All right, I finally received a demo kit for the Phonak Infinio Sphere i90 hearing aids. I programmed them for my level of hearing loss so I could share a first-hand experience of the latest hearing aid technology in 2024 with you. This post reflects on my review of Phonak Infinio Sphere and my understanding of their capability to hear speech in noisy environments.
I have reflected on the hearing aids' performance and other aspects from a user's point of view. Please feel free to contact me in case of any questions or ambiguity or leave a comment at the end of this article. You can visit our clinic in SE London for a trial run too.
Please read this report in conjunction with the product review we published about Phonak Audeo Infinio in early September.
My audiogram
I have a binaural hearing loss and tonal tinnitus. The hearing loss is mild to moderate and mostly in the mid-range frequencies, it is called Cookie Bite. Please see it here. I fitted the Phonak Infinio Sphere for myself with Phonak vented domes.
My audiogram - A mild to moderate cookie bite SNHL
Test condition
I took them everywhere from the noisy environment of a car and several bus rides in London, in my quiet clinic, and twice in busy pubs and busy high streets in London with noisy soundscapes where people talked around me (babble noise).
Size
Phonak Infinio Sphere is one of the biggest hearing aids introduced in 2024. it is bigger than Phonak Paradise, Lumity and standard Phonak Infinio. When on my ears they just come about visible when you look at my head from the side.
So this may be a deal breaker if your ears are small or small to medium. At the end of the day, it is down to your priorities, wants and needs. If you work in a noisy environment and your top priority is hearing speech in a noisy environment then you might compromise the size of the aids.
Battery life
If you read my Phonak Audeo Infinity review, the battery life was my number one concern as Phonak announced 16 hours of run time with 3-5 hours of streaming budget. I’ve been wearing my Phonak Inifnio Sphere for about 14 to 17 hours every day, being in environments where the Sphere mode is triggered for about 1, 2 and 3 hours. At night when I remove them they usually have about 50% battery charge still in them.
I do expect that the rechargeable batteries of these hearing aids decline in terms of run time on a full charge after a few years, but this is a general issue with all rechargeable hearing aids. So for now the issue of the run time of Phonak Infinio Sphere batteries seems to be not an issue.
Sound Quality
I try every hearing aid that comes to the market so I can provide feedback to my patients. The Sound quality of Phonak Infinio Sphere felt better than Lumity, the same way that Lumity was better than Paradise, perhaps not a lot better. I am yet to receive feedback from Phonak about the processing delay of standard Infinio and Infinio Sphere, but in different sound environments, the sound of Phonak Infinio Sphere was nice and natural compared to Starkey Genesis and Oticon Intent.
I enjoyed how through myPhonak app I could adjust the amount of background reduction which seems to work well. The downside to it is that the more aggressive you are with the noise reduction, the more it feels like voices are getting scooped with it and they start to sound thin.
Technology progression - Phonak hearing aids
Sphere mode
I can confirm that understanding speech in noise is superior to any other hearing aids I have tried including Oticon Intent. You need to be aware that the fitting of the hearing aids plays a major role in how much of the Infini Sphere capability in hearing speech can be unlocked. if your hearing aids are fitted with open domes (so that you hear low frequencies naturally) you may also hear the background noise through the domes hence the hearing aid cannot do the magic. Please read our other article on slim-tip and cshell micro moulds.
I was in a busy pub and a loud high street talking to a friend. I noticed when the Sphere mode kicked in, I felt that the background sound diminished and I heard my friend like she was wearing a remote microphone. Unlike Oticon Intent there are several settings at the disposal of the audiologist to set the level of the noise when the Sphere mode should kick in. Also to what extent is the background noise to be diminished when in Sphere mode? It is amazing to see so much control is also provided to the user through the myPhonak app. In Phonak fitting software I can set the overall cumulative hours that the Sphere mode is allowed, this way the battery consumption and its run time can be safeguarded, well at a fair trade-off with Sphere mode.
The other thing that I examined is that the Sphere mode can be set to be truly spheric or work in conjunction with the directionality, meaning that the Sphere mode could lock on the person in front of me to reduce the listening effort only in that direction. I did enjoy it more when the directionality worked in conjunction with the Sphere mode. But there were situations like sitting at the bar with my friend both looking forward that needed a spheric mode rather than a directional mode. The solution to that is to copy the Sphric program with different settings so the user can have front Sphere or absolute Spheric mode.
The other point is that sometimes I felt that the Spheric mode kicked in late and I missed just the beginning of the conversation. I did reduce the threshold of the Spheric mode kick in so as soon as I entered a pub it switched on and pretty much stayed in the Spheric mode until we left the pub, so the problem was solved but at the cost of more battery consumption.
How does Phonak Infinio Sphere stand up against other AI hearing aids?
A lot of hearing aids have been using AI to recognise speech patterns and give them a boost mimicking how the brain works in recognising speech in noisy environments. I think it is safe to say that Oticon is one of the front runners in this new technology concept. Until now Oticon Intent has been the best in the market but now according to an independent comparison done by HearAdvisor, Phonak Infinio Sphere is the best technology that uses AI and DNN (Deep Neural Network) for hearing speech in noisy soundscape. See the review done by HearAdvison on Phonak Sphere i90 here.
Speech in noise performance of premium hearing aids (courtesy of HearAdvisor)
The charger unit
Phonak Infinio Sphere comes with a portable power charger. The aids sit in the charger with a magnet that pulls them down. The middle space that the speaker units go is a good size for dome fitted or the speakers fitted with micro moulds. If you have a large earmould the space may be a bit of a struggle. My advice is to replace your big earmoulds with micro moulds if you can (Phonak calls them cshell.)
Is there a Phonak Infinio Sphere CROS?
Please read more about Phonak Sphere CROS in this article.
Why does my Phonak Infinio glitch while streaming?
If you stream music or a podcast through your Phonak Infinio you may notice that as you move around or the relative position of your phone to the hearing aids change you notice a short glitch in streaming. This is because unlike the Phonak Paradise and Phonak Lumity (and other hearing aids in the market for that purpose), your infinio could switch roles as to which one to be the mainstreaming hub for Bluetooth. If you hold your phone on the right side the right Phonak Infinio will be the main hub for streaming and send the streaming signal for the left side to the one on the left. As you move, walk and certainly if you move your phone to the left side the hearing aids switch the role as soon as the reception of the signal is better by the left hearing aid. This warrants a smooth and stable streaming experience all the time.
Why does streaming through my Phonak Infinio stop when I do exercises?
This can likely be due to the high sensitivity of the tap feature of your Phonak Infinio hearing aids which is also set to pause the streaming or phone calls. An immediate fix is to ask your audiologist to change the sensitivity of the double tap of your Phonak Infinio hearing aids. The myPhonak app also allows the user to set this up.
Conclusion
The Spheric mode is just impressive. With so much buzz around the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to improve speech intelligibility, this is the first time that you feel that it is working, and the AI does help you hear and understand speech better in a noisy environment.
The Bluetooth is stable and faster when connecting to my iPhone and my laptop. I didn't check the range of the Bluetooth connectivity of Infinio as Phonak suggests it is double that of Lumity. But I did test the hearing aids for the scenarios of putting my iPhone in my packback, in my front or rear pockets and the stability of the streaming was much better than Lumity and other hearing aids I have tried.
Also, I didn't try to exhaust the hearing aid batteries by keeping the Sphere mode on all day. I guess that are applications of keeping the aids on Sphere mode all day long such as exhibitions or festivals, but I didn't try that.
Please use the below link to book a free online consultation about Phonak Infinio Sphere hearing aids.
Disclaimer: This article is not sponsored by Phonak.
Updates:
24 Sep 2024: Oticon Intent 1R vs Phonak Sphere i90, a comparison by Dr Cliff.
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