While at my audi’s yesterday (to hand in a pair of DEAD Phonak aids after just 1.5 yrs of use) she mentioned that she’d attended a presentation on the new Widex SmartRIC aid.
I had to admit, I’ve never seen an aid that looks like this! I wondered if the shape was ergonometric? Would it sit securely on the ear? I was intrigued when my audi said the mic is pointing FORWARD on these aids - at the part that sits on top of the ear. GLORY BE! I have fantasized about that for years! Why should our aids pick up sound from the ceiling or behind us more than IN FRONT where people are standing? Yes, we have directionality, but it seemed that my old-fashioned ITE aids with the mic facing out was pretty good.
Then she showed be the charging case. WOW. That is actually SEXY if a hearing aid charging case could be called sexy? It’s small, sleek, VERY transportable. You can even charge that case by setting it on top of a phone charger disk like I use for my Flip-4.
I have no idea if Widex offers the kind of rich, full sound and program choices I get from Phonak, but then my audi pointed out the fatal flaw in this sleek, new aid: it has NO program buttons on it. None at all. Just the smooth, sleek case with wire + speaker.
Turns out, the only way to do ANYTHING on the new Widex SmartRIC aid is with a phone app. We all know how reliable and fun those are! So, volume, program, on, off, whatever, has to be done on a PHONE carried with you - or a smaller, matchbox sized gizmo that has all the buttons (harking back to Roger pen or some such).
Well, that was a conversation stopper. I don’t know about most of you, but I literally have days when I need to carry my cell phone in a small purse on my person ALLLLLLL DAY. Those are the days when I’ve got calls coming in or need to make myriad calls to manage 100 things. If I’m outdoors, I need the phone on me. In the car, it better be on me. In a store, doc’s office or wherever, I better have that phone.
But inside my own house, moving from room to room, or upstairs to down, or watching TV or not, I don’t need my phone! That is the 90% of my days. I can just press a button on my Phonak Lumity Life aid to answer a call on a completely different floor in my house. I can take a call if I’ve forgotten my phone in the CAR outside! I can park the Roger ON iN by a speakephone and hear the call in a completely different room! Ditto the TV. It’s pretty amazing how stable the BT is once it’s paired + connected.
I’ll be curious to see if anyone here trials the Widex and what they think about the sound quality, hearing in LOUD places, the program options and … life with a PHONE in their hand 24x7.