experience?

Because in bg noise, with my select I’m able to get something out of the conversation without lip reading, but relying only on (most expensive) aids, isn’t coming even close to it.

Pen wasn’t that good. I’ve tested them in the same environment at the same time (sequentially).

@hear2day said:

And really aren’t we all hoping the new aid we find and purchase does exactly what the Roger Pen/Select does without the excessively gross cost?

You can hope, but tech won’t deliver.
So it’s important to understand the limits of the tech and your hearing needs.

People who score poorly in speech in noise tests have zero chances that aids alone will really help them. Yes, it’s still probably better than no aid, but if you hear something ia going on but cannot participate, that’s tiring.

External mics are able to give more boost in terms of signal to noise ratio, from the very fact that they sit closer to the sound source, and get signal that is louder to begin with, than the signal that comes to your aid that sits on your ear.

If someone is speaking to your ear, vs being on social distance and speaking to your external mic, in theory you should get similar results.
But in practice, people tend to speak softer the closer they are to your ears, so you’re doomed again.
Yelling also isn’t helping.

External mics have their niche, and if you’re in it, you’ll see their benefit.
Eg if your speech in noise score isn’t poor, then mics probably won’t provide you with ‘whoa, this is really much better’.
For us with poor score every bit helps.

But if you have good WRS (90+) and good SIN (less than 5), then indeed, properly fitted aids alone are expected to help you to the point where you’re really happy with them.

For WRS below 40 you’re cochlear implant candidate, and CI can push you up significantly.

For all those in between, there is no hearing aid that can really make it loud and clear. Simply because our cochleas are so damaged that they’re the reason we don’t comprehend well.

For people who ‘only’ need loudness to get comprehension, aids are enough.
For those whose cochlea introduces distortions that makes speech incomprehensible, there’s no hearing aid in the world that can help that, really help.
However, even then, you could feel the difference between feeling excluded from the conversation vs feeling included even though you don’t understand half of the words said. Because even half understanding is better than none. And for some people, external mic brings that partial understanding, which is still more than we get even with the most expensive aids.

Yes, you have to be able to afford it. However, there are ways, ifyou really need it. From working second job if you’re in the workforce, or asking company / some agency for disabled people to help, or asking around for donations from different groups, saving from asking family and friends to chip ih each Christmas, start a founding campaign on indiegogo or somewhere…

I mean, if you don’t have family and friends nor are working, chances are that you don’t have any use case for select either so you won’t need it anyway. For listening tv there’s far more superior solution - tv connector, which skips mics entirely.

That is not helping this gentleman.

I’m trying to help anyone else thinking of buying a $1000 plus aid accessory (to think twice) since both the Roger Pen and Select don’t live up to expectations.

Speaking of reviewing what was posted, I wasn’t referring to the OP, I was referring to another post. But I’ll copy and paste for you.

I’m trying to help anyone else thinking of buying a $1000 plus aid accessory (to think twice) since both the Roger Pen and Select don’t live up to expectations.

Climb back down off the horse there.

In my case the Roger Select has exceeded my expectations and more than paid for itself . YMMV

Hearing what others are saying is important to me . Not just for my social and family life but for my work. Because of the Select I am able to continue to do certain things I may not have been able to do otherwise .

@hear2day said:

Now a device that cost $1200 that doesn’t alway work perfectly is another story altogether.

You can buy 10000 usd camera and it won’t live up to the expectations in completely dark room with you not having a clue how it works.

So main question should be - why is anyone willing to spend such money without proper testing, since it’s not general piece of equipment like camera where reviews might be enough, but the product intended for help with very personal hearing loss.

And for that, each of us can answer it for ourselves, we cannot help someone understand why they bought it.

I inform myself with a few hours of research and understanding for everything important (rg I want it to live long) and costing above 50 eur, but often for smaller stuff.
Roger mics took me weeks off very extensive research plus maximum of trial period I could get (3 months in my case).

Yes, it is unfortunate if product does not meet yoir expectations, but if you had expectations that aren’t even in the domain of the product, blaming product that it is bad is just weird, imo.

Own your mistake and squeeze the best of it, money is gone - that’s my approach if I mess up something, but because of my approach, it’s rare or ‘unexpected’ really didn’t occur to me that it could happen. Like my sound system will have a lag if youtuber makes pauses when speaking and doesn’t have bg music. Took us a while to identify the cause and were really confused about it. But yes found out many months after shopping. Solution? If it annoys too much, switch to tv speakers.
Fun fact, now it annoys only my hubby, tv connector doesn’t have that issue

Or completely unnotice that laptop i cost for my mother don’t have a network cable hole, I was utterly confused when it came. But, it wasn’t written in red ‘no hole’. Laptop for my father had it. So, I bought usb hub with that missing hole, and earth is still peacefully revolving around the sun. But you should see the look on my face when I realised what I did

But yeah, shit happens. That doesn’t mean that product in inherently bad and needs to burn in hell. Even if it was expensive. That’s even more reason to dig up what’s going on and work around it, not stay infinitely frustrated.

At least that’s what’s logical for me and I aim for that. Sometimes I need a few shots though

@Blacky said:

Yes, it is unfortunate if product does not meet yoir expectations, but if you had expectations that aren’t even in the domain of the product, blaming product that it is bad is just weird, imo.

Own your mistake and squeeze the best

I wasn’t there when op and op’s audiologist first discussed the Roger Select so I don’t know how it was promoted. But there WAS an audiologist (‘medical professional’) in the room. It’s not like op was shopping for a television. When you’ve got Phonak supplying this thing (which is hugely expensive because it’s a ‘medical device’) through their relationship with the medical professional, I don’t think it would kill Phonak to refund the money when it doesn’t do what the medical professional told the op it would do. My left-leaning opinion.