My Phonak Sphere Infinio I90 vs Lumity L90 Shootout

The real frustration is when all a patient/customer needs is someone to facilitate sending the devices to the manufacturer for warranty repair, battery replacement, etc. Finding an audiologist or hearing aid dispenser to assist if your original point of sale is out of state, out of business, etc, should not be difficult. Yet it can be.

A local clinic attached to a university in Illinois previously wanted a $500 “new patient transfer fee” to send in a Phonak device that was clearly not functioning. I ended up sending it to Arizona - original point of purchase - so they could send it back to Illinois for the repair. Then sometimes they can get Phonak to send it directly to me, sometimes it has to go back to Arizona and then to Illinois.

I’ve recently switched to Sphere devices. So yesterday I took my old devices to a different local provider who I’ve used for updated audiograms and minor things (new ear molds, or tube and earhook supplies before I moved from BTE to RIC). They took my Lumity devices and a damaged Roger On with no question and are sending them in for warranty battery replacement and the Roger repair. I would gladly pay for the shipping but was told not to worry about it.

Particularly with a non-prescription device that is the Roger On, there’s literally no way for a customer to obtain warranty service for this consumer electronic device without finding a willing hearing care provider to assist. And this won’t ever get resolved while the impacted user base is relatively small.

Yeah, that doesn’t make sense to me either. They could break it down. Shipping, handling and admin fee. Textbox checks when it’s back from repair to make sure it’s within spec. Assessment and fitting fee only if the manufacturer can’t restore your settings or you want to be sure things are up to date. Either they don’t have the pricing structure in place or they’ve decided they’re too busy for small beans, I suppose.

I like unbundled. But it seems like the market drives towards bundled, which in a strong way is influenced by patient behaviour and clinic competition.

can someone post a vid of sound compairition between the two (streaming), and is there a way to record audio (not mic) on HA?

Look at Hearadvisor.com8.

@Neville said:

That said, I would expect most to provide service for a fee and the services they are willing to provide might depend on the device.

That seems fair. But the discussion gives me an excuse to put in a plug for Connect Hearing. Early in July, I was on a 1,600 mile road trip to London, Ontario, when my left i90 Sphere gave out. I couldn’t hear a sound out of the device, either from the environment or from streaming. I had thought of bringing spare wax traps on the trip, but foolishly did not (I wear cShells). I searched for authorized Phonak HCPs in London and found Connect Hearing was one of two and was a chain owned by Sonova.

The HCP sitting at the front desk simply asked me if my Spheres were under warranty. I said they were. She disappeared with them for a few minutes, announced she had cleaned them both. I asked to buy some Cerustop filters. She gave me three packs of eight and asked if they would be enough. When I asked what I owed her, she said the service was gratis.

As people have noted with Costco providers, each location can be different. However, since I purchased my Spheres online through Direct Hearing, I plan to investigate Connect Hearing in San Antonio, TX, for any future warranty service. The audi who sold me my first two sets of ReSound hearing aids, although she also handles Phonak devices and made my cShell molds, said I should deal with Direct Hearing (and mail my Spheres to them) for any warranty service.

Edit_Update: Seems Connect Hearing is undergoing a brand name change to AudioNova…

Im not a fan of titanium molds but the hard lucite where they can be modified it needed

Why you’re not a fan of titanium molds? I’d love to know something new from your experience. Was it a long wait for it?

@SaxMan said:

Also thanks @JordanK for this long and inspiring post. I will confess that this post helped to influence my decision to buy a pair of Phonak Infinio Spheres for myself. I am having some setup teething issues that I hope are human audiologist related rather than hardware related…but it’s only been 10 days for me. Understand speech - yes. Sounds good - no

@SaxMan,

You are most welcome! I am just about at my 1 year anniversary with the Sphere’s and they are still groundbreaking. I’ve got my 1 year appointment with my audiologist next week and there is not much I want changed. The Spheric AI mode is a game changer for me and it has allowed me to comfortably go back into noisy environments without getting stressed out before hand. I’ve had zero issues other than the occasional Bluetooth drop off (which I think is caused by radio band congestion/interference) and a bit of feedback in my right ear when the receiver works it’s way out of my ear while I am eating, etc. I may finally ask the audiologist about moving from heavy double domes to custom (titanium??) molds or something like that.

The one thing that really bothers me is all the people on this forum who are not getting the same results that I am experiencing. I feel like there are quite a few crappy audiologists out there who don’t take the time to properly learn the platform and who are cutting corners during trials and setup. Many leave out REM testing or only provide a 1 week trial before pressuring the users into buying. There are probably a whole bunch of people who are walking away from the Sphere’s (and other high end hearing aids) without getting the benefit of this new technology. It’s very frustrating to read these stories because I know many of their complaints can be ironed out by a skilled audiologist.

Just be patient and keep going back to get your hearing aids dialled in properly. It’s worth the effort.

Jordan

besides not being able to modify if the fit isn’t right on there’s the feedback issue. Ye you can modify the programming for it but then chances are you’re taking away clarity so best to have remade. Again waiting on top of I find Phonak does feedback more than some. JMHO

Hello all, considering that my biggest complaint about my hearing loss is be able is being able to hear conversation in noisy backgrounds, I am seriously considering moving from my Widex Moment 440s, to the Phonak Infineo Sphere i90. But I’ve heard conflicting views as to whether I would get any benefit since I wear a standard type ear tip, not anything that’s completely occlusive. Is this correct? If so, meaning I would not get any benefit unless I wore occlusive/ completely sealed ear tip, with the Phonak Acti-Vent be a good ear tip to try?

When I first got the Spheres, I got a lot of feedback. They were fitted with open domes. I put up with that for around a year, then, per the audi’s recommendation, I had custom molds made (I think they’re called slim-tips). While waiting for the slim tips to come in, she installed nearly-closed domes. They totally eliminated the feedback. The vented slim-tips also eliminated the feedback, and do not seem overly occlusive. If the custom molds are included in your cost of the HAs, I’d go that route. Otherwise, I’d go with the nearly-closed dome. Two things set them apart from open domes: they fit tighter than the ODs, and there is only one vent slit instead of two in the feedback-domes.

I had an appointment with audiologist yesterday to get a few things checked out and the craziest thing happened. As I was waiting for my audiologist to finish with his previous patient, they both came out of the examination room and his patient heard me talking with the receptionist. He looked over at me and said “Is that Jordan from the hearingtracker forum?”.

This was the first time I have ever met anyone live from this forum and he just wanted to thank me for recommending my audiologist to him a while back. It was quite fun to meet one of you in the flesh and it kinda made my day.

Too cool a story not to share.

Jordan

Did you decide to switch to custom molds or stay with power domes?

I actually explained that I was getting feedback on the right side and asked if I needed to start looking at custom molds to replace the double domes. He then suggested that we run the feedback manager again on the right side to see if it made a difference. The curves did change a bit after the test and funny enough, the problem is gone. Success!!

Jordan