Compare Hearing Aid Brands and Reasons to Upgrade

As the new year begins, you may wonder if it is time for new hearing aids. Advancements in hearing aids are always exciting as we want you to hear as best as possible. There is no ‘one hearing aid fits all,’ so this blog will discuss the hearing aid technology advancements of the most common brands we fit patients with. If you are unsure which hearing aid brand works best for you and your listening needs, please call (916) 646-2471 or click here to schedule an appointment with one of our audiologists to learn about our process! 

OTICON:

The newest hearing aid technology from Oticon is called the Oticon More hearing aids. These hearing aids were developed to work more like how your brain works, as they learn through experience. This is because Oticon More has the world’s first Deep Neural Network embedded on the chip. The Oticon More hearing aid gives the brain more of the relevant information needed to make better sense of sound, so you can get better speech understanding with less effort.

As a result, Oticon More:

• Delivers 30% more sound to the brain compared to the Oticon OPN S
• Increases speech understanding by 15%
• Reduces listening effort so that you remember more of what is being said
  

The rechargeable battery also lasts all day, so you can enjoy direct streaming from iPhone®, iPad® and many Android™ hearing aids. Regaining everyday things like talking on the phone or listening to music makes a big impact on your quality of life. Oticon also has a new Smartcharger so you can charge your hearing aids anywhere you go! 

WIDEX:

The new Widex Moment hearing aids have a large focus on sound quality expressed in two major features:

• TruAcoustics™ to allow you to benefit from a more personalized fitting experience that delivers highly customized sound. You also experience less boominess and a better perception of your own voice!
• Widex PureSound™ drastically reduces the time it takes for the hearing aids to process sound. This eliminates the tinny or artificial sound common in traditional hearing aids to deliver a more natural sound quality.
  

With the new Puresound technology, your everyday listening environments sound more natural. Widex Moment addresses one of the key challenges facing the hearing aid industry: how to overcome the delay-based distortion that leaves many listeners with an artificial, unsatisfactory hearing aid experience. Typically, sound processed in a hearing aid reaches the eardrum later than sound heard directly leaving you with an artificial sound. Widex PureSound reduces that delay to under 0.5 milliseconds. 

Widex also has a new Moment application for both iPhone and Android hearing aids to give users control over a wide range of functions and settings on their hearing aids. Among many other features, the app provides access to the powerful sound personalization using My Sound, direct streaming of music, phone calls, and tips and tricks about using Moment with My Guide.

PHONAK:

Phonak Audéo™ Paradise is Phonak’s newest hearing aid technology offering a wide range of new advances including: 

• The world’s first waterproof rechargeable hearing aid! Phonak Audéo™ Paradise Life is capable of being submerged in 1.64 ft of water. 
• The new ActiveVent Receiver features a mechanically switching vent, providing naturalness of your own voice while optimizing your hearing performance. It is the world’s first intelligent hearing aid speaker, designed to help you hear better in challenging listening environments. 
• Tap control is a new feature that allows you to answer phone calls, stream or pause music, and activate voice assistants for iPhone and Android just by tapping your ear. The sensitivity of Tap Control can now be adjusted via the myPhonak app.
• AutoSense OS™ 4.0 is the latest automatic system from Phonak, built with artificial intelligence, recognizes and automatically adapts to precisely match more listening situations than ever before.
• Dynamic Noise Cancellation is a new feature that uses spatial noise cancellation. Dynamic Noise Cancellation is designed specifically for conversations in the presence of background noise. Dynamic Noise Cancellation is automatically activated in AutoSense OS 4.0 and can also be adjusted in the myPhonak 4.0 application. The myPhonak application allows you to personalize the amount of noise cancelation you want all in real time!
  

SIGNIA: 

The newest hearing aid technology from Signia is called the Pure Charge & Go AX.  The new hearing aid technology uses their new Augmented Xperience chip. The new platform includes: 

• Augmented Focus technology to process speech and background noise separately to provide you with clear speech even in noisy settings. A recent study found that patients experienced 25% better speech understanding in noise than with their previous technology. 
• A motion sensor to adapt the sound optimally to the wearer’s situation by detecting if they are moving or stationary.
• The Signia Assistant in the Signia app which is available for both iOS and Android smartphones. The Signia Assistant uses artificial intelligence, so it learns your personal listening preferences to provide you with the best hearing experience possible.
• Insio Charge & GO AX, the World’s First Rechargeable Custom with Contactless Charging and Bluetooth connectivity for both iPhone and Android. The rechargeable battery includes 24 hours of wear time.
  

RESOUND: 

The new ReSound ONE hearing aids are ReSounds most natural sounding hearing aids due to all the new key features: 

• The new M&RIE (Microphone & Receiver-In-Ear design) is the first hearing aid with three microphones including one microphone in the ear; to use your ear’s natural ability to collect the information your brain needs to make sense of sound.
• All Access Directionality automatically adjusts directional microphone patterns based on your environment so you can hear what is important and still monitor the sounds around you. In high background noise situations, All Access Directionality utilizes a new binaural connection to create a stronger, more focused beam for sounds in front, providing up to 2 dB better signal-to-noise ratio. 
• User-controlled Ultra Focus uses a powerful directional pattern to help you to focus on the person in front of you in very noisy environments with up to 30% improvement in speech understanding. 
• ReSound ONE offers a rechargeable solution with up to 30 hours of battery life or 25 hours with unlimited streaming for iPhone and Android. 
  

If you are thinking of upgrading your current hearing aids for better and newer technology, now is the perfect time! Through February 28, 2022, our Trade-In Trade-Up program is still in full swing. Take advantage of this program and save up to $750 off new, premium hearing aids. To get started, call (916) 646-2471 or click here to schedule an appointment to learn more about the program!