Philips HearLink 9050 to hit Costco soon? With similar tech to Oticon Intent?

Jane_M, I’m getting ready Monday to visit my Costco and probably order a pair of 9050s and I wonder since you have now had yours for a week or so if you are still pleased? I’m especially interested in android connectivity. Also, have you had a chance to try them in noisy situations? Thanks a lot!

I think they are good HAs. The biggest factor for me is that they DO work handsfree with my phone. Thanks to the tip from another commenter - it does work to pick up and hang up calls to just double tap the HA. I was trying to do it by pressing the HA button which is much more unwieldy and was not working. I have adjusted the equalizers in all of my program options and that has helped some with the tinniness. I have to say that I am a new HA user so I don’t have a lot to compare it to. And I have mild to moderate loss - at the threshold where they recommend use of HAs. I went to a lecture in a hotel ball room that included a luncheon (bad acoustics, lots of people chatting, etc) and they seemed to work fine. I cycled through the programs and used “restaurant” while folks ate and chatted, and then switched over maybe to tv/music to listen to the lecture, which was no problem because he had a mic and nobody else was making much noise. I did try a plug in Bluetooth 5.3 transmitter to put on my sound bar to try and listen to my tv via the HA but while the HA paired, no sound came through. As a new user, it is difficult for me to believe that we need to purchase a $300 device from the HA co just to listen to the TV via the aids(!!!). I would like to use the HAs for tv so I can seamlessly pick up a call if need be while watching TV. But it looks like I either need to get the $300 device or put in earbuds. I am still just getting used to wearing HAs at all. I do find that I can turn the TV volume down more when watching. I walk around and do tasks around the house while on the phone and the HAs do not do as good a job blocking out sounds I am making (like running water) while on the phone, evidenced by the person on the other end saying they could not hear me while water was running. Earbuds will actually block out a lot of that background noise. But you cannot have everything, apparently. Other than while I am doing noisy things, the person on the other end of phone says they can hear me talking just fine. When I am in the car listening to music, the quality of sound is not as good as without hearing aids for me. It puzzles me that HAs cannot give the same sound quality as a good set of earbuds. I suppose this could be due to the amplifying of certain registers tuned to my hearing loss which will help me hear speech but is over amped for nuance in music? I will bring it up when I go back in a couple of weeks for adjustments. That is my report so far. Again, I am not going to be good to compare to other aids as I really only ever tried the 9040 and returned them for the inability to use phone hands free. I guess I like them better than the 9040s - these annoy me less. I hope that helps!

Thanks for the correction. I was misinformed. I will check out the closest Costco first hand.

I really appreciate you taking the time to quickly respond. I previously had the Jabra ha and I suppose they may have worked well with an iphone, but you never knew what would happen when my android phone rang. The 9050 sounds like just what I need. Thanks again!

@tribalrose said:

Of course the fact that the 9050s only do hands-free with a few new and relative expensive phones is a negative and for me just adds to the price of the aids.

The Google pixels are relatively inexpensive and do have LE Audio for hands free. The 7 and 7A should get you into hands free.

@bobbydigital16 Further proof Oticon and Philips are not the same:

Oticon TV adapter Compatibility

I have an Oticon tva3 and cannot connect the Philips 9050’s to it.

This was just posted in another thread.
Firmware and software are mutually exclusive.
However, as @Volusiano mentioned, the value is the driving factor, right?
Heck, with the $$ you save on the 9050, you could buy a bunch of TVA’s!!

@Jane_M said:

. When I am in the car listening to music, the quality of sound is not as good as without hearing aids for me. It puzzles me that HAs cannot give the same sound quality as a good set of earbuds. I suppose this could be due to the amplifying of certain registers tuned to my hearing loss which will help me hear speech but is over amped for nuance in music?

The Philips 9050 have a Music Program available which your HIS can program as an additional program for Music/TV. You are absolutely correct about the General program being tailored for speech, while the Music program dispenses with all the digital features used for speech only.

Thanks! I DO use the music/tv program. I will see about getting that program tweaked a bit when I go in.

Very unlikely the hardware is different. The design and manufacturing costs are prohibitive (based on my 40 years as an engineer in the electronics industry). In addition, different hardware would require separate FDA approval. Most likely, the hardware is the same, but the firmware is (somewhat) different.

@WhiteHat said:

I would say this HAS been hashed to death.

@e1405 said:

Exactly. They are similar, equivalent even, but not the same. They might share most, if not all, of the hardware, but the firmware and some of the features are definitely different, as you would have noticed if you’ve tried programming both with Genie 2 (Oticon) and Hearlink (Philips).

The bold part above is the key differentiation between the Oticon and the Philips aids. The hardware and some peripheral software features are indeed the same, like built-in programs, wind control, sudden sound control. frequency lowering, feedback control, etc. But if one actually installs and reviews Genie 2 (for Oticon) and HearSuite (for Philips) core software features, one will find that the core features are quite different. They don’t have a one-to-one mapping like with the peripheral software features.

Perhaps an analogy is like with an automobile. The core engines might be of the combustion type (analogy to AI technology), but one might be of the rotary type while the other is of the piston type → this is the key differentiation. Meanwhile, the peripheral stuff like the cooling system, alternator, transmission, braking system, electronics, etc may be the same technology. Even the hardwares, like the car body, the tires/wheels, suspension, the styling, might be exactly alike, but with different colors and patterns.

So does that make them the same car? It’s up to the buyer to decide, I guess. It depends on whether you care if one is a rotary type combustion engine and the other is a piston type combustion engine or not. If not, then OK, you can call them the same.

@Jane_M said:

I DO use the music/tv program

Ah, that may be the problem, because the 9050 uses the same fitting rationale for music as oticon, and it’s designed to mimic a specific sound profile which some people (myself included) really dislike!
You may wish to ask them to create a music program based on the general program, but with all the speech processing programming turned off. This will give you a better outcome.

@bobbydigital16 said:

Doesn’t philips have their own branded TV adapter?

Yes they do: Here’s a link to their accessories page31

Thanks for the info! I am new with the HAs so have no experience of what is possible, what is not.

I hear you (pun). Let your fitter know what you dislike about the sound of music, and if they can’t tweak it, ask for the custom program like I described. They should be able to do it.

As for your TV streaming, I’m not sure LE Audio is completely ready for prime time, but @RSW posted in another thread an app you may wish to try :AudioRelay. Works with android, iphone, and windows.