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Phonak Roger On iN does work with Costco KS10

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Well, whaddya know! I just got a Roger On iN demo from my provider. He was able to pair it with my Costco KS10s with no trouble at all, BUT NOT WITH MY PHONAK MARVELs! He checked with “Phonak Central” (support for professional dispensers) and learned that in order to pair with my two-year-old Marvels, a receiver with a special chip is required. And the price of two receivers with chips is about equal to, or exceeds, the price of the Roger mic. UNBELIEVABLE! When he tried to pair with my Marvels (which he had dispensed to me two years ago), the pairing icon (actually a picture of a hearing aid) came on, but within seconds changed to one of the Roger mode icons (e.g., pointer, remote presenter, or table top). It just refused to pair. That’s when he called in to Phonak and received the info about the special [in ear] receiver. I will try out the Roger mic in several situations and report back. For a quick test, I put the Roger in presenter mode, played music on my iMac and walked away out of normal earshot, perhaps 10-15 feet and through a closed door. My KS10s picked up the music perfectly.

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Yes the Roger On iN contains the two licenses for your KS10.

That’s the reason why it wouldn’t connect to your Marvel’s as you’ll need to buy 2 more licenses or another Roger iN device.

I’m surprised your audiologist didn’t know that.

Um, he told Phonak that they were already paired with my Paradise (did not mention KS10s), and that did not seem to intrude into the exchange with Phonak. I mentioned the two-license limit to him, and he told me that this demo mic was not limited by the two license limit. He said that, because it was a demo, he could pair and unpair with as many HAs as desired. So, are we to believe what “Phonak Central” told him? Is your information more accurate than theirs?

Glad you are demoing this device!
From readin the Phonak ads I am not sure of a few things (which, of course, are the very things I am most interested in).

  • Performance in a "group around a table " situation
  • Ability to replicate the Roger Pen - ie pick out one person from 20 feet or so in a classroom or small lecture hall.

If you could report back anything you are doing in a similar situation, and how the device is performing I would be most grateful.

In reply to @name.withheld

If you have the Phonak Paradise Trial Aids then no licenses are needed from the Roger On.

The demo Roger On has two licenses.

Google is your friend!

With the none demo Roger On, you can pair and unpair as many times as you want as well.

In reply to @molarface

@molarface said:

Performance in a "group around a table " situation

I’m also trying out the RogerOn iN, and am finding out that in a small classroom type room with hard surfaces, I don’t get clear sound from the RogerOn. I’m going to talk to my audiologist next week and see if it can be adjusted at all. My is very bad, so that may have something to do with it. Yesterday when I sat the RogerOn nearer to me on the table, it sounded a bit better.

I’m probably not a good person to comment on this, with my low WRS. But I think Blackie said something about it picking up too much background noise on a table. Maybe that can be adjusted?

Thanks @gayle , I appriciate your reply, each one helps paint a picture!

I didn’t know Blackie had used it as well. My is not too bad, but I don’t want to be saying “Huh?” “What was that again” , etc every 60 seconds in a meeting. You know
.
I’ll reach out to Blackie, I’m looking for a concensus of some sort, if possible.

On the MyPhonak app you can choose to have the Roger lower on background to the degree you want. I had forgotten that. It’s called Balance. You can choose the degree you want between Surrounding or Mic. This should take care of the background noise, when it’s set to the Mic side. You can also do it via the hearing aids themselves.

All the Roger IN devices have licenses that can be installed in various Phonak aids. The licenses can be transferred back from the aids to the devices and then installed in a different set of aids. The process may appear complicated but is actually simple and can be done in a minute or two.

I have Comcast/Xfinity TV service at home. All of a sudden, the microphone in the remote no longer functioned. The TV showed that my instructions were heard, but not at all understood. I had plugged the Roger’s base into the Xfinity VCR set-top box (the TV mounting bracket had obscured the optical input port on the TV), and the USB into a USB power slot on my receiver (though the latter had no role in the problem). I was able to hear the TV successfully and clearly through my hearing aids, even when I turned the TV volume down to zero. That part was fine. But, the remote no longer functioned properly in spoken instruction mode. It functioned OK on our other TV, though, and the other TV’s remote did not function properly on the main TV that had Roger plugged into its VCR set-top box. Never suspecting the Roger, I concluded that the set-top VCR box had gone bad, and I exchanged it on for a new one. Then I spent an entire afternoon setting up the new set-top VCR box and going through pairings and re-pairings of the remote, even spending over an hour on the phone with a Comcast technician trying to solve the problem. But still my verbal commands were not understood. Finally, the light bulb lit (or as the Brits would say, “The penny dropped.”), and I turned off the Roger mic and disconnected the USB power plug. Voila! The remote once again worked perfectly, and it did so once again this morning. I just cancelled a technician house call scheduled for this afternoon. WHEW!

This is nothing against Roger, by the way. Just a quirk that I discovered the hard way. My tentative diagnosis is that Roger communicates with my hearing aids using Bluetooth, and the TV remote also communicates with the set-top box using Bluetooth. It appeared that Roger’s signal strength (and/or signal coding) was much greater than the TV remote’s signal strength, and that’s why Roger functioned perfectly while the TV remote did not. And, interestingly, though I had disconnected the charging base, but left Roger in the “on” position, I heard faint dialog in my hearing aids even when I was in another room. Once I had turned Roger “off,” I no longer heard the dialog. ROGER IS NO WEAKLING!

I have not yet tried Roger in a noisy environment, only in the TV mode. Stay tuned for more adventures with Roger.

In reply to @molarface

Last evening was my first opportunity to give Roger On iN a trial run in a (semi-)noisy dining room. We were at a round table for six. I placed Roger in the middle of the table. He focused properly on each person as they spoke, and transmitted the speech flawlessly to my KS-10 hearing aids. Normally, I would have had trouble understanding the person farthest away from me, but not last evening with Roger. So, Roger, Roger, what a guy!

I just recently got a Roger On, and have used it a little. So far, I like it, though it can’t work miracles. When I hold it in my hand, and point it at someone, I can definitely tell it is directional. It does help, but won’t pick up distant conversations. Perhaps this was intentional. When I have placed it on a table in a restaurant situation, it does pick up a lot of background noise, but also helps me understand the people around the table. The Roger app lets you select the directionality while in table mode. I tried the app, and didn’t really find it of much use. I actually prefer the TV Connector for streaming, and use mine a lot. As to the Roger licenses, most aids don’t come with them already installed. As far as I have been able to determine, the only way to get them is either to buy an iN type device, which comes with 2 licenses, or else buy 2 of the external Roger receivers and have the licenses transferred to your aids by a device known as a Roger Installer. I don’t think you can just purchase 2 Roger licenses from Phonak. I believe this is done intentionally by Phonak to keep up profits on their proprietary Roger technology. I haven’t yet directly compared the Roger On to the Roger Pen, but I have read that the On is superior.

So I have the Kirkland hearing aidsthat were mentioned as working with a Roger on demo. I’ve confirmed that they do indeed have Rodger receivers in them.

I also have been gifted a Roger pen from a person that passed away. It is NOT a Roger ON IN (ie it doesn’t have the 2 licenses I need to activate the receivers that are in my hearing aids)

Is there any way to get them activated short of buying 2 external receivers (seems stupid when I have the receivers in my aids already) and transferring the licences using a professional that has the transfer tool?. Frustrating that I have all the hardware but can’t use it.

Any chance you can get the hearing aids that were owned by the person who has passed? They likely had licenses in them…

WH

I think @laurieflanigan10 Pen is not even a iN version anyway. It’s an older Pen.

She would have to get a Roger On/Select iN or 2 x Roger X receivers with serials newer then 1744.

image

You can get a Roger Installer on eBay all the time and runs on a disposable battery, think it’s or AA, not anything else so it won’t become of no use.

@laurieflanigan10 said:

I’ve confirmed that they do indeed have Rodger receivers in them.

Yes the KS9 and KS10 are all RogerDirect ready. That can be confirmed on the website.

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