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My Experience with Philips 9040s (Costco)

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I have been wearing hearing aids for more than ten years due to high-frequency hearing loss, specifically Kirkland KS10s, for the last three years. Lately, I have noticed more difficulty following conversations in meetings when multiple people speak simultaneously. Also, I have a female assistant to whom English is a first language. Her voice isn’t overly soft, but I find her very difficult to understand, even in quiet settings.

Also, my KS10’s warranty expires next month, and my health insurance will more than cover a new set from Costco. I decided to get a new pair. Given my type of hearing loss, the Costco technician recommended the 9040s. Everything seemed fine when I tested them in the audio booth and walked around the store. They didn’t sound like my KS10s, but from prior experience, I know it takes a few days to get used to new hearing aids.

I ordered a set and picked them up last Friday. I immediately noticed that the world was a much louder place. Small sounds I never noticed before, such as the click of my keyboard at work or the beeping of a microwave oven, were annoyingly loud. My wife and I went to a cafeteria-style restaurant for lunch the next day. While in the care, my wife’s voice sounded as if she was yelling. In the cafeteria, the high-frequency sounds from female voices and the clatter of plates were overwhelming. Higher-frequency female voices were amplified to the point of distortion. I tried to adjust the volume, but the Philips iPhone app wouldn’t connect. I looked at the accessibility setting on my iPhone (15 Pro Max w/IOS 17.4). It showed that the hearing aids were still paired with my iPad several miles away. We got our food to go and beat a hasty retreat back to the relative quiet of our home. Luckily, I got back into Costco that afternoon to have the volume settings adjusted down.

I started playing with the Bluetooth settings and made the following discoveries. Even though the Philips App on my iPhone wouldn’t connect to the hearing aids, if I went into the accessibility settings on the iPhone, I could control the volume and change the program selection (settings > accessibility > hearing aids). The audio handoff between the iPhone and my iPad worked fine. But if I used the iPad, the Philips app on my iPhone could not reconnect to the hearing aids until I power cycled the iPhone even if the iPad was powered off first.

My next step was to unpair the hearing aids and uninstall the Philips app. Once done, I reinstalled the app and re-paired the hearing aids with the iPhone. The app connected, and I could stream audio from my iPhone to the hearing aids. Then, I opened the iPad and streamed audio to the hearing aids. That also worked. I returned to the iPhone and launched the Philips app, but it couldn’t connect to the hearing aids. However, if I streamed audio from the iPhone to the hearing aids first and then launched the app, the app connected.

There seems to be a bug in the Philips Hearlink 2 app. The Costco technician will reach out to Philips and get back to me.

Audio adjustments seem to have alleviated the issue with over-amplified high-frequency sounds, and I have a workaround for the app issue. So, at this point, I’m reasonably satisfied. I’ll update this topic as things progress.

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@DrBob said:

my KS10’s warranty expires next month,

Were your KS-10s updated to reflect your most recent tests?

Have you considered having them sent in for fresh batteries and assuring they are working correctly before the warranty runs out? They may make better than nothing backups if they are updated and refreshed.

WH

It would be nice to see what your looks like in your profile.

It’s kind of weird that your description of wearing the 9040 sounds like a new user who hasn’t worn hearing aids before, yet you’ve worn the KS10 before that, meaning you notice the click of the keyboard or the beep of the microwave oven, and the shrills from female voices, the clattering of plates, that the world is a much louder place, etc. I didn’t expect the difference going from the KS10 to the 9040 would be that dramatically different. I thought maybe their performances for speech in noise might be different, but you should have heard the details that you didn’t hear before on the KS10 as well. It looks like the amplification of the highs are dramatically different between your KS10 and your 9040.

In reply to @DrBob

@DrBob said:

I was surprised my the difference also. My audiogram should be in my profile.

I’m not sure where to look for it. I clicked on you avatar then I clicked on Hearing Tracker Profile and it’s empty. If you look at other members who post their , right under their avatar, there’s a blue link named Audiogram that when you click on it, their audiogram with show up in a window. You don’t have that link, which is what I’m talking about.

Ah, OK, thanks @billgem ! Got it now. Would be nicer if he could put it in the graphical format because it’d be easier to visualize it in graph form instead of looking at numbers. But at least it’ll do.

In reply to @DrBob

@DrBob

Congratulations! I find your post really interesting. I got new Paradise P90R’s to solve a safety problem at work. My third set of Phonaks. I thought it would be plug-and-play getting new Phonaks. Nope. Wrong.

You’re working through your issues well. Wish it was easier for all of us to get replacement hearing aids.

I just adjust the volume on my Philips hearing aids using the buttons on back of the devices. That is way more convenient than using the phone app, which is way more trouble than it’s worth for me.

@Jack_F

That’s what I’ve done too…reminds me of when I had a stereo system. If I wanted to hear better or hear more, I turned up the volume.

Now I have “smart” hearing aids. There are times I feel I’ve fallen down a rabbit hole… :frowning:

After a week of wearing them, I believe there is an improvement in my speech comprehension, in person and while watching TV. It may be a halo effect. Time will tell. The audio handoff between my iPhone and iPad seems to be reliable. However, I have yet to resolve the problem with the Hearlink app. I have a follow-up appointment next Friday. Perhaps they will have a solution then.

The Bluetooth problem has now gotten worse. They randomly disconnect from my iPhone and will not reconnect until I power cycle it. This is happening at work. My iPad is at home. I’ve had to power cycle the iPhone twice in the last two hours.

The hearing aid technician put on the phone with Philips technical support to address the Bluetooth handoff issue. Technical support told me that handoff between IOS devices is not reliable and the best way is to turn off Bluetooth on device number one before switching to device number two. That has been reliable if not somewhat cumbersome. On the plus side, as long as my iPhone is connected to the 9040s, the Apple Watch app works as an easy way to control volume and switch between programs…

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