Bose self-fitting hearing aids are finally here (Bose SoundControl™)

I agree w/ all these positive comments about the Hearphones. I’ve worn mine since the pandemic started, and I can’t imagine going back to wearing BTE HAs. I love the noise cancelling, the streaming connections to TV, iPhone, iPad.

@kjp111 said:

I came on here because I was really enthusiastic about my new Bose HA. A lot of people have accused of being a troll but I promise you I’m not. I’m at a solid month using them and very satisfied in their performance but… 2 days ago the focus, which has 2 functions, a front facing and a multi-directional setting and the multi-directional stopped working. I called Bose support and they were patient, generous with their time and knew what they were doing. They walked me through several steps to try and fix the issue and were not able to. As I was still using them, I started getting a crackling noise in the one with the issue and shortly after, it stopped working altogether. They had authorized a replacement before it stopped working altogether and sent me a UPS label to send my current set back with the caveat that they needed to get notice that I dropped them off at UPS until they shipped the new pair. They did a follow up phone call the following day and also sent me an extra pack of batteries. To my surprise, 2 days later which is today, a new set arrived and I haven’t even printed the UPS label yet. Once you set them up once, it’s simple so I was back in business immediately. I was worried because I have 2 meetings tomorrow in our office. One is with my boss and coworker and the other is a review on a 100 K job I just sold via the internet. So that problem is solved, Bose was excellent in their customer care but I’m very concerned that one of these HA crapped out in less than a month. Hopefully this is a one off situation and not an indicator of a problematic product. A great performing HA that’s unreliable is not a good thing. Moving forward, I’ll troll you on my experiences.

So I Received a brand new pair of HA from Bose which I received on June 23 and sent back my original pair which I received on May 25. On June 16th, the left HA died. The Bose experiment is over. Very disappointing because they worked well and were an easy solution to a complex problem. This sucks because I was so hopeful about a HA coming to market that was a lot less expensive. I’m sure Bose will get this fixed but I can’t go through total breakdowns every month. Fortunately I have a brand new pair of Signia Cellion 7 which I need to program and will be fine. I have all of the programming stuff for the Signia’s so I guess I’ll find a thread and see how much help I can get programming these. Any comments directing me to the right thread and tips on programming will be appreciated.

Thanks for the update.
You can find self programming help in the DIY Forum.
Good luck

Here you go hopefully these will work out for you.

https://forum.hearingtracker.com/search?context=topic&context_id=60001&q=Signia%20Cellion&skip_context=true

https://forum.hearingtracker.com/tags/c/hearing-aid-self-fitting-and-adjusting/15/signia (unavailable)

Good luck

Have you looked at COSTCO at all? you will get a reasonably priced set of good quality hearing aids if you look at the KS-10 and they will be serviced by a professional who can provide ongoing support and aftercare face to face. Sounds like the BOSE was giving you some good benefit and although it did not work out for you it would be a shame for you to continue on unaided if you cannot get the signia’s to work yourself.

I got the Signias set up. The programing software takes a while to understand but I’ve got the main stuff figured out. Actually since I can test each change I make, I think I can hear better then the audiologist’s set up. I’m a musician and programing hearing aids is similar to a lot of music software.
I wasn’t afraid to try out the Bose because I knew I had this brand new pair. Considering that they sell for almost $4000 and I payed $0, I landed on my feet and now I know how to program hearing aids. These are working out nicely.

It seems like Costco is an excellent option but it takes a few months to get an appointment. I can’t work without HA so I didn’t go that route. I went the route where I didn’t have to pay an audiologist $4000. Hopefully I’ll get a few years out of these Signias and the OTC market will mature as I’m sure it will and I’ll be able to take advantage of that. I think that we’re going to see the high prices that people have been paying come down and many people that couldn’t afford HA be able to have them. Make no mistake about it, Bose worked well , but with 2 of them just stopping working, I couldn’t deal with that any longer.

I’m looking to speak with someone who has used the Bose hearing aids. Just a quick call. Anyone willing?

The hearing test is not a Bose product fwiw.

Just took it again. Results were the same. Much different than my audiogram from professional audiologist.

I’ve had a pair of the new Bose hearing aids on trial for a little over a month now. I’ve only been wearing them intermittently, so I might not be able to give the most thorough review, but I’ll give it a shot.

First of all, I’ll be clear that these are not hearing aids in the sense that we understand hearing aids because they are not prescriptive. I consider them sound amplifiers. You can adjust them yourself but not to match your hearing test profile. Your adjustments are pretty similar to how you can adjust a Bose speaker - volume and bass/treble. You can also adjust them to favor one ear over the other, something which I found helpful since my left ear is distinctly weaker than my right.

Overall I like this product. At $850 you’re getting a lot for your money including a 90 day trial period, which is tough to beat. Customer support is superb. They are programmable by the user with up to 14 separate programs. They fit very nicely in my ears. This is a big deal to me because I’ve had an ongoing problem with speakers backing out of my left ear whether with domes or custom molds. The sound with a few exceptions is reasonably normal sounding. If this were all I could afford, they would definitely improve my hearing. They state in their manual that “The Bose Sound Contol hearing aids are intended to amplify sound for individuals . . . with perceived mild to moderate hearing impairment.” This is an apt description and I would say “Mission Accomplished” although with more emphasis on mild than moderate. This device can be very helpful for people in the early stages of hearing loss. (You can check my profile to see where I’m coming from.)

Despite the attractive price, I will not keep these hearing aids even as backups for several reasons:

1. Right off the bat, their feedback suppression program doesn’t work for me. I have high frequency loss, so I need to pump up the treble. Even keeping the treble at what seems to me to be a modest boost, when combined with the level of amplification that I need there is still too much squeaking for me to want to keep them. This is a deal breaker for me.

2. After adjusting them multiple times, I still find myself misunderstanding words more than I do with my regular hearing aids even in situations without background noise. Therefore I have to ask to have words repeated and communication is less effective.

3. Little things also make them less desirable. While the casing seems to be reasonably well built, the door locks with a double click and requires force to press down on it to accomplish the task. I’m not old enough to have weakness or tremors in my hands or fingers, but if I did, this would be impossible. The doors are also hard to open. I don’t understand why they couldn’t get this right. It’s nothing high tech and there are plenty of other products on the market to be copied which open/close smoothly and easily and which stay firmly locked.

4. Programming is done from your smart phone and is done easily with my android. That’s the good news. The bad news is that you can’t change programs with the button on the hearing aid itself. You have to pull out your phone, turn it on, open the Bose sight, go to the page with programs, and then click on the one you want. That is both cumbersome and not inconspicuous, so I don’t do it. I just live with whatever’s there. On my current HAs, I can change programs simply by holding down the little rocker switch on the HA for a second.

5. The little volume button on the hearing aid is not a good fit for my fingers. I’ve not had this complaint with any other hearing aid I’ve owned or trialed. Not good ergonomics IMO.

6. This same little volume control is not accompanied by any auditory feedback that an adjustment has been made - in the case of my current HAs it’s a beep with individual volume increments and a jingle when I hit, max, minimum, or program pre-set. I really need that confirmation that the adjustment has been made.

7. When I turn the HAs on, there is similarly no auditory confirmation that they are on (e.g. a jingle). In a normal environment I can tell because I’m suddenly hearing more, but if I were in a very quiet environment, I don’t know that I could tell.

8. The domes are small relative to what I’ve used before, so even the large dome does not fully occlude my ear canal. I believe that this contributes to the feedback which I’ve been experiencing.

9. I said that a positive for these instruments is that they are reasonably normal sounding but with a few exceptions. At my settings, the exceptions are all with high pitched sounds like the beeper on a car’s directional. Sounds like this are very sharp, piercing, and distorted. Not pleasant.

In sum, not a bad device for its intended target audience although it could be improved with a few tweaks. But it is no substitute for real hearing aids for people with real hearing loss.

To correct what I wrote above - the SoundControls do NOT have noise cancellation. It looks like they would, from the app screenshots, but the world volume control only increases /decreases the amplification. There’s no noise cancelling. Oh well.

I see an announcement that Bose are giving up on the hearing aids.

The price has dropped and I was thinking about getting a pair for experimental trials against my Oticon More 1s.

So after reading this thread I would like to thank all the contributors for their experiences and comments including @Fig , @billgem , @kjp111 and especially @AbramBaileyAuD for savng me the time and money!

I see Bose is no longer manufacturing these. They have now (early 2023) teamed with Lexie somehow. They say they will still service those bought from them last year. They do seem to get in and out of hearing devices! I’m still wearing my Hearphones from 2019.