My Phonak Sphere Infinio I90 vs Lumity L90 Shootout

Yea could be. The newbie Audi mentioned 1000$ too but I thought either she is not updated or I didn’t hear her well

was with HearingLife , which as you said, more biased to Oticon.

One more comment on pricing. My audiologist is extremely transparent on what he charges. Before moving forward with the purchase, he provides a detailed breakdown of all the costs including any extra charges for supplies, etc. The hearing aid hardware is listed separately along with a breakdown of all audiologist related services. He has nothing to hide, he is a rockstar when it comes to fitting people and his services are worth every penny.

I can’t tell you how many times he has helped me out. He provides loaners of the same model when my hearing aids need to be sent in for service. He has pushed the manufacturers to replace my hearing aids when they have had multiple failures in a short period of time (hasn’t happened in a while). He even got me a free upgrade from Resound Linx to Quattro when I had recurring issues. The list goes on.

My advice to anyone looking for hearing aids is to spend the time to find a rockstar audiologist in your area first. This is key to getting the most out of your hearing aid investment. Second bit of advice…the cheapest price doesn’t yield the best results.

EDIT: One last thing

I’m tired of hearing about the high cost of hearing aids. It’s expensive for me too but this is how I look at it:

• I keep my hearing aids at least 3 years.
• Let’s say they cost $US 5,000
• Divide by 36 months = $138 per month.
• $138 = One night out at a restaurant or one round of golf or two tickets to a concert or…
• I’d rather skip a few nights at a restaurant each month and hear better.
• I’d rather skip a small vacation and hear better.
• I’d rather drive an older car and hear better.

Make sense? Once again…just my 2 cents.

Jordan

@Bimodal_user said:

just before the end of the warranty, when it was sent in for a technical inspection, Phonak wouldn’t change the battery

@roybrocklebank said:

Shame, I had a failing battery in the left aid (3-years) and they changed both batteries (right aid 3-years). Audio suggested send both in for a check next March 5 and 4 years point.

This “failing” means now they works max 16-17hrs after almost 4yrs instead of 20-24hrs. So, maybe it was “too good” battery dozen months ago…

Jordank
Your price breakdown is my logic for hiring aids in NZ. $120 per month EVERYTHING included 6days per week service and a new pair each 3 years. AND our hearing aids are comparatively higher priced.
Euan

Oh ok yeah that’s a fair point, obviously a number of things to consider when choosing HAs.

@Euang said:

hiring aids in NZ

I’m not a fan of this “rental/leasing” model myself, could possibly work for some, but why so much, why not $50 per month, but do you get to choose any brand/ model you want, or only what their recommending, what happens if you fail to make payment for unforseen circumstances etc

tenakan
There are two companies offering lease aids Resound are less expensive but were not offering when I was looking and I use a wholly owned subsidiary of Phonak. They will fit any brand but only lease Phonak at different prices for different levels.

I am a retiree comfortable but not wealthy. We live in an individual house in a very comfortable fit persons retirement village. Many costs like property taxes, insurance, rental cost and maintenance are minimal and fixed.

For me specifically, I cannot imagine an event that I could not continue payments that did not include either serious medical events which would mean I would not require aids. Not so for all people

Speaking of batteries, being a former battery engineer, these cells are designed only for so many cycles. Doesnt matter if from 0 or 50%.

I’m currently getting 2 days out of mine, but mine are typically in either music, tv (both I have to switch to) , or a calm environment I’ve modified for more noise reduction, as fans produce a terrible hiss and I dont want the windreduction changed yet.

@Um_bongo said:

That 3800 is a wholesale price in a location with low purchase tax plus a few % margin plus shipping. Possibly using a fulfilment centre or getting the manufacturer to pre-program the aids.

Oh, I’m aware. And I’m not assuming ill intent here. But audis are economically rational actors just like (almost) everyone else. If they’ve chosen to sell it for $6000 with three years of service rather than $3800 (or $4000 or something reasonably connected to the wholesale price) and a la carte follow-up care, it’s because they believe they can make more profit that way. They know their business, so they’re probably correct. And that means most people will end up paying more than necessary or reasonable for the follow-up care they need/want/use. If the price quoted earlier was in addition to a $1000 CAD subsidy, then that brings the total amount paid (some of it by the government) to nearly $6800 USD. That’s $3000, or $1000/year, for follow-up care. That’s… a lot.

I don’t doubt that many people use that much and more. But most don’t. If most did, that model wouldn’t be profitable. Many people have wildly inflated expectations for what that care should reasonably cost, which means they’re likely to believe a bundled model is a better deal for them when it really isn’t. For example, I replied to a post a few weeks ago from someone whose audi wanted $270 to swap out a receiver. They weren’t questioning the reasonableness of the charge, just asking whether replacing it was likely to make a buzzing noise go away. For someone who thinks replacing a receiver would cost $270 if they didn’t buy the follow-up plan, $1000/year to cover things like that might sound like a good deal. If they know they can DIY it for $30, then it wouldn’t look quite so good.

@Um_bongo said:

1.There’s a couple of ways of doing anything; cheap and dirty or belt and braces.
2. Humans are fantastically bad at estimating risk, especially mean time between failures (MTBF) in human/electronic interface devices; even before you consider the huge potential for a non-optimal fit, rendering you unhappy with your investment.

To be clear, I’m not talking about whether X service is worth Y cost or not. That’s an individual decision, and varies enormously depending on circumstances. My issue is that the bundled model requires everyone to prepay for services at a higher cost than most would (or should) pay a la carte for exactly the same services. If that wasn’t true, then that model wouldn’t be more profitable. The best spin one can put on it is that it’s a sort of insurance-style socialization of follow-up costs among all of the audi’s patients, such that the low-need majority subsidizes the high-need minority. And if it’s presented that way and people still want to do it, fine. But when it’s presented as a better financial deal although it usually isn’t, and particularly when that’s combined with the high-pressure sales tactic of threatening to fire patients if they’re not willing to prepay an exorbitant amount for several years’ worth of follow-up care they may not need or want or be able to take advantage of, the whole thing seems kind of shady in a used-car-salesman sort of way. Too many audis do that. It would be recognized as a huge red flag in any other industry, but because it’s less bad than many other ways unscrupulous providers take advantage of the uninformed,* it’s somehow considered normal in this one.

*An hour or two ago, I replied to a post from someone whose audi told them they needed to buy a Roger On v3 because their v2 is “incompatible” with their new Spheres. That’s just the most recent example.

Australian pricing. Hearing Savers: $8400 AUD for pair of the premium Sphere model. That’s 1 year only of free visits and you get referred to an audiologist that partners with them. You don’t get to shop for an audiologist yourself. That’s probably as cheap as it’s going to get I think, at least for a long while.

I try not to get involved in cost of hearing aids discussions. Too emotionally taxing and they never go anywhere.

@jeffpa said:

Speaking of batteries, being a former battery engineer, these cells are designed only for so many cycles. Doesnt matter if from 0 or 50%.

Depth of discharge and temperature of use do make a difference. So do avoiding extremes like keeping your device fully charged or allowing it to discharge fully. Turns out, though, that most people want maximum battery run-time during the day and, to achieve that, are willing to sacrifice long-term battery lifespan. In the past, too, the rapid evolution of cell phones and hearing aids encouraged people to treat their devices as disposable and get new ones every few years. But if you could operate by keeping your Li-ion battery-powered device in the 40% to 60% state of charge range, you could get at least 4 to 5x the equivalent full recharge cycles out of it than if you allowed the device to cycle between 0% and 100% state of charge. The battery in my Ford F-150 EV would cost ~$36,000 to replace, and Ford keeps me from truly charging to 100% or discharging to 0% by creating unusable buffer zones at the top and bottom of the battery charging range, all the better to make their battery warranty hold up for eight years…

If the Sphere really does have a 31-hour runtime, you could prolong its battery lifespan if you stayed in the middle of the charging range and didn’t fully charge it up every night. Apple has recognized this effect on its products and offers “optimized charging,” where a device put on a charger when you go to sleep will only charge to 80% during the night and remain there until an hour or two before the time your device “remembers” you usually start using it in the AM, at which time the device will fully charge to 100%. The theory is that when you get up and start using the device, the charge will immediately begin dropping from 100% and won’t stay there long, minimizing battery wear and tear.

Theoretically, if HA OEMs put a little more “brains” into their chargers, they could do the same with HA recharging. IIRC, the latest Pixel phone even lets you set an 80% max charging limit. I wish HA OEMs would offer the user more tools to control and monitor charging.

Sort of right, and sort of wrong.

State of charge doesn’t really matter, it’s the temperature to get there. 50 to 60 % is to low and likely to get you into a deep discharge state as the voltage drops

As you noted, new smart chargers give the option of 85% which is pretty acceptable. Also to note, cell phones charge at much higher rates than these so temperature during charge is more important.

Less so with these. No real need for an early charge shut off for these in my opinion

@jeffpa said:

State of charge doesn’t really matter, it’s the temperature to get there. 50 to 60 % is to low and likely to get you into a deep discharge state as the voltage drops

Ford says anywhere between 20% and 80% SOC is optimal and don’t let your vehicle sit out in the sun in hot climates. Loss of long-term lifespan is much faster at high SOCs at high temps. So if you live Phoenix AZ, it’s probably not a good idea to wear your Spheres or any other (rechargeable) HA outside for long when it’s 110 to 120F outside, especially if they’re fully charged!

@JordanK said:

• $138 = One night out at a restaurant or one round of golf or two tickets to a concert or…
• I’d rather skip a few nights at a restaurant each month and hear better.

This is very very true.