Has anyone recent experience using Roger and Phonak aids?

I have the previous generation of Phonak hearing aids - Paradise - and they’re very good (technically mine are the Costco version, resold as KS10). Definitely a step change from my NHS aids.

Earlier this year I ordered the Roger On iN, the first version, which is superb. I mainly use mine for streaming audio for work calls to my hearing aids but it’s excellent in meetings where you can again change its settings through an app. The second edition of this adds the ability to use the Roger as the mic for Teams, Zoom etc but otherwise I don’t see a ton of difference.

My employer purchased the Roger device for me, but I have the older Roger ‘pen’ device, which is still useful but lacks the smartphone app integration.

Zebras

I love my Phonak Roger Table Mic II x 4.

I wear Phonak M70, P70 and just about to get the L90.

Mainly wear my P70 currently.

I also love the Phonak Partner Mic.

lgpiper

Reading, Massachusetts, USA

I got my Phonak about 4 years ago, and got a Roger Select iN along with them. The HAs are Marvels with a telecom loop. Maybe I can remember the model and so forth in a bit (M90-13T, I believe). Same with the Select.

Whatever, I find the Select to be invaluable. When I go out to dinner with my spouse, she wears the. Roger around her neck and we can converse comfortably. That isn’t possible for times my mature memory forgets to gather up Roger before we go out. On such occasions, sans Roger that is, communication is almost impossible in a relatively noisy environment such is found in most modern restaurants (what happened to those nice places of my youth with the heavy white table cloths?).

Then, when we have others out to dinner with us, such as this past week when my younger son, his spouse, and their 4-year old came to visit, I place ol’ Roger on the table. It does a wonderful job of picking up their voices, even from across the table, so that I can converse freely with everyone at the table.

At home, Roger mostly lives connected to the TV so that my spouse and I can have seperate volume levels.

A year ago, Roger had an accident and stopped working. Fortunately my audiologist was able to resuscitate him. Had she not, my spouse would gladly have forked out the lettuce to get me another. Not only is Roger invaluable to me, but he’s also invaluable to the people who would like to socialize with me.

I don’t know your specific situation, but in my case, my audiologist was happy to let me have a few weeks trial with the Roger before I had to search far and wide for the funds to purchase him.

1Bluejay

I have TWO pairs of rechargeable Phonak Lumity Life hearing aids, which I change out every other day so neither is ever “mothballed”.

You’ll see from my that short of a Bionic Woman’s ear implant, I could use help across the board. I must’ve lucked out! I’ve had a loaner Roger ON IN V2 since early Sept. I get in on the 13th of Oct to swap this loaner for at least ONE Roger V2 (or two, if I need a separate stick + license to put on my other pair of Lumity Life aids).

It could be that I have a great relationship with my audi, and she pushed the envelope on my behalf with Phonak, but you should DEFINITELY get a decent trial usage, and I think 2 weeks is a fair amount of time to see you benefit from using the device.

There are plusses and not-so-plusses with the V2 stick. It’s SUPER transportable (about the size of a small dill pickle?), and works not only plugged in to a TV as streamer, but also streams audio into your ears if held as a pointer or placed on a tabletop at a restaurant or dinner party. I don’t use it as a device that someone ELSE wears in a lanyard (comes with the kit) cuz I don’t have any speaker/audience activities. So that’s 3 uses right there.

The range of the Roger V2 is longer than the older Phonak TV Connector, but the audio quality is harsh, kind of like a public address system in all but the straight connected-to-TV mode.

There are several threads here you can check out (doing keyword search in the search window at top right), among which is how to install, remove, transfer and re-install the Roger V2 license. That is the boondoggle. It appears that Phonak sells only TWO licenses per Roger stick. So you get one license transferred to the RIGHT aid, and one to the LEFt aid. DOH! Stupid compared to the ease of pairing + connecting multiple hearing aids to the old TV Connector.

But! They didn’t want to leave money on the table, no sirree! Next thing you know, they’ll be charging us for the minute used on our aids, requiring a phone app to track that usage. Handy way to SHUT things down if we didn’t pay up.

Despite that minor digression … I’m a big fan of the way my world sounds with Phonak aids, and very much value both the TV Connector and the Roger V2 devices. I recommend you push back, get the loaner for a good 2 weeks and go from there. Hey, put down $100 deposit if they feel you’ll run off with them.

imcandrewAuthor

Thank you all for your helpful replies.
I had given thought to what might have been a cheaper option - buy a good quality Bluetooth microphone and connect that to the aids the way phones and some other things do, but hen I discovered that Roger doesn’t use Bluetooth - it uses a different wireless protocol so that wouldn’t work. Crafty, but understandable from the company’s economics!
Anyway, it does seem worth the test but with something costing well over a £1,000 I would like a reasonable trial period like the 30 days one gets with the Phonak from Boots.

garethjwells

Scotland

I find that Roger streaming doesn’t slay the batteries in my the same way as Bluetooth does. It’s good for that.

Psych1

I have all the Roger devices and a Phonak Bluetooth microphone. All are great with different capabilities and limits and degrees of greatness. The ON is by far the most versatile and easy-to-use. Table Mic the most powerful. Bluetooth the cheapest. Select in between. Pens oldie but goodie but limited. Clip-on terrific 1 to 1. Again, all great and any one can make a big difference in your life.

DaveL

Canada (Toronto) YYZ

I have Phonak Audeo Paradise P90’s. They are two years old.
They finally work well for me after I found a new hearing aid practitioner to set them up. The audiologist who provided them to me new couldn’t/didn’t set them up so I could hear.

Just saying so to help.

Everything is an option. I have rechargeable batteries. I’d rather have replacement batteries as I used to. I’ve run out. I have a remote control. I have a microphone for others to wear if they want to communicate with me. And I have a tv connector. I don’t have the tabletop mic yet…I’d like to.

DaveL
Toronto

Bonaprof

The Phonak Roger select works great when I sit with family or friends at dinner. Although the select permits me to hear and participate in all discussions, it does amplify surrounding sounds too. At most restaurants it works well, my daughter-in-law commented recently that she noticed that I participated in all the talk.

imcandrewAuthor

In reply to @1Bluejay

I am tempted but while fortunately affordable it is still a significant sum of money, and at 84 with metastatic prostate cancer with 50% chance of surviving another 5 years I wonder if I really need it. Maybe better leaving the £1,500 in my estate for my wife and kids! Is there a re-sale market as a second hand unit or does Phonak tie that up too?
On a practical and less gloomy level, as I need to purchase on-line to get a 30 day trial period, do I need an audiologist to help setup. The video on the site implies it is as simple as connecting the to my Smartphone. Set Roger in pairing mode, set HA in pairing mode and wait for the result!
However in the order text it says it needs setting up by my audiologist or by me with their help.
And as I said above my audiologist didn’t seem in the least bit enthusiastic about Roger when I asked…

Psych1

A lot of questions. Some probably better for your family physician, some for a financial counselor, if you are religious some for a religious advisor, some for a psychiatrist.

For here, setting up Roger systems can be complicated. Not too hard if you have the technical competence to understand the directions and the physical dexterity to follow those directions. Otherwise, you will definitely need help.

Second-hand on-line. You pay you money and takes you chances.

1Bluejay

In reply to @imcandrew

@imcandrew said:

at 84 with metastatic prostate cancer with 50% chance of surviving another 5 years I wonder if I really need it.

GET IT. Five years is a LONG time to enjoy - and HEAR! - life! Yes, there is resale at eBay and perhaps other sites, but that shouldn’t be YOUR concern. Seriously.

In five years even medical advances can extend your life. I wouldn’t even think twice about this - and I don’t care if your is that of a child.

lgpiper

Reading, Massachusetts, USA

In reply to @garethjwells

Absolutely! I use Roger a lot, for TV, letting my spouse take me out to dinner, and so forth. I don’t much notice the battery drain. But, if I decide to walk my dog, Edamame, whilst streaming music from my iPhone, or just make a lot of phone calls (a rare thing for me, given that my kids have dubbed me a “phone retard”), just a few hours of such activity takes a day or so away from my battery life. So, several hours each day of Roger versus several hours two or three days in a week with music/phone calls makes a difference between 5 days between battery changes or 7-to-eight days between changes.

Of course, we’re not talking big bucks. Five days between battery replacements versus eight days amounts to something like $13/year. But, if you’re someone interested in nickel-and-diming yourself to relative comfort, those $13 here and there start to add up.

Emile030

In reply to @imcandrew

I read the valuable information you already got until now.
Here are my two cents to your questions.

If you have Roger Ready ’s the process is really simple. If they are older so not Roger “ready” the setup will be more complex. But there is enough written about this topic on the forum here.
Another complicating factor is that when you are living in the EU you cannot regularly buy the “In” version so you have to work with the coupling device to bring the licenses to your aids. They only sell the cheaper version which will be more expensive at the end as you need the additional equipment and if you are not a help. Workaround for that is buying the Roger inofficially on eBay or where ever.

Important to know is if you could benefit from the given characteristics.
What it really does is that it streams the captured sounds “in the speech frequency range” right to your ears by streaming. So this means filtered sound and through this additional noise reduced. Important if your speech in noise recognition is affected and in what extent. And how about your word recognition ability. These will be personally different from other users.

Imagine you put it on the table it works as if you go with your ears closer to the person you put or point the device at. In this case you just not are getting closer with your ears but instead stay seated or staying where you are, you’re ears on a long stick away from you over there where you want to listen. That’s how it works.

Another benefit, as stated before, it does not connect to your HA by Bluetooth so the streaming uses less battery as a Bluetooth solution.

If it is worth the money is your own judgement. If your usecase is matching it could be of daily benefit as you will enjoy it every day of your lifetime. Also the expected second hand price, in case your descendants have to sell it, is still very good.

But really try before you buy if you are unsure if it benefits you in your usecases. I think the two weeks you get in online buying will be enough to test it out.

Good luck,
Emile (happy owner of In and On versions as well as the older Pen and also TV streamer)

imcandrewAuthor