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Transcription and Bluetooth: Starkey Edge AI 24 vs Phonak Infineo Spheric 90

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Hey newcomer here, still fumbling around.

I’m still weighing these two options right now. My audiologist said that Phonak is generally better in terms of speech in noisy environment, and Starkey probably does a little better in battery life. Is this the general consensus here as well? I have profound hearing loss at high frequency, and read somewhere Phonak’s speaker cannot compensate high frequency well due to its lack of MEMS technology The Best Hearing Aids in Background Noise for 20259.

The other 2 interesting features leaving me scratching my head:

  • it seems Starkey’s App can transcribe the conversation on your phone , while Phonak didn’t even mention it. So Phonak has no speech-to-transcript capability?
  • can the hearing aids be connected to multiple phones at the same time, and pick up a call automatically whenever any of them rings? Many Bluetooth headphones, including my current ones already have this feature. How to set up Bluetooth multipoint on your headphones - SoundGuys
Edited

Let’s see. Battery. On the phonak side, historically, this had some truth. The Sphere have a huge battery, and unless you are in an extremely noisy environment for a very long time, you will not have a problem with the batteries. They use more battery in sphere mode by a long way, but they start out huge, too. Most that let the aids run the programming in autosense don’t have a problem. If you put it in sphere mode and forget to take it out, you may run out.

MEMS. I am not aware of any HA maker using MEMS yet. There are some headphones out there. And I’m watching intently to see it in HAs. All the mfrs use the same thing for the receivers in HAs. There are a few twists and turns (like activevents) but the basic driver in the activevents is the same thing. I don’t think any mfr is a leg up or handicapped here.

As for the multiple phones, yes, the Sonova family of HAs (including phonak) allow pairing with 8 devices and simultaneously connecting to two devices. I haven’t done it with two phones, but I can’t think of why it wouldn’t work. The aids don’t care.

I can’t contribute to the Starkey strengths and weaknesses. They are mfi aids and have everything that goes with that, good & bad. Sonova aids will connect to almost anything. Mfi aids are pretty limited, comparatively. Starkey probably has LE audio now, while Infinio aids have it as a stated future capability with a firmware update. We’re waiting…

Hope this helps!
WH

Wow, @WhiteHat you are very knowledgeable on , thanks for the informative inputs. I have to dig deeper to sink into it. :smiley:

  • about battery life: it seems Phonak recognized the power hungry chips will eat the battery faster, and decided to make a bigger case to house bigger batteries, and probably multiple chips. Good to know!

  • about frequency response of MEMS: it seems you’re right that no big makers have seriously integrated MEMS into their products. Only smaller vendors making cheap gimick hearing aids are doing this, guess there are some unexpected technical challenges?

  • about Bluetooth connection: glad to know that Phonak can connect to multiple devices at the same time. But it seems LE audio is not supported yet. How do I update the firmware in the future? I suppose one can do with Target software, then where do you download the firmware?

  • about transcription: any idea if Phonak supports this feature?

great to learn from your comment, thanks again

@Unclear said:

How do I update the firmware in the future? I suppose one can do with Target software, then where do you download the firmware?

There is a forum on this site where you can ask about that. You will need a Noahlink Wireless attached to a windows computer (usually <$200) to allow Target to change your aids. The Noahlink wireless covers most modern , so if you pick something else, you could reprogram them too, but the program is usually different.

WH

In reply to @Unclear

@Unclear said:

some unexpected technical challenges?

Excessive demand for power in case of xMEMS.

@Unclear said:

about transcription: any idea if Phonak supports this feature?

Yes, if you have Android Phone, try Live Transcribe and change the microphone input to . I have no experience with iPhone, but I assume that it is also possible.

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