the Infinios are based on a new main chip design, so I would have thought they should be ready for this - and compared to everything else the chip does, I wouldn’t think that supporting LC3 should be all that burdensome.
It’s ready as you suspect, from what I understand is Sonova isn’t supporting this right now because they believe something along the lines isn’t ready for prime time?
I’m also a layperson when it comes to electronics engineering, so as I said, this is just my wild guess…
Phonak doesn’t seem to have given up on providing updates for its products. Looking at the improvements in this update, that’s commendable. I just wonder why Phonak hasn’t rolled out the LE audio update yet: since all the hardware features are already built in. I imagine I’m not alone in thinking hands-free functionality isn’t suitable for everyone or every situation. Moreover, as its name suggests, “Low Energy Audio” offers efficiency that Bluetooth Classic simply can’t match. (Many Marvel users have likely experienced this: after streaming audio for a while, one hearing aid’s remaining battery drops 20-30% lower than the other. This is primarily because one hearing aid must relay the signal to another, which further drains its battery.)
Setting aside any “malicious intent” from manufacturers, if it’s merely a software design issue, why not prioritize launching Bluetooth LE audio? Remember, I’m not referring to . Phonak could follow Oticon or other brands in supporting BT LE audio first—technically, this would be simpler. Unless Phonak still believes Bluetooth LE audio lacks widespread adoption, they should look at what every other hearing aid and earbud manufacturer is doing…
My personal guess is they’ve hit unforeseen technical hurdles that aren’t easy fixes. LE audio isn’t some new, hard-to-implement technology, and the required hardware is already built in. A year later, with no plans or schedule, what are they waiting for? Or do others see technical/commercial reasons why their “Bluetooth LE audio ready” claim remains unfulfilled a year on?
Or, looking on the bright side, they might genuinely be preparing new LE audio firmware without disclosing details yet. If the next-generation Phonak Sphere truly incorporates LE audio functionality while reducing physical size, I’d be very interested in purchasing it.
It could be what you said , or it could be a simple sales and marketing priority: is not widely available, classic is solid, versatile and sounds well and only a very small percentage of phones support today .
Truth is , Auracast is for early adopters today.
Technically feasible and practically implementable with efficiency and effectiveness are two different matters.
The following data is provided by Grok 3, primarily evaluated using typical mid-to-low-end mobile phone chips:
A dedicated hardware decoder for on the chip can mitigate the performance impact to a large extent — often reducing CPU load by 80–95% compared to a pure software implementation.
How Hardware Decoding Helps:
Software LC3 Decoding
CPU Usage: 10–30% on mid-range cores (e.g., Cortex-A53) at 32 kHz/160 kbps
Power Consumption: High (CPU active during decode)
Latency: Higher due to scheduling
Scalability: Limited by CPU headroom
Hardware LC3 Decoder
CPU Usage: <2–5% (primarily for data transfer)
Power Consumption: Very low ( or fixed-function block)
Latency: Lower and deterministic
Scalability: Supports multi-stream with minimal overhead
LC3 hardware decoding is an module. It’s not just a cost issue; the decision to embed this functionality must be made during chip procurement/design, which cannot be achieved through any last-minute changes. If Phonak did not embed this IP module during chip design or procurement from Onsemi, feasible approach would be software decoding. The impact on final product performance may only be determined through actual testing.
Finally, I might be wrong. I just want to know what Phonak is up to. With enough time for design and refinement, will the next generation of Sphere finally be the hearing aid I’ve been hoping for?
Finally, I might be wrong. I just want to know what Phonak is up to.
Yeah, you won’t ever know this: they’ll have roadmapped the bones of it for their investors, but commercially they won’t release what’s coming in their 2-5yr medium term plan. Simply because it’s commercially sensitive in indicating where they’re going to their competitors, financially sensitive in terms of their share price and fraught with issues/puts pressure on their R+D if they lay-out something that’s ‘nailed on’, but they are falling short on implementation.
It’s the luxury of being one of the market leaders: they won’t because they don’t have to.
We completely understand your frustration and appreciate your patience.
We can confirm that our ERA chip is “Ready for ”. However, at this time, we’re unable to share specific details about future releases or provide a timeline for full Auracast compatibility.
Rest assured, we will inform our users as soon as the Auracast feature becomes available.
Feel any smarter? Me neither.
I guess it’s possible (and sensible, even) that their priority was the changes that went into the “Ultra” upgrade - which would mean that mmmmmaybe will be their next priority, unless they plan to do something else first, like maybe take some vacation time. Hmmm…
We can confirm that our ERA chip is “Ready for ”. However, at this time, we’re unable to share specific details about future releases or provide a timeline for full Auracast compatibility.
…Can we assume that this means that it’s got hardware decoding baked in? That’s how I would interpret what they wrote me, but of course “ready” can be a term of art. You would think, though, that adding hardware decoding would have been a fairly obvious and sensible move when they were speccing out the ERA chip. I live in hope - which is often a mistake, but still…
I think we can assume that it’s got pretty much everything baked in. It’s kind of obvious from their blog post that’s been shared everywhere that they’re happy with being on the horizon and that’s where they’d like it to stay.
@DonRadlauer, @Ray6, I think there is probably simply answer. Phonak has outstanding, but very expensive proprietary Roger system, which seems provide them substantial profits.
It’s good system, can provide signal to unlimited users and has very low (19 ms) latency since over 10 years.
I think they’re afraid, that introducing too soon will obliterate that situation convenient for them.
She did do REM for me on the Oticon domes, but the right dome was leaking feedback a bit. So she switched me over to the Signia Connexx 3.0 vented dome and lo and behold, no more leak, and even better, she tried REM again and told me that there was no adjustment needed in REM with these domes at all.
Hello, Did she set the acoustics to “Open Base” in Genie? Have you had any trouble with the dome slipping off the receiver? THANKS
I have had a few hearing aids so far - Widex Moment, and now Oticon Real. Before the Oticon I tried Phonak because I liked the fact that I could connect it to my laptop at work etc. But I never did get used to the distinct switching in profiles and noise suppression that it did. Turning on the faucet would suddenly change the sound. It felt awkward to me. The Oticons have been a pleasure (after tinkering with the feedback settings). It sounds natural, just like the Widex did, but better sound quality in general (epecially Bluetooth streaming).
She did do REM for me on the Oticon domes, but the right dome was leaking feedback a bit. So she switched me over to the Signia Connexx 3.0 vented dome and lo and behold, no more leak, and even better, she tried REM again and told me that there was no adjustment needed in REM with these domes at all.
Hello, Did she set the acoustics to “Open Base” in Genie? Have you had any trouble with the dome slipping off the receiver? THANKS
Yes, it was set to open bass dome with vent. Actually I do have some problem with this Signia Connexx 3.0 dome slipping off the receiver when I tried to remove the whole thing from my ears quickly initially. I had to use a tweezer to remove the dome that was stuck behind. But after that, if I learn to remove the whole thing slowly out of my ear, then the whole thing comes out together OK. Just have to remember not to yank it out too fast and hard.
Yes, i thought it might slip off. The receivers its meant for have double collar for it to attach to.. The Intents only have a single collar. I will try it but i will be careful too.
I have tried the Connexx 3.0 sleeves on Oticon Reals and they unfortunately came off quite easily when removing the aids and got stuck in the ear canal. I now have custom moulds which work much better for me.
I picked up my Phonak I90 Sphere today from the audi. He was going to skip because he thought I didn’t know what it was. When I asked him to do it, he begrudgingly went and set it up and did it. He said that I was the first customer of his that he fitted a Phonak with. He seemed very biased toward Starkey. The REM session was kind of weird because he’d adjust up the highs a little bit at a time (where the deficit seems to be) and asks me how does it sound now each time. I’m was a little annoyed and I’m like “Instead of asking me how it sounds each time you make an incremental adjustment, why don’t you just adjust it to the target in 1 shot then ask me only once how it sounds?”
I asked him if he made sure that the HAs were updated with the Ultra firmware. He said he saw that it mentioned that there were updates and he did it already. I was a little surprised that it didn’t come from the factory with Ultra already since my order date was 10/24 and according to a recent Dr. Cliff video on Ultra, all aids ordered on 10/22 and later should have the Ultra installed. At any rate, when I went home and checked (I have the Phonak Target sw), my aids did not have the Ultra software updated yet, so I spent the 7 minutes to update it. I was disappointed that the audi told me he did it already, but the proof was in the pudding that he didn’t.
I asked him what he knew about the Active Vent receiver and he didn’t know squat about it. He thought I was asking about custom molds. Given that I’m his first ever Phonak customer, it was apparent that he’s not very knowledgeable about Phonak stuff. By the way, I didn’t choose him as my audi. The only discount provider who is in network with my insurance company picked this audi near my house for me, so I really had no choice.
I don’t have any detailed comparison between the I90 and the Real to share yet, because I just got the I90 today and I’m still learning about it. However, overall impression is that the I90 is a bit more aggressive toward muting the surrounding noise compared to the Real, which is designed to stay pretty true to the Oticon open paradigm. For example, in the car, the Real lets in a lot more road noise, but the I90 does a good job of suppression this road noise. But speech is still clear with the Real despite the road noise, and speech is also very good with the I90. So it’s more of a user preference whether they like to hear more or less noise/sounds around them. Pretty much the same experience inside Costco. With the Real I hear a lot more sounds. With the I90, the sounds I hear are very selective. Although the surrounding human speeches seem to get priority with the I90, I can’t really predict which of the non-speech environmental sounds the I90 will let me here and which ones it will suppress for me. There’s no rhythm or rhyme on what I can expect to hear from the I90 on non-speech sounds.
One very noticeable difference is that my own voice sounds dull and muted on the I90, and I have no issue like this with the Real. Anybody has any tip to fix this for me, I’d very much appreciate it (@JordanK ?). I wear the same exact dome on both the Real and the I90 (Signia Connexx 3.0 single vent dome), so it can’t be due to occlusion issue or something like that because it would apply to both aids already.
I don’t notice AutoSense 7 hunting and switching between programs a lot, except for when I use streaming and then pause it, which would cause AutoSense Auto to switch me out of the BT streaming with mic into Calm, which seems to suppress environmental noise more aggressively than BT streaming with mic on. I’m guessing because the environmental sounds have to compete with the streaming sound, so Phonak might open up the environmental sounds a bit more when streaming to make them more noticeable.
By the way, I’m not thrown off by the Phonak’s fitting rationale because I’m more used to the Oticon rationale. Either seems fine to me. And I love the Phonak Bluetooth legacy’s ability to connect with any standard BT devices. Even with my iPhone, I can have both the Real connected to it via the Apple MFI and the I90 via BT, so I can stream from either brand from my iPhone at the same time.
I played around with SoundRecover2 (the Phonak technology using frequency compression) a bit because I had great success with the Oticon frequency lowering technology (called Speech Rescue, using frequency tranposition and composition). I tried for the most Audibility setting which brings the lowest destination frequency1 to about 800Hz, but that didn’t turn out good because the result didn’t make the fricatives sound natural anymore. Instead of hearing clearer “s” and “sh”, I actually hearing a bit of warbled sounds instead. So I put it back to the default which is 1.8 KHz for the lowest destination frequency1, and it sounded more normal again. At this default setting on Phonak, the SoundRecover2 frequency lowering result sounds just every bit as good as the Oticon Speech Rescue frequency lowering technology to me. I tried to listen to music on the Phonak aids with SoundRecover2 and I don’t notice any kind of tonal distortion that I was afraid might be detectable due to the frequency compression technology. I guess that’s because it’s mostly lowering high end sounds which might not be as rich in tonal colors as the mid and low sounds to make anything noticeable as being off tunes.
Overall, with just the first day result only so far, I’m probably equally impressed about the performance of the I90 compared to the Real. And that’s not having a chance to compare its performance in very noisy places yet against the Real. The main negative against the I90 so far is that my own voice on the Phonak is very muted sounding compared to the Real. I haven’t been able to figure out how to fix it yet
Volusiano, that was an interesting evaluation since my hearing is roughly similar to yours and I have the Oticon Intent. I tried the I90 Sphere prior Ultra and found them to be good aids, but not really an improvement over the Intent. I was looking for noise reduction. I use Oticon single vent dome and thought that might be the reason for lack of improvement. I bought online, but had performed locally. I am also DYI, and it took me many many iterations to finally get a good adjustment, even with REM. I also found out I had to adjust each program individually. As far as my own voice, this was one of the many adjustment that I made. Unfortunately I could not tell you exactly what I did to improve. Even in the end, the Phonak did not sound as good as the Intent and I returned them. Thinking about trying the Ultra or the new Starkey Omega.Did you consider the Omega?
One very noticeable difference is that my own voice sounds dull and muted on the I90, and I have no issue like this with the Real. Anybody has any tip to fix this for me, I’d very much appreciate it (@JordanK ?). I wear the same exact dome on both the Real and the I90 (Signia Connexx 3.0 single vent dome), so it can’t be due to occlusion issue or something like that because it would apply to both aids already.
Very eager to get your feedback on the Sphere’s. IMHO, they are phenomenal.
My voice doesn’t sound muted. Couple of things to consider. My audiologist initially set up my Sphere’s with M receivers and I ended up having a ton of issues with speech clarity. We then bumped up to P (Power) receivers and all the issues went away. Everything sound significantly better. Not sure why given I had M receivers on the previous generation Lumity hearing aids.
Also…my Sphere’s were setup and ’d with v5.0. That might make a big difference with speech. Maybe someone else can comment.
Thanks Jordan. My hearing loss is still not too bad in the lows so I’m set up with M receivers. I can see how the P receivers would be more suitable for you.
I was able to explore the Phonak Target 11.1 software some more and found options in the Automatic Fine Tuning and Audibility Fine Tuning sections where there’s an Own Voice option. I went again and made the adjustments in there to expand my Own Voice settings closer to the target lines and it seems to help quite a bit. So I’m a lot happier with the I90 Own Voice performance now. Not only that, this adjustment also seems to enhance the audibility of hearing my wife’s voice quite a bit better as well, so I’ll take this win-win any time now.
Do you with the Phonak Target 11.1?
One last question about the MyPhonak app. If I’m using the Automatic program, is there a way to tell from the MyPhonak app which of the 6 built-in programs AutoSense 7 has selected for me? It just shows Automatic, but I have no idea which of the 6 programs is being selected at that time. A similar question for streaming. It just shows Streaming + Mic, without a way to be able to tell whether this is the “Media Speech + Mic” or the “Media Music + Mic”.
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