Oticon Real --> Oticon Intent

I have been wearing Oticon aids for 14 years, and due to my hearing loss issues and the fact my hearing loss is military service related my aids come from the Veterans Administration. Over those 14 years i have worn 6 sets of Oticon aids, and i have tried all of the other brands that are available from the VA, but I find the Oticon sound to be what keeps me with Oticon. I don’t find it any trouble using the connect clip when needed. I don’t find the size of the aids a problem. And now that Oticon works with my Samsung Galaxy S23 android phone i am very happy.
You see I don’t make my decision on what i wear on looks, size or the connectivity or the need for extra devices, I make my decisions on how well i can handle a face to face conversation or how well i hear in a lecture, classroom, church service. I make very few phone calls, I use mostly text messages. But i have no issues with calls to my smartphone because streaming is great.

@Baltazard said:

… the NHS (UK healthcare system) were fitting more Oticon especially pediatrics.
Also, he said that, it used to be Phonak the top dog supplier for the NHS, not any more, the spot goes to Oticon…I suppose he was referring to Oticon’s DNN or am I missing something?

So, what’s the deal with Oticon?

I can only guess that Oticon’s dominance in the NHS might have been more due to them beating Phonak with aggressive pricing, because I’m guessing that big entities like NHS or VA probably might care more about pricing than technological differences between the aids. Afterall, they’re all advanced HAs to begin with.

The main overall technical thing since the Oticon OPN is the open paradigm. They found a way to achieve speech clarity AND still be able to hear the surroundings as well, kind of like having the cake and eat it too. The DNN is just a part of the whole system that supports the open paradigm. With the OPN, they make a noise model to cancel out the noise from the speech without blocking the surrounding sounds. With the More, this novel “noise cancellation” approach was replaced with an even more novel approach, using the DNN.

So, what’s the deal with Oticon? I don’t think Oticon is beating out other aids in general in terms of technical prowess. They all came up with their own technical prowess differently. If Oticon gains favor with NHS or the VA or whatever, it’s more likely due to pricing (just my opinion).

I think you’ve identified one of the Oticon weaknesses. They don’t put priority into their power aid lineup like the others do.

Sonova/Phonak is the only company that went the legacy standard BT support route, and it looks like their strategy paid off there. The other 4 will continue to lag in this until BT LE Audio support becomes ubiquitous before the communication playing field becomes level. Sonova/Phonak bet that this will take a long enough time, and they’re right. On the other hand, the other 4 bet that the Android people won’t mind an intermediary streaming device until ASHA, and eventually BT LE Audio, comes along. At least ASHA has already come for a year or two already, and BT LE Audio is starting to come now.

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The writer of the article says that Intent is noticeably better than Real.

Yes, the writer of this article regurgitates a lot of the clinical data that Oticon presented in their technical whitepapers to show that the Intent is noticeably better than the Real. But that’s the overall data. The personal data on an individual basis may vary.

For folks with only mild to moderate hearing loss and don’t struggle too much in noise, they might not see a noticeable improvement from the Real because after all, the Real is already a very good hearing aid to begin with, sufficiently good enough for them. But for folks with more severe hearing loss and still struggle in noise with the Real, the improvement should be more noticeable.

“deep neural network sound processing”…BS alert!

No it is not it has made a world of difference in my ability to understand speech 8n almost any environment. But it needs an experienced audiologist, and a patient that can explain what the patient is hearing and not hearing.

hey, these may well be wonderful new aids. Are they plugged into folks’ “deep neural networks”?*** No. do they use living neural brain cells as part of their design? No.

***granted, ALL HAs utilize our brains’ deep neural networks, in that hearing of any sort does this. Our hearing without HAs also utilizes “deep neural networks”, as does our heartbeat and our breathing when we sleep.

I’m merely suggesting that this sort of advertising talk is just that—advertising talk. A pair of drug store reading glasses could be advertised as using “deep neural networks”. So could a pair of crutches, or tennis shoes. Etc.

However, it’s usually those with milder losses using less occluding fittings that benefit from better aid performance. There’s more day/night effect under background noise situations that they find frustrating; usually with the secondary thought that ‘my hearing isn’t that bad’ etc.

People with more established losses still benefit from better tech, but the degree of improvement noted tends to be more marginal.

That could be psychological though; I guess going from 0-50mph might be exciting the first time, but 50-60mph, not so much; even if that last 10mph uses the same amount of effort as the first 50mph.

@Um_bongo said:

That could be psychological though; I guess going from 0-50mph might be exciting the first time, but 50-60mph, not so much; even if that last 10mph uses the same amount of effort as the first 50mph.

An excellent and helpful analogy!

Fine. These aids have a jack that plugs into a persons deep neural networks and they process sound there, rather than in the aids themselves. Whoa!! As Keanu Reeves says repeatedly in the Matrix. I suppose if one of these aids needs repairs, it’s’ sent off to a brain surgeon. I certainly wouldn’t want a hearing aid tech working on MY deep neural networks.

again—AGAIN–these may be terrific aids, as I said before. Twice I believe. I may end up owning a pair myself some day. who knows? I’m as curious as anyone to read reviews.

@Um_bongo said:

However, it’s usually those with milder losses using less occluding fittings that benefit from better aid performance.

People with more established losses still benefit from better tech, but the degree of improvement noted tends to be more marginal.

I can see this to be very logical reasoning as well. For sure the nuances in the improvement can be more noticeable to folks with less severe hearing loss who can discern the differences more easily. For folk with worse hearing loss, the incremental help may not be as sufficiently significant because it can only make a smaller dent due to their heavy hearing loss.

What I was thinking in my line of reasoning was more along the line of receiving the help needed, not so much whether the improvement is discernable or not, and by how much.

For example, if the max Neural Noise Suppression needed for a moderate hearing loss person is 8 dB max in attenuation in complex environment, then it doesn’t even reach the 10 dB max capacity the Real has to offer in the first place. So even if the Intent can eke out up to 12 dB attenuation, it’s not going the make any difference to this person because he only needs 8 dB to begin with and the Real already has more than what he needs.

However, for someone with a more severe loss where the 10 dB max noise attenuation in the Real is not even enough for them yet, then the improvement to 12 dB max noise attenuation in the Intent would be a welcome and noticeable improvement.

@ToriNi said:

Hmm, my speech cues went from 27% to 64% when I switched from NHS to Oticon Opn so there was a significant difference for me, and has improved further with Oticon Real.

So I expect to see an improvement with Oticon Intent esp as it claims to analyse my intentions in noisy environments, and I know Oticon Real doesn’t do this which is clear as it will pick up a conversation happening further way as their speech is prominent and I then end up focusing on what they are saying rather than what I was intending to listen to, the person in front of me so I’m hoping in these types of situations, it would be more effective for me but I’m just going to try them and see if it is as they do claim.

I’m not so sure if the Intent 4D sensor is that smart to know that your intent is to focus on speech from the person in front of you and not from the person happening further away. Below is a chart of how the motion input does. It’s actually copied from the Philips 9050 whitepaper because the Oticon Intent whitepaper doesn’t show this chart. But it should be applicable to both as they share the same 4D sensor technology.

As you can see, the 4D sensor works in very rudimentary ways → no motion, some motion, and steady motion. And the interpretation is also very rudimentary → more help for speech from front, default help for speech from front, and more help for speech from periphery, respectively. There’s no depth perception to know to pick up speech from further away vs speech closer to you. Even if there were some kind of depth perception sensor, there’s no smart in there to know whether your intent is to hear speech closer to you or speech further from you.

The second chart below is from the Oticon Intent whitepaper. Let’s take the most complex listening situation, at -10 dB Input SNR (the left most X axis data point. In this example it shows that you set your Difficult Environment max neural noise suppression to 8 dB, as seen in the blue dash line. For the Intent, it can actually go up to 12 dB max, but in this example, Genie 2 sets is as the default value to 8 dB only. Perhaps Genie 2 evaluates your audiogram and maybe also your ACT value (if available) and decides that 8 dB max for Difficult should be the default.

Without the 4D sensor enabled, it’ll never go above or below 8 dB attenuation for speech. But with the 4D sensor enabled, it’ll go up to 12 dB (as seen) when no motion is detected on the aids (interpreted as more intense listening), which may be achieved with a combination of some front directionality plus what the DNN can suppress. If there is a little bit of head movement, it’ll vary between 8 and 12 dB. If there’s steady motion (like the head bobbing up and down regularly interpreted as walking), then it may go down to the 6.5 dB as shown, so as to give more equal priority to all surrounding speeches, and the directionality now may also be adjusted to be more omni.

The bottom line is that with the 4D sensor enabled, the “balancing” for speech contrast in noise can become more precise for various situations (instead of just 1 attenuation value fits all intents in that particular environment), and with the 4D sensor, it can be even more aggressive than the specified max default (as long as there’s still some headroom left in there) if the interpreted intent is a “concentration to focus” based on no head movement. But this is a very crude interpretation. There can be a dozen different reasons why there’s no head movement. No head movement does not always equal to concentrated focus.

The point is that I wouldn’t put too much stock in the 4D sensor technology. If Genie 2 says that I should only need 8 dB max for noise attenuation, but I don’t feel that it’s enough after I’ve been in noisy places enough time to know that I want more, then I would rather just help myself by bumping this max up to 10 or 12 dB myself in Genie 2, rather than hoping that the 4D sensor will be smart enough to bump it up at the right time for me with just a very rudimentary interpretation of my true intent.

@Volusiano said:

However, for someone with a more severe loss where the 10 dB max noise attenuation in the Real is not even enough for them yet, then the improvement to 12 dB max noise attenuation in the Intent would be a welcome and noticeable improvement.

That’s assuming that both situations are equally vented which is unlikely, given the degree of difference in the loss.

Practically; the better the SNR, the better for everyone.
However, you know the application of gain for mild losses, so aids that ‘step-up’ in really challenging situations can be game-changers for those people who don’t think they struggle ’normally’.

Thanks for the above @Volusiano. I will only know if they make any difference over Oticon Real once I have tried them. In the real world Thanks again for your informative input as always.