Oticon Intent user review

On a slightly different bent, how do you guys (especially the ones trying the Intent) feel about the open approach that Oticon uses with the Intent and their other aids. I have not tried the Intent, but have the Real and More, and do find speech in noise better than most. The BUT is I get tired listening to all the background noise. Do you think the Intent is the same? Does it bother anyone else? I have tried to adjust, but after using Oticon for many years, have decided that I am very sensitive to background noise. I am trying to decide to either trial the Intent or accept that the Oticon approach is not for me. Any insights would be appreciated. Thank you

It’s the reason why I jumped onto Oticon privately from NHS Oticon hearing aids because I wanted to hear everything and then decide what I want to focus on.

Traditionally I had bi-directional hearing aids but felt I wanted to be able to hear around me, so Opn, Real and now Intent has given me that and much more.

I may be deaf, but I can still hear music and through streaming, I certainly could hear the difference between using MFi and LE Audio. I could hear the lyrics more clearly than I could with MFi so that was one difference, and quality was much more improved.

A bit like your analogy of 1080p to 4k and that’s what it felt like to me in a visualisation sense.

Oh, don’t get me wrong, @ToriNi . I absolutely believe you that you can hear the difference between MFI and BT LE Audio. I’m not questioning what you hear at all. I’m just a bit surprised that there still seems to be a lot of room for improvement in terms of resolution that makes a significant enough difference, based on the fact that digital audio resolution like MFI or legacy/standard BT is supposed to be already pretty good in the first place. But logical thinking is one thing, and real life “proof in the pudding” is another thing. If anything, this is a really delightful unexpected surprise, on top of the greatly improved speech in noise help already.

If you already have the iPhone 15 Pro and are willing to trade in your 15 to a new one as soon as Apple starts supporting BT LE Audio, for sure I’d upgrade my iPhone 12 Pro Max to that new version as well.

You may find Oticon Intent with the improved technology may work quite well for you considering your audiogram. I definitely find there is an improvement in speech recognition and my audiogram is worse than yours…

I wouldn’t give up yet.

I pinged my previous audi to ask if he’s fitted any Oticon Intent and what his customers say about it. His reply:

“I have begun fitting Oticon Intent and so far so good! We were able to see the research they did on Intent. They did it mostly in Denmark. They put subjects in a wind tunnel and had them repeat sentences mixed with background noise. They measured performance on the speech in noise tests and also used pupilometry to asses listening effort. They demonstrated a nice improvement in speech comprehension in noise along with improved noise reduction compared to their last product (Real) and two other competitor’s aids. They are vague but I think one of them was Resound. They demonstrated decreased listening effort allowing the brain more space for other things. I have fit 3 or 4 patients with good luck so far.”

He reminded me that hearing is SO individual! I’ve done great with my Phonaks, and love the rich sound, Music setting and BT connectivity stability. But my Holy Grail has always been SPEECH. And if Oticon Intent can beat Phonak Lumity Life on that alone, I’d want to try them out. What I don’t know is whether I have the brain + ear muscle to make sense of my world through Oticon aids. But that’s the benefit of a trial…

That will be upto my VA audiologist, I am not expecting to get the INTEND aids seeing I have the Real aids.

@Volusiano said:

Better connection protocols would give more accurate sounds, but not necessarily sounds with “coloration”, like how the spatial sound feature from the Apple AirPods Pro 2 adds coloration to the sound to make it more spatial.

See, you have to add “artificial coloration” to achieve a spatial sound, but is it more realistic? More accurate? NO, it’s processed sound.
I prefer to listen to music through a good quality component stereo 2 channel system, and great speakers.
When I’m sitting at my PC, I prefer to put my Sennheiser HD6XX cans over my Mores tuned into my custom music program, because I just enjoy sound the way it was engineered to be reproduced.
But that’s just me!
I engage with lots of people who really like the airpods pro, so that’s fine, too, if that’s your thing.
I’ve denied myself access to the “walled garden”.

Dr. Cliff had a YouTube video out that talks about the LE Audio version that’s informative to watch.

So…and please excuse my possibly dumb question…LE Audio and Aurocast only pertain to streaming applications. Correct? In other words, if I choose my HAs primarily for real world applications, without streaming–playing my guitar in a room or with others, or going to a live performance where I DON’T want to srtream the audio…or just going to a restaurant or dinner party…in that case, LE audio doesn’t improve the non-streamed performance of my aids.
Correct? this is not a rhetorical question!

First thank you for your review. I am now wearing the Real1 aids but will be getting the INTEND1 aids in June. I walked away from IOS and iphone because of the connectivity issues with my aids, I now have the Samsung S23 phone and have very little connectivity issues with my Real1 aids, and even my backup More1 aids are working great connectivity wise, and the audio quality while streaming is much better with the Samsung S23 phone.
Just something to think about.

@jeffrey said:

LE audio doesn’t improve the non-streamed performance of my aids.

LE Audio enables the possibility of future assistive devices such as the Orsana tabletop microphone array which is now in mothballs. Other than that possibility, you’re right.

Dr. Cliff also noted on his Intent review that the sound was “fuller” on Android using LE Audio than MFI.

Hopefully as we say here, Apple will enable it this fall and we can benefit from it too.

“Fuller” is a good description of my experience with LE Audio as well. Thank you Dr Cliff for the nuance.

This is on the Jabra Enhance Pro 20s and the Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra. It is still buggy when switching connections from streaming music to making phone calls with LE Audio. The ASHA protocol mode is much more stable.