Phonak Roger On

Hi @glucas.
I am considering the Roger On In (I am trialling the KS10 and am likely to go with them). Costco don’t sell the Roger products (at least not in UK), so will need to source it from elsewhere.

Does your provider allow returns in the case where they are no longer wanted (within 30 days or so) for full refund? Maybe that is part of our legal rights but wanted to be sure. Would you mind saying how much your provider is charging as their website does not provide a price?

Looking forward to your findings.

Thanks

Hi Dave,

The provider, www.hab.online, charged £1250 for the Roger On iN. That was after I filled out a VAT exemption form, declaring I had a disability.

I am sorry, I do not know if they provide a trial. There is no mention on their website of any trials. Perhaps the best thing to do is give them a call. They have a contact number on their website.

Good Luck.

@glucas & @DaveUK

www.fmhearingsystems.co.uk8 might be the website that you need? Ran by same people as HAB.

Sorry - yes. You are correct. hab.online is for hearing aids and accessories and fmhearingsystems is the sister website for assistive devices.

Should have been clearer. Have a Roger Select IN and Phonak Audéo P19-13T aids. I’m only now returning to the forum, having been away for a few years. Must check the data in my profile…

@hbfairley

The Roger Select iN is still a good piece of technology. Glad you’re getting on well with it still.

Ok - it has been almost a week now since I switched to the direct version of the Roger On - the Roger On iN.

I can confirm that this device has none of the clunkiness experienced when using the Roger On with the Neck Loop, as it automatically switches to the Roger Mic program when it is switched on. I did experience some initial problems where I thought it did not switch automatically but I realised the reason for this was that it was silent and the device did not switch because there was no noise. In every subsequent situation where I used the device it came on automatically.

In the last week there have been 2 situations where I have been able to road test them. The first was a family gathering of great nieces who came to visit. I placed the Roger on the table as we were playing monopoly and I was not only able to pick up voices from the edge of the table but whispers as well - as there was a tremendous amount of cheating going on.

The 2nd situation was a fish and chip supper at the tennis club. This took place in the clubhouse and this is a real bete noire. A rectangular club house with nightmare acoustics - no furnishings other than metal chairs where voices sat around the table usually disappear into the void or people standing and talking to each other at distance outside of the usual range that we would understand.

Well - what I can report is that wearing the Roger On iN sometimes discreetly pointing it - or placing it on the table - gave me the biggest single jump in comprehension than any switched program, or new hearing aid, that I have experienced. I am not saying that it gave me anywhere near total comprehension - but what it did was deliver some elements of the conversation - in spite of the babble - there were approximately 15 in the room, with a clarity as if one was in a quiet room. My previous experience of some noise programs is that you can sometimes comprehend sentences but not with any clarity.

My feeling also is that I could have been more pro active with the device and used the pointing mode more to isolate talkers of interest diagonally across from me. In retrospect I also maybe had the volume too loud. One slight fly in the ointment as far as I am concerned is that to control the volume one has to use the Easy Line App associated with the KS10, as the hearing aid buttons only control the surrounding noise balance of the mic.

This experience won’t change my life, but I think that in a dinner party situation - it may be able to turn an evening from a nightmare - which has been experienced - not least because of the presence of noise and music, into something more bearable. As Xmas is coming up there should be a couple of dinner outings planned, so I hope to report back.

Ok - I have not had the chance yet to go out in another really noisy situation but something really positive happened last night.

My South African neighbour came over to watch the football. Normally I can hear on a one to one basis but this guy is very very hard to hear. I have to face him directly and concentrate very hard. He has a soft spoken voice with almost no consonants. One of the most difficult people I have come across in recent years. He came about a month ago to watch a football match and I had to concentrate very hard, look towards him and try and discern the mumble and voice which seems to disappear into a void in front of a huge beard with no opportunity to lip read. I had to get him to repeat himself on a fairly regular basis.

This time, as he came in, I put the Roger On iN on our coffee table (pointed in his direction where he was sitting down). Note - I didn’t give it to him. He hardly noticed it and when he started talking there was an instant improvement. This was an improvement of several magnitudes. I could hear him without actually facing him - which was great, because it was a football match. The perceived volume of his voice on a scale of 1 to 10 was 3 before and with the Roger it became 7 or 8. In terms of total comprehension I understood 95% of the evening, whereas previously it was maybe 60% to 70% (with having to strain and concentrate). And the interesting thing is, that I could have asked him to wear it - but it was not necessary.

@glucas

I don’t know how Roger Direct works but my Roger receivers, by default is an extra 10 dB but I have 02 receivers, so I raised my receivers to 18 dB.

I wonder if the extra gain, helped you out last night?

Maybe. But I would have thought it was more the benefit of the improved signal-to-noise ratio.

@glucas

Oh wow, I learn something new everyday. Didn’t know that at all.

@glucas

What amount of dB is the Roger On benefit? Is it actually 5 dB?

I’ve done a quick google. There is not a lot of stuff on this from Phonak. They do talk about an improvement, but I did see this:

“This is to be predicted because Roger technology is designed to give 10 dB of SNR benefit (“Phonak”,
2020).”

On this page:

So 10db.

I also saw an another explanation on a Phonak site:

Signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) is the
ratio between the signal (speech)
and the background noise
(ventilation rune, echo, other voices
etc.). The stronger the signal in
relation to the background noise,
the higher the speech quality.

@glucas

Thanks. I didn’t think to do some googling. I’ll do some more googling so I have a better understanding of it.