I’ve had a pair now for almost a month, and thought I’d post some notes, comments and feedback. I’ve also posted a few wish lists at the end.
I’m a hacker and early adopter kinda person - got a Mac in 1984 when they came out, love gadgets, like to mess with stuff, had to get an iPhone, etc. So when I heard about a hearing aid that would work directly with my iPhone, I had to have it. The notion of having to carry around another gadget for Bluetooth or to act as a remote just wasn’t what I wanted to do. I already carry around a gadget (my iPhone) that’s more than capable. I love my phone and feel lost without it.
I’m 53 and have had hearing loss “forever” - that kid that didn’t always raise his hand during those hearing tests in 3d grade.
I’m an engineer by trade with a software background, do lots of user interface and user experience work, and am comfortable reading up on BLE (Bluetooth Low Energy) standards and such.
My hearing loss is moderate, and I can work well with the BTE style and can use an open fit. I don’t have my audiogram so can’t post it, sorry.
Additionally, my audiologist isn’t necessarily that tech savvy, so I was definitely the guinea pig with these. It’s possible some things can be adjusted on the hearing aids that I (and my audiologist) don’t know about.
Controlling the aids from the phone
This is about using the phone to adjust the aid volume, programming, etc.
This is handy. Using the app, I can adjust the volume pretty easily. Changing programs is somewhat useful via the phone, but I’ve found that it’s easier to just push the little button on the back of the aid and cycle through to the program I want. There are only 4 of them, so it’s pretty easy to just press the aid button.
One thing that is kind of neat about having on-phone volume control is that you can quickly see just what they gain you by muting them, then turning them back on. One thing I can tell with this is how effective the noise reduction and filtering programming is. For a second after I un-mute them, I can hear more external general background noise, but then can hear it fade out as the programming kicks in. Kinda neat to hear them doing their thing.
Finding my aids via my phone
As someone who’s lost an aid in the past, this is hands down the best feature of the phone. It will pay for itself if you ever lose one then find it via the phone.
First, the phone shows you the signal strength of the aids. If you set one on a table and have another in your ear and then walk away, you’ll see the signal strength of the one in your ear stay high, while the signal to the other will fall off as you move away. You can basically use that as a “hotter” and “colder” way to figure out where they are (bedside? by the tv? by the computer?) if they are on.
Additionally, the phone will record the coordinates of the last place it was when it connected with the aids. Even if I’m not actively using them with my phone, the phone is still checking in with them at some interval. So say if I were to drop one of them while in a coffee shop and not know it, my phone knows that’s the last place it was when it talked to the aid. Via the app, I can see a map view on my phone (typical iPhone type map) which shows me a little stick pin where they are - either one pin for both if together, or a separate pin for each one if they were seen in different locations.
So overall with this feature, you can know where it was you lost them, and if you get in the general vicinity (and they are on), you can use a “hotter/colder” type approach to go right to them.
Hearing aid feedback tones
These are the various beeps and tones it plays in your ears to let you know about program changes, battery settings, etc.
I’ll get right to the point and say that these drive me crazy. I hate them as they are WAY TOO LOUD. Yes, all caps to indicate shouting because that’s what they do. I almost want to pull my hearing aids out of my ear sometimes when they start. There are a lot of them, but two specific cases really annoy me.
First, when you initially close the battery doors to turn on the aids, they beep 10 times (loudly). I’ve learned to turn them on, set them down somewhere, go do something else, then put them in later. I do not need to know if they are on. I can tell simply by the mic rustling sounds as I put them on my ear.
Second is when the battery is low. It seems to happen most often when I’m on a call. Suddenly one aid will go silent (no call), then the loud tone (disrupting when you’re in a call), then the call comes back on.
Overall they are like when you’re getting in the car, put the keys in first, and that seatbelt tone is dinging away. It’s trying to tell you something, but it’s very obtrusive, and you want to say, “YES I GET IT!”
Hearing aid evangelism
People find these things really interesting. I put a big effort into evangelizing hearing aids in general, and find that these are wonderful tools for that. People are fascinated by the idea of them working directly with my phone, especially if they are iPhone users.
See also “Geek cred” and “Color options” below.
This is about making fellow geeks drool with tech envy.
These things have massive geek cred. Fellow engineers at work think these things are the coolest things ever
See also “Hearing aid evangelism” and “Hacking potential”.
Making phone calls
This is the ability to have phone audio go directly into the aids.
This is nice, and I’ve found it quite useful for making work calls and such. It’s very hands free, and beats wearing various kinds of headsets. I’ve used it in the car and find the audio isn’t bad. You of course look like a total crazy person as nobody really knows you have the aids in and can tell you’re on the phone
There are a few negatives.
First, there is a delay of a second or so as the sound switches from phone to aids, and during that time you don’t hear anything. So if you answer a phone call there’s this period of a few seconds where you can’t hear the other person. I suppose I could hold the phone up to my ear at the start, however I can’t really do that in the car when driving. Dunno about where you live, but it’s a $150 ticket if I am talking on my phone while driving without using a hands free headset.
Next is that external sounds still come into your ear. If you are in a call and someone is talking near by or trying to talk to you, your’e hearing them quite well at the same time as the call, and it can be kind of distracting. It’s a bit like having two people talk to you at once.
Third, you have to use the phone as a mic. I’ve been able to make calls using the phone in my shirt pocket or on the desk in front of me, so it’s not like I have to hold it right to my mouth. Maybe the hearing aid mic doesn’t do a good enough job, or maybe it’s a huge battery drain to stream audio from the phone to the aid and then from the aid to the phone?
Battery life is definitely lower than for my Siemens Acuris. Duracell batteries (plastic rectangular flip lid case) seem to last far longer than other brands for me. With the old Acuris I could get a week or two out of one. With the Lynx, I replace them once or twice a week. Making lots of phone calls (or long ones) seems to chew up the battery life faster.
When you listen to music via the hearing aids, you can stream the audio into your hearing aids directly.
Straight to the point, the audio is terrible. Do you know what it’s like when you use ear bud headphones like the iPhone comes with, and they are loose in your ear and the sound is weak and tinny? That’s what it sounds like.
Actually there is one way to get fairly decent sound out of them, and that’s to stick your fingers in your ears. Then it sounds OK. But that kind of defeats the whole point, and one might as well just wear headphones. I imagine if I didn’t have open fit style, the sound would be better.
Additionally, the aids do not cut out the microphones when you are listening to music. So external sounds intrude on the music. In fact I believe that the aids actually turn off the noise reduction programming when music is on. So not only are you getting external sounds mixed with the music, but I would swear they get worse when the music is on. If I am in the car for example, and start playing music, it seems like the car and road noises get worse.
Phone rings and other alert tones do not play in the hearing aids
This is a real negative for these hearing aids. Your phone rings and other alert tones (text message, email, etc.) do not play in your hearing aids.
Seriously I have more problems not hearing my phone ring than I do hearing on a phone call. So these offer me absolutely no help to let me know my phone is ringing in my pocket, or that I’m getting a text. Very disappointed about this.
Using the phone as a remote mic
This is the ability to channel the phone’s mic sounds directly into the aids, letting you place the phone somewhere as a remote sound feed.
At first I thought this might be useful for watching television, but in fact it’s not that great. Specifically, there is a lag (small delay) between when you hear sound coming from the phone. The lag itself isn’t what’s bad, it’s the fact that you’re also hearing the original sound via the aids at the same time, and it has no lag. So what you get is an annoying echo effect. I haven’t tried it in a meeting at work, but probably won’t bother because I know that lag will be there.
Other phone audio (videos, YouTube, games, etc.)
This is the ability of the phone to play other audio directly to the hearing aids.
If you watch a YouTube video, a movie, play some games or other activities, you can hear the sound directly in the hearing aids. This has been really nice, as I can sit in bed at night and play a game or watch some video and not bother my wife. And I don’t have to mess with headphones. It’s not great audio, but it’s not bad.
Much to my disappointment, the initial color offerings for the BTE part were just your average skin and hair color options. This was sad. This is a “hey we think you want to hide your hearing aids” color selection. Now I’m stuck with black and will probably have to pay for something more interesting whenever it becomes available.
Why does ReSound have to presume that people want to (or should) hide their hearing aids? I want blue! I want red! Hell I would love it if they would LIGHT UP! I WANT people to know that I wear them.
Hearing aid manufacturers are like glasses frame makers back in the 60’s, when those basic black frames were what you got. Come on ReSound, give me some bling here! Get Polo and Ralph Lauren to design hearing aids. We’re already spending thousands on them, what’s a couple hundred more to make something that looks neat?
I’ve played around a bit with some BLE apps for my iPhone that let me query them at a low level. The aids are giving me lots of data back, though I’m not quite sure yet what it all is. I’m assuming it’s all the current settings, etc.
Based on this, I’m betting I could reverse engineer the protocols between the hearing aids and the phone, and look into making my own app for a few features. I’m wondering if I couldn’t program in something to make phone calls and other alerts play via the aids, or modify a program.
I also know that the aids can be programmed wirelessly, as that’s what my audiologist does. So yes, I might screw them up and maybe need to have their firmware reset, but that’s what hackers do. I seriously wonder if there is any licensing clause that forbids this?
See also “Geek cred” above.
My want/what were they thinking!? list
- Make phone rings and other notification sounds play into my hearing aids. The fact that this doesn't happen is a huge flaw in my book. Other hearing aids with phone integration using separate devices allow this. I can't fathom why this feature isn't available.
- Allow me to separately control the volume for the notification tones. They are WAY TOO LOUD.
- Allow me to selectively modify or remove the notification tones. I DO NOT need 10 beeps in my ear every time I turn on my hearing aids to know they are on. All I have to do is brush my fingers on them to hear the rustle to know they are on.
- Turn off the mic when listening to music, making calls, or streaming other audio. I use the aids as a HIGHLY convenient alternative to headphones, and like headphones I'm more interested in hearing what comes in, not what's coming from outside. Cognitively, it is very confusing to try and process two sound streams at once. Functionally, you are streaming audio into the aids because you want to hear THAT audio only, not blend it with outside sounds.
My nice to have list
- Let me modify my audio programs myself. I don't know what is needed until I'm in the situation where I need an alternate program. None of the ones I have really work well when I'm in a typical large conference table meeting at work. It's been very inefficient for me to make a trip to my audiologist where I try and describe the problem, they do a tweak, I try them out, back to work, try it, and go "Nope, not yet".
- Give me an advanced settings option where I can selectively enable and disable various features. I want to be able to disable the aid mics, noise reduction systems, etc. And when I get a certain configuration I like, let me save it (see #1 above).
My neat if it had list
- Ditch the tones - they are so old school. Look at all the cool tones I get to play with on my iPhone for notifications. Give me something like that to play with. I'd love to hear little musical sounds. Imagine "sad trombone" sound when the batteries are getting low even :)
- Get creative with the housing. I look at some of the neat earrings my daughter wears sometimes, and think "Why can't we have hearing aids that have that kind of style?"
I am truly glad I have hearing aids, and find them an absolute necessity to get through life. As advanced aids, the Lynx have been great, and no complains about them as hearing aids. They have a lot of technical potential, however the phone integration could be better.