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Good standard hearing aids without AI bells/whistles

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Hi - new to this forum. If my issue has already been addressed, I’m hoping someone can point me to some older discussion threads.

I’ve been using hearing aids about 10 years and my current ones are 6 years old. They’re giving me good sound quality and sound-of-own-voice quality, but having intermittent problems. They look to be on the verge of failing. Two audiologists think it’s time to replace and I believe it. So I’m doing research, and baffled about out what to buy. I have high-frequency loss that is progressing now to include lower frequencies.

Everything that is now available seems to have been made more complex in ways I don’t use or actively dislike, and can’t deactivate.

They have for directionality, and “stream seamlessly across all my devices” but don’t let me make an immediate settings change by using my finger and pressing a button.

To me, I don’t prefer to use my phone as a remote control: find it, charge it, unlock it, open the app, etc. Also I don’t have any devices. In particular, I do not want my hearing aids to pick up phone calls. I want it not to happen. But it will happen if you have to pair the aids to the phone to change settings and a call comes in, or you forget to go through several steps to make the phone forget the pairing every time, and then you suddenly have a voice in your head. I dislike it.

I just returned an Oticon set after I tested multiple times and there was no difference in managing background noise. This had been a major selling point of the new line - so much improvement with AI, gyroscopes, haptics managing background noise. But there was no difference.

I liked it less than what I’ve got, and it was $6000.

(I also wish I could find a good audiologist around where I’ve moved - but I can’t. With the private practices it’s usually very much a car-dealership vibe. The one stellar practitioner I ever found, best in ten years, left the office shortly after I discovered her.)

So for comparison: I like to use my cellphone to talk; with cars I want to use them to go places. I don’t want a lot of the unavoidable features in new products. But although I can keep repairing an old car, and I can find an older phone on e-bay, hearing aids don’t really last. It makes no sense to shop around for old pairs like the one I am perfectly happy with. The company probably won’t support them for much longer, and audiologists/technicians will stop knowing about how to service them. Do you guys have any ideas? Finally, there’s a Costco near me. I hear staffing is hit-and-miss with Costco, but I’m wondering if the level of sophisticated options is lower on the sets they sell, and might suit me.

Many thanks to anybody who reads this whole thing and tries to give me useful information. Happy new year.

I am a 78 year old IT professional. Been wearing aids for 20 years. Oticon for 15 of those years, my audiologist talked me into the Phonak Spheres, I absolutely love them.yes they have all of the bells and whistles and yes I make use of most of them. The Spheres are awesome in noisy environments.
But yes they can be quiet complicated, but I have never turned down a challenge. I enjoy audiobooks, streaming my phone calls, and music. I go to church services, meetings, lectures, concerts, and I enjoy hiking the forest trails in this area.

Glad to hear that they have suited your needs and you are pleased with them. I myself want to pass on the complication challenge. I disliked the pair I tried: it was optimizing things I don’t value, and deprecating things I do value. Thank you for replying!

I wear the Starkey Signature hearing aids. These use replaceable batteries, are not Bluetooth so no phone or other device connection and no app. If you wanted in the ear aids, these would be one option to consider.

I used to wear Phonak Slim 90s and for me there was too much circuit noise and they would constantly try to connect to my devices (even when Bluetooth was turned off on them) which resulted in a constant tapping noise. Battery life was poor and I also found them uncomfortable so I get where you are coming from.

@bgermain Welcome to the forum and I hope you will find here what you are looking for.

Just to be clear, new hearing aids with all the new technologies, you can use them without a smartphone if you don’t want to, so no complication for you, but the features are there if you change your mind (which I think you will).

Hearing in noise is the main difficulty that all hearing aids manufacturer have; Maybe, one brand could suite you rather than other brands, so you will have to trial them to see if they fit your requirements.

Costco is good place to start with, as they have 6 months trial and you can return them and get a refund, also, the price is around $1600 for a pair, if I am correct, they do have at least 3 or 4 brands to choose from.

In fact, this is one of the best time in hearing history where you can get a descent hearing using hearing instruments, still a long way from completely restoring natural hearing, but it is way better than it use to be in pre 00.

Good luck

In reply to @bgermain

My audiologist is a professor of audiology at the University Medical School and also the head of audiology forcthe Veterans Administration here in my state. He has been my audiologist for over 7 years and has gotten me from wanting to be a hermit to being someone that can be a part of society. I have the Oticon INTENT1 and they were my primary aids for almost 2 years . The sound is great but they just didn’t handle loud noisy environments well. My audiologist talked me into the Phonak Spheres. I said okay but I said they must do what the INTENT1 aids do for me plus allow me to understand speech in very noisy environments. Yes it was a lot to ask, but so far the challenge has been met. I may be 78 but I want to hear my environments including, road noise, wind in the tree tops, the unit, the refrigerator, the wind chimes in my yard, the bird, bees, etc. I am a person of nature and I want to hear it. And oh yes if I happen to be in the city I want to hear the city sounds but just not that loud.

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