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Only two Power hearing aid manufacturers left

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but I wish there were more. Seems Phonak and Oticon are really the only two serious Power Hearing Aid manufacturer in the game now. I base that on several factors but also realize there are other distant players such as Resound and possibly Starkey. Just by reviewing HT posts over the years you can tell most posters discuss either Phonak or Oticon when mentioning power aids. Furthermore some previous Power players like Widex and Signia seem to have fallen by the way side.

What’s also concerning is there’s a serious lack of Cochlear Impant manufacturers with just Cochlear Corporation, Advanced Bionics Corporation and Med-El Corporation. These three companies are the only approved, in U.S., which is some what slim pickens.

You’d think with “baby boomers” now moving into 60 year to 80 year range, we’d see more manufacturers offering both power aids and , but alas such is not the case.

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@stevemink said:

What’s also concerning is there’s a serious lack of Cochlear Implant manufacturers with just Cochlear Corporation, Advanced Bionics Corporation and Med-El Corporation. These three companies are the only FDA approved, in U.S., which is some what slim pickens.

Not really surprising. It’s an expensive product, with a very limited market. Takes a boatload of R&D to bring anything “new & different” to the market. Three manuf of a product with a limited demand/market seems like plenty to me.

The real question is… is there something the market needs, that these three aren’t giving us?

Wait, what about Cochlear? I thought they did Cochlear implant devices.

It’s hard to tell is this is just about cochlear implants or in general. My Signia AX7 aids have a power receiver. Obviously that’s jsut for normal HAs.

The Big 675 battery sized.

The one that have largest armature driver that able to drive 140+db inside hearing aids case.

@astrohip said:

The real question is… is there something the market needs, that these three aren’t giving us?

Or should we say the real question is - are remaining manufacturers for candidates really providing a quality product. Old news but -

Advanced Bionics LLC, a Valencia, California-based manufacturer of cochlear implant system devices, has agreed to pay more than $12 million to resolve allegations that it misled federal health care programs regarding the radio-frequency (RF) emissions generated by some of its cochlear implant processors.
and
Jury punishes Advance Bionics with $7.25 Million Verdict for Selling Defective Cochlear Implants.
The parents of 11-year-old Breanna Sadler of Vine Grove, Ky., sued the manufacturer of their daughter’s cochlear implants, (Advance Bionics) , accusing the company of continuing to sell the device after executives knew it was defective. On Tuesday a U.S. District Court jury in Louisville agreed, awarding Breanna, now 11, and her parents $7.25 million in damages. According to Courier-Journal, a Gannett Company.

Not sure why anyone would want to buy CI’s from Advance Bionics, after reading the above.

You have to take into consideration that only Phonak has released a new Power model since 2020: Phonak Lumity. Oticon’s Xceed was released in 2019 and is quite outdated because it lacks processing of Oticon’s more recent mainstream models and Android Bluetooth compatibility.

That must be something new. :thinking: :roll_eyes: Does Pixel 8 Pro has Apple protocol support? Quick Google search tells me that Pixel 8 Pro has Bluetooth 5.2 with LE support.

Nevertheless, a single Android device does not equal to universal support for Android direct streaming.

In reply to @stevemink

@stevemink said:

Not sure why anyone would want to buy CI’s from Advance Bionics, after reading the above.

I’m happy with my implant. My life has improved for the better since I got it in 2008.

As far as Bluetooth, perhaps I’m misunderstanding the posts above. My AB processor, and my Phonak Link hearing aid, both work directly with Bluetooth, no other device needed. I can stream from my phone, my laptop, or any other device, direct to my “ears”.

In reply to @stevemink

is a German firm with offices in CA.
As to the comment about more competitors, involves invasive surgery, and the testing and development of systems demands a very high development cost. That said, I think the 3 (plus other smaller ones in Europe) have done a far better job that the manufactures. Maybe that’s because CI has the potential to continue to achieve dramatic hearing improvement while HAs are not much more than amplifiers with app features or limited sound compression.

Yes you are right. My mistake. They state that their ci products are designed and engineered in the us. Sonova also owns phonak

What’s the issue with Signia hearing aids? I am wearing Signia Motion C&G SP hearing aids and am pretty happy with them. You can check my and notice that I have severe to profound hearing loss.

I think the issue is that whilst the SP is powerful and it is working for you, there are people on here who need more power with a BTE UP receiver. They have used both and know there is a difference. In the past, manufacturers would come out with more regular releases of the BTE UP for profound losses. Now only Phonak have come out with the Naida Lumity as an up to date release with current technology.

There is also the Unitron Stride UP and the Oticon Xceed and Bernafon Leox UP but the Stride is really the counterpart of the Naida Paradise or Lumity and the Xceed and Leox are not recent.

In reply to @glucas

Signia’s Motion SP is equivalent to Naida Lumity UP in terms of output. You can check both specs here:

Is there anything I am missing out?

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