Dear Phonak, your Lumity battery isn't good enough

I am in your same boat. All of a sudden Phonak doesn’t support my loss due to a bad production decision they made, given that I bought into their CROS UPs with the NAIDA Bs, and come to find out beginning with the Marvels they completely eliminated support for NAIDA UP compatible CROS units. I was faced with the decision of having a worse hearing aid for one ear, or go with Oticon where they still support my severe > profound loss in both ears with CROS.

I chose Oticon rather than deal with Phonak’s sub-par quality that has been getting worse with each generation. The last hearing aid I was ever really happy with was their Quest processor line.

@codergeek2015 said:

I chose Oticon rather than deal with Phonak’s sub-par quality that has been getting worse with each generation. The last hearing aid I was ever really happy with was their Quest processor line.

That’s a rather sweeping statement @codergeek2015, would you care to clarify please? I have been wearing both Oticon & Phonak for 30 odd years, IMO, there is nothing remotely sub par with either companies aids, they both make exceptional quality hearing aids, Phonak is a world leader in state of the art hearing aid technology, especially their Roger devices, granted they are expensive!!! Their latest Naida Lumity UP BTE is excellent, both in quality & clarity… I can say without fear or favour, they are the best hearing aids, I have ever owned, by some distance… As always, YMMV…Cheers Kev

I’m glad they work well for you, @Kevels55. For me:

1. Each subsequent generation got quieter and quieter.
2. They were always muffled-sounding until around 5 months ago that I discovered my now former audiologist did not know what occlusion was.
3. Seems like the aids in the new generation would block out more sounds that I needed in order to hear and understand my environment.
4. Phonak then took away support for my hearing loss by removing CROS unit compatibility for NAIDA UP hearing aids beginning with the Marvels (after the Bs).
5. Forced me to go to doctors appointments every 3 weeks for ear cleanings (instead of my normal every 6 months cadence) beginning in 2019 when my audiologist switched out my ear mold for something else (a Phonak ear mold) that was clearly different and clearly allergic to. When confronted about it, they utilized weaponized incompetence rather than admit they were wrong. Prolonging the issue.
6. etc. etc.

So yeah. I am not happy with Phonak aids. They royally screwed me over.

I understand your gripe with Phonak… And I empathise, I honestly don’t think the Naida Cros removal was warranted, but if sales are poor, it might be down to pure economics on Phonak’s part? I am totally surprised, and somewhat delighted they released a Naida Lumity UP version though…As far as I am aware, Phonak do not make molds/moulds, I believe they predominantly use Starkey to make these, they might be marked as Phonaks, but Starkey actually make them… I would be inclined to wait and see, what new Oticon aids that are going to be announced for release next month, Xceed is old hat, it’s outdated by nearly 5 years… As for the Belong’s, I tried & liked them, but opted for Marvels, but things have massively improved since Belong days… As have most hearing aids in the last 7 years or so. I think Phonak will have a disposable battery version of Cros in the pipeline, their Lumity Cros rechargeable was a mitigated disaster, with around 12 hour runtime (I believe?) I don’t think you are a bitter person @codergeek2015… (Just very “Pi$$ed off) But going around the various threads, making derogatory & unsubstantiated comment’s on Phonak, perhaps makes you look bitter… Phonak, are probably the number 1 seller of hearing aids worldwide, for obvious reasons, they make exceptionally good hearing aids… Somewhere along the line, IMO the hearing aid cartel broke ranks, and Phonak went their own way on pricing, they perhaps saw the inevitable competition from OTC aids, and reduced their prices accordingly… That’s only my opinion, my 2 cents worth, and in the scale of things, my opinion counts for sweet FA Take care, cheers Kev

For my sins @codergeek2015 … I am an unadulterated gadget freak, it is perhaps a compulsion, rather than an affliction, but perhaps a bit of both Whatever floats your boat, if your satisfied with Xceeds, then go for it…

I am acutely aware of issues with poorly fitted hearing aids @DaveL if you where ever unfortunate enough to use NHS issued aids, where one size fits all, a 20 minute fitting was your whack, no follow up tweaks, absolutely no further visits or appointments, thrown straight in at the deep end, to sink or swim… Hence why I buy my own Cheers Kev

I have worn Phonak for a long time. My first Phonak I think was a Picoforte in 1993. This was an analog model. Before that I had an Oticon analog for around 4 years, before that Philips. My 2nd Phonak was a Sonoforte 23 daz, still an analog but programmable this time, with twin directional microphones.

All of these aids, up to the age of 32, had exceptional sound quality, all wonderful with music but a nightmare in noise as @kevels55 will testify.

Then came digital and then admittedly some problems.

I was fitted with a Phonak Savia ITC by a danish audiologist which was underpowered but in noise it was surprisingly good. Perhaps due to still having the concha open to suppress noise. I wore that for 4 years before I demanded something more powerful, so this time I got the Phonak Savia BTE 211. On the next upgrade I went full circle when I saw that CICs were more powerful I got a pair - I think these were the Quest. Eventually I realised I needed a UP ITC set and upgraded to the Virto ITC SP. Again Phonak. In the last 4 years I then progressed to Phonak Marvel, Paradise and lumity rics (via Costco and specsavers white label models KS9, KS10 and the Advanced range).

In parallel to owning private Phonak aids, I was also fitted with Oticon aids from the NHS - Oticon Spirit Zest. They followed up recently with Oticon Dynano 8 aids, which are super power aids, and are excellent.

OK. So where am I going with this? I mentioned problems. I had a bad experience with the fitting of the Virto ITC SP because, fundamentally, the dispenser did not know what he was doing. After the fit, everything seemed OK, but when I went out, either the comfort in noise program would kick in, or the noise program would kick in, in a pub or other noisy environment, and there was this silence. So I would be in a supermarket, see the program “comfort in noise” and I couldn’t hear anything. It was just ridiculous. I went back to the audiologist and we tried making adjustments on 2 further occasions. I then realised the audiologist was not that competent and I then went to another, more experienced audiologist, who sorted the problem after 6 months.

So basically, I was to learn, there were 2 problems here and they both exacerbated the other. The first was that Phonak had at the time, although I believe it has improved since then, a notorious first fit. The fit I had with the Virtos was at least 12DB under what it should have been according to my prescription. The second problem was and still is to a certain extent (if you have a severe loss and are not wearing the BTE UP model) is that Phonak aids have a lot of noise reduction. So for me, I wasn’t getting enough gain to start off with, the problem was then confounded by Autosense programs like Comfort in noise etc.

The situation got better when REM was used for the Marvel, Paradise and Lumity. I would say that Autosense has worked well. As an Oticon wearer though I can comment that I have experienced one or two situations where the Oticon has proved to be better, particularly in the car. Fortunately, the NHS has always programmed the Oticons with REM, so they have performed well.

For me the bottom line is getting a competent audiologist with the most appropriate form factor for your loss. I cannot authoritively say that REM must happen, but I do know from experience that all the aids I have had programmed with REM have all sounded sharp and had a really good fit.

I wear Phonak P90-13T. Batteries last for 10 days, streaming almost all day long. I spend 20€ for a full year of batteries. I’ve worn the M90-312T before, batteries only lasted 3-4 days, not good enough.
This “only rechargeables” is pure anti-consumer and planned obsolescence bullshit on prosthetics that cost thousands of euros/dollars.
I won’t buy any Phonak Lumity or whatever comes after that unless it has at least 13 size batteries. Same for any other manufacturer, with the addition of Bluetooth classic.

@dhyatt said:

I am trialing the Lumity 90 with a cros setup and if lucky will get 12 hours with normal use. E.g no heavy streaming.

This is standard for the CROS system. It’s not good. If it works for you fine, but you may want to strongly consider switching to either the P90 13T (then you’ll get around 6 days) or a different manufacturer if you want rechargeable. Taking just the CROS off for part of the day would extend the battery life.

Little update from my side (I don’t know if it can useful for anybody else): after ha wing experienced very bad battery drain in the left hearing aid for a week, it came back to normal now; i don’t know what happened and why…

Do you still suggest me to send the HAs to repair/change battery (they’re still under warranty).

or change it for good

I’ve had my Lumity hearing aids for 15 months and I still get 18 hours a day on a charge. I’ve mentioned this a few times but I will repeat it again…

The battery will burn down much quicker if leave connected bluetooth devices turned on when you are not using them. I don’t know why this happens but I have proved this over and over again. If you find your Lumity hearing aids suddenly using more battery on a particular day…you probably forgot to turn off bluetooth on one or more devices in your house (i.e. your laptop, iPad or even the Phonak TV Connector). My theory is that it has something to do with the hearing aids trying to reconnect with devices as you move further away from the device in your home.

The only device I leave always connected is my iPhone. On every other device, I turn off Bluetooth on that device when I am no longer using it.

Jordan

@JordanK said:

The only device I leave always connected is my iPhone. On every other device, I turn off Bluetooth on that device when I am no longer using it.

Ditto for me! I’m obsessive about that. But now I’m down to just 13-14 hours of daily battery life on my Lumity Life aids. Perhaps they need to go in to have the rechargeable batteries replaced.

@1Bluejay said:

My audi said that the aids can be sent in before the 3-yr warranty is up for free replacement rechargeable batteries. I sure wish I could have these in size 13 battery version. But that ain’t happening’ any time soon.

Last August I needed new HA’s, and on reading bat’s issues, just a few then now 430 post here on this subject, I decided then to get the Paradise P70T with 13 bat’s, maybe older tech, but after 3 tweaking sessions (about par for having new HA’s) these have been pretty good, and they don’t drop out in the middle of whatever, when it signals me that bat’s are due, I usually get 1 to 1.5 hrs warning. I figure that in 3 or 4 years from now this issue wil have itself resolved (I hope)

@kgmgpm
This is exactly what I chose, and for the same reasons. I no longer use Autosense, and use Music as default, so am in no rush to get Lumity. I’m always fiddling with my aids too, so tap control would be switched off too