I am in an environment that requires ’s to be in flight mode for extended periods of time. I understand that the Oticon Real 1 still allows communication between L/R HA’s in its flight mode while the Edge shuts down all RF including that between HA’s in its Offline Mode (doesn’t call it flight mode). Insurance catalog doesn’t include the Intent so that’s why I chose the Real model for comparison. I am wondering if if it would be better to have the older Real 1 with all of its binaural related features in tact during flight mode vs the newer Edge AI without binaural features available in flight (offline) mode. Thoughts?
In that environment you may prefer a disposable battery hearing aids which is an option for Real.
Given these unique parameters does the employer not assist with hearing aids?
Edge equivalent is now available as a Soundgear model from some Costco locations in case you want to try that first. The extended 180 day return period would allow for a real world test period.
I am glad my employer provides insurance that covers almost all the cost and several visits, but employer didn’t advise anything other than flight mode being a prerequisite. I presume the battery suggestion to protect against the rechargeable battery going dry at an inconvenient time.
Before selecting a model, I learned that some HA’s (like Widex) don’t have buttons so your sort-of out of luck if you don’t want to be 100% app dependent. I starting my trial period for the Edge 24’s and realized that the speech and noise suppression features seemed to completely disappear in flight (offline) mode. I also realized that tapping the Edge Mode+ button or other buttons will re-activate Bluetooth whether intentional or not.
Regarding Costco and their models, I would give them strong consideration if I didn’t have truly good insurance. I like the adaptive AI mode and can see using it for most situations. I’m going to return the Starkey since the flight-mode factors overshadow other benefits in my case. Since the first post, I have learned that Phonak models (in addition to Oticon) allow L/R hearing aid communication in flight mode so I can still get full AI benefits if I go that route.
Apparently for FCC (and other) compliance, Oticon, Phonak, others? use near‑field magnetic induction () or various proprietary methods to allow AI function in flight mode while cutting off the frequencies and energies of concern.
Apparently for FCC (and other) compliance, Oticon, Phonak, others? use near‑field magnetic induction (NFMI) or various proprietary methods to allow AI function in flight mode while cutting off the frequencies and energies of concern.
I don’t have Intent aids but have had 4 models of Oticon that all had . If you download the Instructions for Use manual for the Intent from the Oticon download site, you can find 3 pages of “Technical information” (pages 58-60 in the document I have) covering things like frequency and power of the radios for NFMI and Bluetooth (and Oticon’s “proprietary short-range radio technology” that operates in the same frequency band using the same radio as Bluetooth). You might ensure that your employer doesn’t consider NFMI (3.84 MHz) to be a type of radio that would be disabled in flight mode. From the doc:
The hearing aid contains a radio transceiver using short range magnetic induction technology operating at 3.84 MHz. The magnetic field strength of the transmitter is very weak and always below 15 nW (typically below –40 μA/m (–12.20 dBμA/ft) at 10 meters (33 feet) distance).
Prior to my Oticon aids, I had Siemens Pure aids that used NFMI. They had a streamer (mini Tek if I remember correctly) that connected to a phone with Bluetooth and relayed the Bluetooth audio to the aids using NFMI. So NFMI has the bandwidth to carry at least a mono phone conversation. The range, however, was quite short.
Tucson Arizona