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Returning Phonak Infinio Sphere I90s

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Hello, wearers.

I have worn hearing aids for over 12 years now. My current pair are Lumity life L 90s. They’re about two years old. They work great. However, like many HA wearers, I struggle in noisy environments (and often use my RogerOn). The Infinio spheric chip claims to greatly improve speech understanding in noisy environments. And by all accounts and reports on these forums, it seems to be helping many people.

For some reason, I did not have that experience. In fact, I question if the AI feature was actually working on the pair that I trialed. My audiologist did what they could to dial them in, but it resulted in all sounds being muffled and no human voices coming through audibly. The opposite of what the marketing folks at Phonak portray and users have reported experiencing as well.

I did notice slight improvements with some features, but no wow factor when it came to Spheric Speech in Loud Noise.

Overall, I only found a marginal improvement in the Infinio over the Lumity. But again, it could be that I received a faulty pair where the AI chip is not working.

49 people in this conversation43 min readJump to latest

Before returning the Spheres, you might try going to your smartphone settings, opening the R-Phonak Hearing Aid settings, and switching the device type from Hearing Aid to Car Stereo. The difference in audio quality in phone calls and media streaming was very impressive to me. You could see if your Lumity Life L90s offer the same BT settings profile for the R-Phonak Hearing Aid classic BT connection. I using an iPhone 14 Pro Max. I would presume a similar choice of device type would be available on an Android smartphone as well.

Another thought is maybe your audiologist ordered the Infinio IR90 for you, not the I90. The I90 has the DeepSonic chip. The IR90 only has the New Era chip. Such a mixup seems unlikely, though, and you should be readily able to tell by the size of your . And presumably it would be blatantly obvious to your audiologist in Target…

Can phone microphone be used instead of handsfree calling (HA mic) with Phonak hearing aids
Yes, I think my ignorance is showing. AI searches show that the Hearing Aid and Car Stereo device types probably both support HFP, A2DP, and AVRCP. I thought the difference between Hearing Aid and Car Stereo types might be that Hearing Aid only supports SBC encoding, whereas maybe Car Stereo is AAC-encoded. It’s said that AAC-encoded sound will sound louder with less noise because the higher bitrate and greater encoding efficiency lead to better sound. BUT Gemini says no Phonak hearing aid u…
@jim_lewis said:

maybe your audiologist ordered the Infinio IR90 for you, not the I9

You can easily check this in the MyPhonak App ( my hearing devices)

I’m curious what you will do, will you just keep your Lumity’s or go to the regular Infinio IR90? I’m picking up the Sphere’s this morning, but I’m worried they will be too large for me and may switch out and trial the regular Infinios after a few weeks trialing the Sphere’s.

A note about size. If you think the is large, try wearing a Cochlear implant processor. Don’t worry about the size - go for what helps you hear your best. No one cares what they look like on you, and it will stay put, so choose based on tech. Lots of people with very poor hearing have small ears - me included. As a matter of fact, my surgeon at Vanderbilt said I had a small inner ear structure and that they are seeing there is some correlation between small inner ear with hearing issues.

Size is not the deal breaker - no benefit FOR ME with Spheric Speech in loud Noise was.

@platypus said:

I question if the AI feature was actually working on the pair that I trialed. My audiologist did what they could to dial them in, but it resulted in all sounds being muffled and no human voices coming through audibly.

@platypus said:

I use Target to DIY adjustments

The absence of a significant improvement is surprising. We have similar and I hear a real change when I am using the Spheric function. But everybody’s hearing is different even with similar audiograms. Before returning them, I would try a couple of things. If you have not done so already, I would set up a separate program for Spheric in loud noise. Possibly the OS6 is not invoking the spheric program at the proper level. I would go into the Spheric program in target and change the level of loud noise to moderate and then create a new program based on a separate copy. That way you can know that the spheric program is active by manually selecting it. If that does not cause you to hear significantly better l think I would ask for a replacement set of aids just to confirm that they do not help you.

In reply to @joanhawsey

@joanhawsey said:

A note about size. If you think the HA is large, try wearing a Cochlear implant processor.

I completely agree, and I have been wanting to write about it! Not to mention that even small children have to use sound processors of the same size.

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Screenshot_20241030_013534_Gallery
Messenger_creation_60655B94-3297-4C63-9180-1E499A301B2F
Messenger_creation_F1AF22ED-D137-48E8-9008-BA231F04D0CF

Note:

the “big” Infinio Sphere weights 3.0g, “ordinary” Infinio (without Sphere), and Paradise in the picture above - 2.3g.

I too have been having issues with my new Spheres, initially, the automatic setting during my trial (the other settings were locked at the time) drove me crazy. Im a diesel technician amd work in a very noisy environment. These aids would intermittently raise the volume of everything, noise, speech, birds across the parking lot etc.etc… then, the volume would drop to near nothing and sounds muffled, i suppose noise cancelled? This woukd go on many times during the day and I’d have to manually lower the volume and then raise it back up to hear coworkers talk. Since then, my audiologist has unlocked the main settings and made a few programs for me. Restaurants were horrible with the same things happening. After these programs enabled, they were so much better with only minor issues noted. Now, the master (right side aid) is having a battery issue. These have not been subjected to water, dropped or anything obvious to cause the issue. I put them on around 4:50 AM, and in less than an hour, my low battery warning goes off and shows like 6 or 8%! Granted, i do use the bluetooth often with music and audio books but this is ridiculous. I hope these bugs can be worked out because i absolutely love the sound of these when they’re working correctly. I guess its like anything else, the first run will always have issues. I hope you all have a super great day and happy hearing!!

In reply to @PCamp

@PCamp said:

I currently have 6 year old non-bluetooth Starkey’s that need to be replaced. I was leaning towards Phonak because I heard they play best with Android.

Sorry this is bullshit, you don’t take hearing aids because of Android compatibility, you take it because of better listening!

You never heard someone telling you he took this car because it has had a better radio in it.

In reply to @Misterref78

To be honest, I was presented with two brands that seemed identical on paper. I chose the Phonak because I was told the other brand was finicky with android. Down the road, if my hearing continues to deteriorate, obviously, the that better addresses the loss will be the choice.

In reply to @Misterref78

@Misterref78 said:

you don’t take hearing aids because of Android compatibility

Many here would differ with you loudly! Yes, the #1 thing for most hearing aid users is to be able to hear well. Most folks with hearing aids could be helped with several different brands/models.
If the number 1 most important aspect of hearing aids is addressed, then most of us have a preference of which bells and whistles we want to add. I also prefer to be able to stream and support of my Android is very important to me.
Everyone is entitled to choose the things that are important to them.
I also believe that we are all entitled to voice our opinion on our preferences without being pounced on by someone who chooses to disagree.
My 2 cents worth,
Dan

Yes after testing you can then decide if the one with very good android connection is worth to be taken even if it’s not that good like the other one with unstable connection.
but to be honest, all other brands that already have will fit better with Android than Phonak, but this also means that you need a new phone that support LE Audio.
I liked the way Phonak connect with everything with but for me it was not worth to take those only because of that because Oticon Intent was much better for me and thanks to LE Audio (but also with Low ) they have a stable connection with Samsung S24, and of course if you use an old or cheap phone it will never work good with such hearing aids.

but you cannot just look at the whitepaper and decide wich would be good, this is not a robovaccleaner or a TV, this is something that is such different to so many people

I was always wondering why people in this forum had so many “new” hearing aids but now I start to understand, no wonder when you buy hearing aids only by reading a whitepaper or is influenced by advertising.

I buy my hearing aids every 6-7 years but I am testing those and I chose the one that is best for me, not what the brand suggest me to be best.

In reply to @raylock1

LOL, I’m gonna MAIL you my aids for adjusting if I ever get the Spheres. You walk the walk and talk the talk. I wish I was a DIYer. It seems daunting to learn all these tricks 'n tips.

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