Costco Pushed me from Phillips to Rexton

I actually agree with you and was stymied.
She said the Phillips before the current model was better. She said there have been charging and streaming issues.
I’m wondering if the profits/bonus is better for Costco on Rexon.
I didn’t want to offend her. She said if I don’t like she will switch me to Phillips,or refund me.
I have very high frequency loss and poor word recognition.

To best of my knowledge there is no bonus system at Costco based on sales. If I understand correctly when you went in last Spring you didn’t purchase hearing aids. Now 6-9 months later, the tech is suggesting a different hearing aid, presumably based on their experience between the two times. I think their motivation is to pick the hearing aid that they think will be the least hassle for them because you’re satisfied with it. Different people and even people at different times are likely to have different opinions.
I’d personally try the Rexton, but if you have strong opinions, try the Phillips. They’re both fine aids.

I have the 312 battery model so charging shouldn’t be an issue.

If you can’t replace the rechargeable battery at Costco, then I’m not a big fan of rechargeable hearing aids.

Streaming works however I’ve noticed a fraction of a second delay between one hearing aid and the other one. It’s not a big issue for me since I don’t do a lot of streaming due to the issue with sound leaking when using an open dome.

I don’t believe there is any profit issue. I more likely to believe they are trying to avoid the issues you mentioned. My fitter didn’t recommend Jabra due to what she said where support issues.

You are correct. Only the newest GN hearing aids currently have Auracast.

@user990 said:

If you can’t replace the rechargeable battery at Costco, then I’m not a big fan of rechargeable hearing aids.

If the Philips rechargeable battery system is anything like Oticon, and it should be very similar, the aids don’t need to be sent back to the factory to have the rechargeable battery replaced. As long as the rechargeable battery is in stock at the Costco HA center where you frequent, they should be able to easily replace it for you on the spot. There may be some very minor programming involved simply to reset the stats that keeps the history of the battery performance to a fresh start again, that’s all.

On the other hand, as far as I know, most other brands (beside Oticon) that use rechargeable batteries require you to send the aids back to the factory for battery replacement, instead of it being doable at the HCP office.

@user990 said:

Streaming works however I’ve noticed a fraction of a second delay between one hearing aid and the other one. It’s not a big issue for me since I don’t do a lot of streaming due to the issue with sound leaking when using an open dome.

The Oticon Real and More have had streaming issues with the ConnectClip (the equivalent of the Philips AudioClip). But it seems like the most recent firmware updates to these aids have resolved the connection issues for good. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Philips have had intermittent connection issues with the AudioClip along the same vein. If I recall correctly from reading somewhere in this forum, the latest firmware update for the Philips aids should have resolved the streaming connection issues with the AudioClip already as well.

This is the first time I have ever had a receiver fail with over ten years of wearing hearing aids.

However, I’ve never had hearing aids the where able to stream. With the leakage from open domes one has to set the output to maximum to hear the podcast over traffic noise, so maybe your right.

I’ll see if I can get a hold of an IPhone to check.

@user990 said:

This is the first time I have ever had a receiver fail with over ten years of wearing hearing aids.

Consider yourself lucky. I’ve had many receiver failures during my 30+ years of wearing hearing aids. Over the last 7 years, I’ve probably had 5 or 6 receiver failures. I have severe to profound hearing loss in the high ends so I do drive them hard. I think you’re on to something about streaming making them fail much faster. Streaming lets people enjoy music listening more often as well, and music has a full spectrum of sound frequencies that can overwork receivers compared to just speech and normal sounds.

Also note that receivers, unless they’re the special kind like the Phonak Active Vent receivers, are pretty much the same and probably OEM’ed by the various HA mfgs from the same sources. It’s not like each HA mfg design and manufacture their own receivers themselves, enough to be different. So the failure frequency of receivers is usually not indicative of how reliable that HA brand is. They’re really a commodity at the basic level. The HA mfg may have their own domes/molds, but if you look closely at the receivers themselves, they’re pretty much all alike.

@MDB said:

To best of my knowledge there is no bonus system at Costco based on sales

Mm, Costco secrets. There’s no “commission”, but the managers get something for meeting certain volume targets. So there’s target pressure from above, or if it’s a smaller branch then your HCP might well be the manager themselves.

Oh, not as far as I know. I agree with raudrive that brand preference tends to come with individual clinician’s experience in a situation where there aren’t other incentives to fit one over another.

Although if a clinic has a relationship with a particular manufacturer there may be real pressure to sell one brand. And by relationship I mean partially owned by. Manufacturer clinics obviously preferentially fit their own devices, but young independent clinics may have taken a start-up loan from a particular manufacturer and as part of the pay back deal they are obligated to sell that device.

Independent clinics may also get extra discounts from manufacturers that they do good volume with, and those discounts loop back into preference because they want to pass on good value to their clients (and devices aren’t so different as to be worth a great deal more money from one to another), but it’s not quite the same sort of pressure as the loan situation.

I don’t think Costco has a reason to fit one brand over another aside from clinician experience (though, bad experience drives away more strongly than good experience drives toward, I’ve found), but I’ll see what I can sus out.

@MDB said:

Quite believable, but no particular pressure to sell one brand over another? I was thinking of OP’s second comment where they ask if there was a better bonus for Phillips or Rexton.

Maybe it’s not brand preference, but if what they said is true that they’ve had more return of the Philips than the Rexton then it’s maybe more about more sales volume turnover if the returns are minimized.

Interesting, I was in Costco about a year ago and the HA specialist suggested a particular hearing aid. I noted that the Costco a few miles down the road was suggesting a different aid. She said that they normally sell one brand and she was aware that the other Costco normally sells a different brand. So the idea that HA specialists tend to push one aid or another based on their own experiences or prejudices is probably true.

The price drop video was posted 5 months ago; the review one, 4 months ago.