Oticon Zeal - Rechargeable in the ear with Bluetooth

My guess is this is not part of their normal RIC release cycle, so would still expect a replacement for Intent sooner than that.

Maybe they just don’t know what to do yet — stick with their “open” approach or embrace the “spheric” way? And now Phonak also offers free firmware upgrades, so I’m curious to see how they’ll respond.

I used the Virto Titaniums 2025 generation. They’re good but my hearing fluctuates a lot so I wanted more control over them. Also, beam forming with the Virto R’s is very useful if you need it and conectivity with Roger is incredible for me personally. I just plug into a computer and go. I have in the past used Oticon Phonak Widex and Starkey RICs as well. good and bad in different situations but I get more spacial awareness with ITE devices.

Battery is encapsulated and over moulded: not going to be possible to change ever.

I sure hope not. This is totally disappointing.

Hopefully if the battery goes you can send it back to Oticon for repair / swap over? Say within 5 years?

Zeal could be something similar or slightly superior to Apple’s Air Pods Pro (2+3) approach. It will be interesting to observe future developments regarding Apple in that direction.

I still probably think Zeal will surpass AirPods Pro´s ability regarding hearing aid features. But for many of us with a slightly more profound loss they will not be much of an option.

It does seem Oticon is targeting the OTC market and aiming to pick up other users at the same time. For use such as listening to media and phone calls AAP2/3 will likely remain superior. The hearing aid companies need better mics and a noise removal process to improve call quality for the other end of the line.

It’s hard to tell from photos but could the aid be too long, especially with custom tips that may not fit as deeply as domes? Perhaps they are designing the tips differently than for their RICs.

Actually, don’t get me wrong, I think the Intent is superb. Absolutely brilliant in 95% of situations. I am just after that last 5% in noisy situations. However, it is an improvement in noise, a massive improvement I would say over all my previous devices, except for the Infinio, which I trialled briefly.

The signias were really not good IMHO. I tried them when they 1st came out, they have nasty delay, an auto sense type thing you can’t turn off and the sound really wasn’t good at all. They worked ok in clinic, but take them outside and things got very mushy. Plus, they were huge and didn’t sit well in my ears at least. I’m not even talking about the tips so much as the device itself. Felt like someone was trying to cram something very non-ear shaped in there like a match box with 3 people carriers hanging off the sides

I wonder how much these will cost? I still think airpods pro 3, at least for me work very well as hearing aids, except for the horrible “Oh I’ve heard a loud noise, I must turn myself down for about 30 seconds before I come back up again” problem that they seem to have.

Thanks! That is comforting to know.

I don’t know why, but my audiologist says that only Phonak works for my level of loss. I don’t really want to accept that!

Well, that can’t be right in my view. Look at my audiogram! I am using 105dB receivers - and the loudness is absolutely great.