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Oticon Intent vs Phonak AutoSense?

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Do the Oticon aids automatically switch programs like the phonak’s?

I noticed a chart in Dr Cliff’s recent review of the new Phonaks, showing speech in noise performance. Oticon Intent was in second place behind the phonak’s .
Since I’m not really happy with Phonak’s battery life, I set off wondering about these Oticon units.

I think that I’m probably nearing the time I need to replace my Marvels so I’m starting to think that I need to get familiar with my options

I trialed Oticon aids years ago before buying my Phonak Marvels. I think they were called Opn. Several things about them seemed superior to the Marvels, but as an android user the Oticon’t didn’t play well. I think what I liked most about the Phonak aids is something I have grown to truly appreciate…and that is the Autosense. I pretty much NEVER have to touch my aids. I NEVER manually switch programs (except to turn on t-coil mode in church). I love that and never want to go back to having to manually switch programs based on my environment.

Do the new Oticon aids work like that?

Do they play well with android now?

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My Oticon INTENT1 aids do adjust for different environments. In fact I only have the default program, and it works great for me from quiet to very noisy, to lectures, to church services, to concerts or listening to audio books or music streamed or live. But I don’t have any idea about the new Phonak aids. I did try a set of Phonak aids but I didn’t care for the second. The Phonak aids just didn’t sound as natural to me like Oticon aids. But have been wearing Oticon aids for the last 14 years.

@cvkemp said:

The Phonak aids just didn’t sound as natural to me like Oticon aids. But have been wearing Oticon aids for the last 14 years

You’re brain, like mine is probably well adapted to the sounds produced (leaning them well) I have been wearing Ha’s 20 years, with the last 13 + Phonak’s, so like I and Dave in Toronto mentioned many times, it may be not so much the brand but the programming. Listening to the water fall of the backyard pond from the back veranda sounds to me quite normal and just like a water fall should sound like (as far as I can remember) voila.

I too have been wearing aids for 20 years. My first set was Siemens from the , and every since the Siemens I have been wearing Oticon aids. I love what i call my surround sound. It may have been the way the Phonak I tries was adjusted but I felt like I have hearing blinders on.

In reply to @kgmgpm

I live in a forest and hike the trails, I need to be able to hear all around me. The forest here is full of deer, bear, coyotes, and large cats. And the bird songs are just wow.

Here to very wooded, outside Montreal, like you I need to hear all those sound to, you can have the kids playing in the pool 500 feet away, but the rest, my cat when he complains, my rottweiler when she booms, I jump a bit when that happens, birds, lots, here at least 12 different types, biggest are ravens…and sharp-shinnes hawks, Maybe I was just lucky and with the right programming it worked for me. With my first digital’s it was a lot of sound, but now I just love hearing… also with these Audeo P70T I’m getting pretty good at knowing were the sounds are coming from, never will be like a good set of ears like the better half has, but if I take these off, by-by world, closes to total silence minus the tinnitus.

@bradw said:

Do the Oticon aids automatically switch programs like the phonak’s?

Oticon aids can just stay in the main default program and adjust parameters like noise suppression when you get into more difficult environments, without needing switching back and forth between different programs with fixed/different noise suppression setups like AutoSense does. It’s a different way of doing things.

Maybe an analogy is self shading prescription glasses. The AutoSense is like a personal butler that takes out your unshaded prescription glasses and put on your shaded prescription sunglasses for you as you walk out into a bright environment, then do the reverse as you walk back indoors. The Oticon’s approach is that you have 1 set of prescription glasses that is clear indoors, but activates the shading when outdoors, using just the same pair of glasses. And when you go back indoors they’ll turn clear again.

But of course Oticon also gives you a pair of prescription sunglasses as well that are always dark no matter where you are. It’s just that you would have to put them on yourself when you go outside, and there’s no butler to do that for you.

Technically, Oticon works one program- I believe the idea is that it constantly
looks to optimize ration.

The more sound intelligence 3.0 allows has en environment classifier

I would say- maybe Im wrong- phonak has the upper hand here but both are good choices when

it comes down to sound processing

@bradw said:

I think what I liked most about the Phonak aids is something I have grown to truly appreciate…and that is the Autosense. I pretty much NEVER have to touch my aids.

That has been my experience with the Phonak Lumity Life aids. I’d upgraded from Phonak Marvels to these Life aids 2 yrs ago. I kept my “crutch” - dedicated programs: Speech in Loud Noise, Music, Acoustic Phone, but I have to say, I only manually switch into one of these about 5% of the time. Even Acoustic Phone - which gives me stereophonic hearing without streaming - is not REALLLLLY needed. I hear fine on phones as long as I find the “sweet spot” with my aids.

In some cases, Autosense even outperforms the Roger V2 mic. That’s mainly a quality of sound issue, cuz the Roger is like a harsh public address sound quality.

Last spring I trialed the Oticon Intent aids and found that I wasn’t getting the most out of them thanks to an uncaring, impatient audi who wouldn’t take the time to fit them. That I can forgive, but I also found that the Intent was simply flaky every single day when using it with my Android Samsung Flip-4 phone. The aids were paired, but most of the time refused to connect or dropped a connection spontaneously without warning - leaving me holding the phone up to my ear to find that “sweet spot”. It was too unreliable, so I turned them in and got the Phonak Lumity Life 312-battery aids. LOVE THEM.

That said, my darling Precious Pink aids have fritzed after a good workout at the gym. NOT a good sign! Luckily, I pick up my (2) pairs of rechargeable Life aids on the 27th (they have been back and forth to Phonak for repair since JUNE!), so perhaps they’ll be a bit more “water resistant” at the gym. For now, I’m back to wearing my old Marvel aids - and hey, THEY ROCK even still! :grinning:

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