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Specsavers Advance Elite

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Edited

Yesterday I went for a hearing test at Specsavers after discovering that the Specsavers Advance Elite, also known as the Advance 72, is a white label version of the Phonak Lumity.

Like the Costco KS10, which I am upgrading from, there might be one or two features not available. It is not available in the Life version of Lumity nor the Naida versions.

There is a 100 day trial. The price comes to £2125. This includes custom receivers, the rechargeable unit and a 4 year guarantee. I can decide to upgrade to the actual Lumity if I want within the 100 day period as long as I pay the price difference. The Lumity is £2800.

They are also locked but I don’t consider that too much of an issue as the Specsavers store is in my town centre and it is only 1.5 miles away, and I will be able to go back when needed to make adjustments.

After Costco and Sonova ended their relationship, this is a new exploration. The audiologist was knowledgeable and will perform in my follow up appointment in a couple of weeks. Impressions were taken yesterday for the custom c-shells.

We did briefly discuss the Naida Lumity. But the audiologist said the version was within my range with the UP receivers - after looking at the Target screen. I will see if there is enough headroom during the trial. If not, I may opt for the Naidas.

She said specsavers will be releasing a new version of the App for the aid in a few weeks. In terms of colours one doesn’t get the same range as the Lumity. I chose the colour granite.

The audiologist was keen to know whether I used often. One interesting comment that my audiologist said about Telecoil is that it is very embedded in the UK in terms of legislation. So by law, a lot of banks, customer facing public services etc, must have a loop system. This legislation has taken a long time to implement. This means that will take a long time too to implement, as impressive as the technology may be.

I will post more in a couple of weeks. I know that people know about the Lumity already. This will be more about the whole specsavers experience. I know that they have stores in Australia and maybe other countries as well.

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In reply to @michael1

Yes. I did ask about them being locked. They are locked, but as I said, the store is local and I can go back to them for adjustments. My only concern is making sure the settings I have for Roger Direct are copied across from my existing Target settings. Once the is done I would not have made any adjustments to the fitting itself as when I tried that with the KS10s it was counter productive, as I found it was a very good fit that I could not improve upon.

The Advance range at Specsavers is rebranded Unitron rather than Phonak. Not that that should put you off - just to make you aware why they also sell the Phonak branded products!

That’s interesting, historically the Sonova Specsavers Advance range has always been Unitron. I wonder why they would bother to sell a branded and rebranded Lumity! Must be working for them! Glad to hear you’re happy with them so far!

Thank you. It may vary by country. I saw a post from New Zealand saying the Elite was a signia. I have also seen Unitron mentioned. I will post my findings and try and establish the make up of the Advance range.

It’ll be very easy to know exactly, just by viewing which software is being used for programming, Target or TrueFit or any other.

Yes. Absolutely. Thanks. Although I will try and transfer the licenses myself. I’ll contact hab online who were the providers for assistance. They’ve been helpful in the past.

Yes in Australia the elite is the Signia Pure, but I got the impression from the Audi there that they may add the lumity to their unbranded aids at some stage.

Edited

Yesterday I was fitted with the Advance Elite at Specsavers and wore them from 3pm and all day so far.

was performed and the hearing aids were a good fit.

For those that don’t know this is an upgrade from my Costco KS10s, which is a white label Phonak Paradise. The Advance Elite is a white label Phonak Lumity. I have seen people comment on here, especially initially, that the step up had no changes to the chip architecture, and the other changes offered in the Lumity were also minimal. I have reached no conclusions so far, partially because I have not been out in noisy environments yet, and it has not even been a full day, but what I have observed so far has been good:

Connectivity:

In terms of connectivity to devices, in my case, my phone, the TV connector, the iPad, the connection time is smoother and faster and the hand off between devices or back to the automatic setting is absolutely superb. With the KS10s, either after listening to something on my phone, or the TV Connector, it would stay connected for a very extended period, and this would often be frustrating as one would have to turn off the TV connector or bluetooth on the phone manually, as the mics would be attenuated, in the case where the balance was set to the right hand side. With the new aids, it detects after about 3 seconds that there is no longer anything being broadcast and disconnects. This has been a major bug bear and it is now fixed.

Speech Fidelity

This is better. Sometimes there is a confirmation bias to every evaluation, but I am pretty sure, that listening to conversations on the radio/TV and my family, that it is easier and I am picking up accents and nuances more so than before.

Car

I am always relegated to sit in the back of the car. We travelled into town and my daughter was talking to my wife at the front. Normally I can hear that they are saying something, usually in quick exchanges. This time I could actually hear what they were saying. This is a definite step up. The car is one of the more difficult environments that I didn’t have a lot of joy with.

Music

This sounds better, but I am on the fence currently and will need to report back. It is not as good as my Oticon Dynamo , but will need further listening.

Noise

Not enough exposure yet to normal environments.

Battery Life

This is interesting. I have seen a lot of complaints about the modest battery life of the Lumity. However, so far I think the battery consumption has been better that then KS10. I was watching a French series on Netflix using bluetooth on my iPad. This is normally a massive drain, and I have seen the battery on the iPad itself plummet. However, the usage was just normal. I went to bed with about 60% battery last night, but they were fitted about 3pm. Today, I have been using the TV connector and they are currently 83% at about 1pm. So it seems pretty good so far.

I will report back on the noise situation.

Certainly, the conclusion so far is that this is a superior experience. Whether it merits an upgrade will depend upon performance in noise, which were the main selling points of this release. I am going out tonight, to the noisiest local pub. And this will be telling. I will report back about this.

@glucas
Interesting.

I believe, from comments on here, that one of their best improvements, is in speech detection not just beamforming to “in front of you”. In certain programmes, if speech is detected from the sides, it will focus on that side. This is quite a move forward for speech in noise.

I’ve made all programmes 360⁰ in both Marvel and Paradise, so I get less noise reduction, but enough to help, and I don’t get neck ache turning to face everyone. This could make a huge difference, and I’d certainly have that as a selectable programme.

Great review

Edited

So it looks like @Moore8 was correct. It turns out that I do indeed have a Unitron aid. I wasn’t told this by the audiologist. She told me it was a Lumity, but when I looked up something on the App it took me to a Unitron page so I then looked at the Unitron aids online, and it looks exactly the same as the Moxi V-RT.

I went out on Saturday night and it was a very noisy pub. We were in a quiet corner and for the most part I could hear very well. However, I went to the bar (where it was noisier with the sound emanating from another room) and felt that I was not as comfortable as usual when ordering. I think at this point I may have been in the wrong program.

Towards the end of the evening, with the automatic setting now on, we went into the noisiest part of the pub. I saw a couple of old friends, and it was very loud. I could barely hear them but the conversation was short and I didn’t have time to make adjustments. I was now very worried. The aid was sold on it’s ability in noise (refer to their literature and the Phonak Lumity literature). I don’t know much about Unitron tech, so I read up on it. The premium 9 vivante is supposed to have something called Hyperfocus, a zoom feature in loud noise and a specific speech in loud noise program. The speech in loud noise program is not present on the app that I have (it is just called Conversation in noise 1), and the Hyperfocus did not work very well.

The following day I went grocery shopping and one acid test is always if I can hear the person on the check out. I could not hear that well and did not feel comfortable engaging in the conversation.

The day after, I did a comparison test with my wife and daughter by playing loud music in the sitting room and seeing how well I could hear them. I compared with my Oticon Dynamo and KS 10. The Advance Elite did not compare well at all. The Oticon Dynamo BTE (2015 tech) did the best. It was fantastic. I could hear my wife and daughter with amazing crispness and it achieved this amazing sound separation whereby I could hear the music as well. The KS10 was 2nd best - on the whole a good experience. The Advance Elite was poor. The music in the background I could hear but the voices of my wife and daughter did not come through at all well above the noise of the music (mirroring the experience in loud noise in the pub), and worryingly, I could not hear my own voice. With the Oticon I could hear my own voice brilliantly.

Because of the really poor performance with these aids in noise, I am now at a crossroads. I have a follow up appointment on the 27th. As it stands I will be returning them. I am unconvinced by their performance in loud noise, and do not like that I cannot hear my own voice, which seems to be a consequence when loud noise is present. This happens with the KS10 too, but it’s not as bad. Unless the audiologist can perform a major tweak, my next port of call with probably be the Naida Lumity or Oticon Real.

Hi glucas
I have recently purchased the Advane Elite in Australia after my 7yo Phonaks had done their job. I had high hopes BUT so far am very disappointed. I find the sound is always muted - background noise as well as those I’m talking to, no noticeable difference in traffic or noisy restaurants, and trying auto vs other options does nothing for me. I am considering trying a different brand but this will cost me double. Has anyone had this experience? Any advice? I’ve had them adjusted twice and still no joy.

Hi Bab,

Sorry to hear that. Do you know the make of your hearing aids though? The reason why I ask is that I think the Advance Elite in Australia could be a Signia.

That is not to say that is the reason for your issues. I would in your position make sure you get them programmed using . If that doesn’t work and you are still unhappy, perhaps reach out to some people on here who have experience with the Signia.

Failing that, if you are on a tight budget, it might be worth asking about other aids in the Advanced range at Specsavers. One might be a Phonak.

Sorry I can’t help more. Good luck.

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