this thread has diverged into two topics:
1: the trustworthiness of AI and
2: the topic announced in the thread headline
One poster above has suggested that the Rexton’s will still be available after the Sennheiser aids come on board at Costco. Others say no. I’m an old luddite who expects the AI magic 8 ball should state: “check again later” if it were honest.
Disappointing but not wholly unexpected. Perhaps Sphere or even just the regular Infinio land next year if the deal goes ok and sales are good?
Curious if this new aid will have the ERA chip for Auracast.
If it does it is the Infinio aid.
With laws pushing all aids to be Bluetooth compliant I wonder if these aids will be compliant.
I’d bet no. As I posted above it really seems to be a Lumity.
I think they’re 4.2 BT. It’s referenced in the FAQs.
Fantastic, now we can deep dive and compare, yeah it doesn’t mention LE Audio.
Gemini probably doesn’t have a smartphone with the EasyLine Remote app on it. 
I crossposted the above to Sennheiser Sonite R available now at Costco (select locations) - #5 by d_Wooluf because this thread has become a little hard to wade through due to all the speculation and off topic AI discussion (I’m to blame for that) …
I don’t think so. I keep replying to AI criticisms that folks keep bringing up. So, I’ll cease and desist.
Trust me when I say I really want to engage on the topic because I’m kind of obsessed with AI… but holding back because I don’t want to derail the thread too much. Thanks Jim.
I expect unitron hearing aids with the Sphere option soon. But in the same dimension for all hearing aids, only the Sphere will be in the premium version and in the lower levels it will be without the sphere option but with a larger battery like the sphere version. And it will allow anyone who wants to, can try the sphere option, if they like it, they will be able to buy an upgrade. Sphere will not be called sphere, but a new name that will be exclusive to Unitron hearing aids. … My guess is that there won’t be two different ones on Unitron, but only one version that has the sphere option. On phonak, the sphere was an experimental version that delighted people, and now Unitron must have that option.
This is disappointing.
I understand that Phonak is not interested in selling the Infinios at Costco and offering the Lumity instead, but they should have upgraded the Blutooth module for the Sennheiser Sonite R to include Bluetooth LE / Auracast.
The only RIC hearing aid at Costco that doesn’t have Bluetooth LE Audio / Auracast is the Sennheiser Sonite R.
Buying RIC hearing aids without Bluetooth LE Audio / Auracast is a hard no for me.
I sincerely hope that Costco does not eliminate the Rexton Reach from all of their locations.
Hmmm, yes it’s not a good look for Sonova.
Why so few locations? Surely it’s in the interests of both parties to get these out in the wild? Unless Sonova doesn’t have a ton of stock, given the demand for Sphere is probably where their focus is since it’s the top dollar draw.
Guessing these will be Autosense 5.0 if they are Lumity in all but name?
I think you over estimate how quickly Auracast is going to roll out. There is very limited incentive for most places to invest in the new technology proactively, especially if you think about how most places recently re-did AV suites on the back of COVID/work from anywhere / remote attendance.
The made for all connectivity that Phonak provides is very valuable for many people who already have to shell out a lot of money for a hearing aid and maybe can’t upgrade to a new phone that supports LE audio. It is usable today.
I’m not sure there’s any laws requiring hearing aids to be BT compliant. I found this for phones: FCC Requires All Wireless Handsets to be Hearing Aid Compatible - HWG LLP
but the way I read it gives phone manufacturers 2 years from Oct 18 (so Oct. 18, 2026 deadline) to have 15% of their phones compliant with LE Audio.
No, really, people in the AI field are concerned about what’ll happen as AI gets trained on more and more of its own output.
I wonder what he thinks after reading this research article
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2410.05229
which concludes “We hypothesize that…current LLMs are not capable of genuine logical reasoning; instead, they attempt to replicate the reasoning steps observed in their training data.”
That would require a redesign. Why would they redesign an older technology HA? That would make zero sense.
Auracast may be implemented slowly, but LE Audio is already available in several Android phones.
It will be adopted by other manufacturers in their next releases.
It is true that Classic Bluetooth is more compatible, but this comes at the expense of sound quality and battery consumption.
Most people want the newest technology at an affordable price. This means Rexton Reach or Phillips 9050. These models also have Telecoil.
It’s fairly common for manufacturers to do hardware revisions of existing products.
This doesn’t mean they redesign the whole thing.
