- In this video, I'm
doing a detailed review of the new Phonak Audeo
Paradise Hearing Aid, coming up. (upbeat music) Hi, guys, Cliff Olson, Doctor
of Audiology and Founder of Applied Hearing Solutions
in Phoenix, Arizona. And on this channel, I cover a bunch of
hearing-related information to help make you a
better informed consumer. So if you're in to that, make sure you hit that subscribe button. And don't forget to click the
bell to receive a notification every time I post a new video. I'm not sure how Phonak
did it, but I think that they may have just
released a hearing aid that is even better than the
already impressive Marvel line of hearing aids with the creation of the new Phonak Audeo
Paradise hearing aid. Marvel, the predecessor to the Paradise, has been the most popular
hearing aid in Phonak history and it could quite possibly be the most popular hearing aid of all time. So what does the Paradise
bring to the table that the Marvel didn't? Well, I'm gonna cover all of these new key feature additions, tell you what I like about them and tell you a few things that I don't. The Paradise hearing aids look
very similar to the Marvels with only a few subtle differences, such as a slimmer push button
and a slight difference in the orientation of the
front microphone ports. This is what the Paradise
hearing aids look like on my ear. Now, I have the silver
version on right now. And when you take a look at them, they still have that very sleek look that you would expect
from a Phonak hearing aid. You have all of the same
colors to choose from and they use the same
receiver wires as the Marvels. Unfortunately, they also use
the same CeruShield wax traps as the Marvel hearing
aids, which I have found to be difficult for some
patients to change on their own. However, if you can figure it
out, it does a pretty good job of preventing ear wax from
clogging up your devices. Phonak is releasing the
full Audeo Paradise line at the same time, instead
of a gradual rollout like they did with the Marvels. Phonak did eliminate
their size 312 battery with the telecoil version,
which I am sad to hear about, but they still have a telecoil in their size 13 battery version and the rechargeable
battery version with the RT. While the Paradise may look
the same as the Marvels on the outside, it is what's on the inside that really separates it. So let's go ahead and look under the hood and see what makes the
Paradise so much better. Let's start with the new hardware. The Paradise line of devices
have a new chip called PRISM. PRISM stands for processing real-time intelligent sound management, which has double the
memory of the SWORD chip that was used in the Marvel
devices, which allows Phonak to do more things, which
I'll get into in a minute and it does not increase
the size of the devices. They have also added motion sensors into their rechargeable versions. Using motion sensors in the
hearing industry is not new because there are other
manufacturers who already have them. What these motion sensors
do is allow the hearing aids to make microphone settings
changes based on your movement so it doesn't have to just rely
on the acoustic information in your environment to make these changes. So if you're in a noisier
environment, but you're in a stationary position like
you're sitting at a table, the hearing aids know that they
need to put the microphones into more of a directional setting. However, if you get up
and you start walking, after six steps, the
hearing aids will identify that you're actually
moving and it will start to open up the pick up
range of those microphones. So if you're walking next to somebody, the hearing aids aren't
in directional mode. They're actually able to pick up the sound of the person who's walking next to you. Like other manufacturers, data
on Phonak's motion sensors also shows that users prefer
to have motion sensors active to change their program
settings, which includes a higher preference for
speech, localization, overall listening and sound quality. Getting back to the new PRISM chip, one of the coolest things about
the Paradise line of devices is that they have more
and better connectivity. Now, this might come as a
surprise to you, but as of 2019, the average United States household has 11 connected devices in it. And each household only
has 2.52 individuals, which means that on average,
each one of us has four devices that we would like to
connect to at any given time. And I only have three, which means that there's a good possibility
that you actually have five. Thanks to the engineers at
Phonak, the Paradise hearing aids can now be paired to
eight different devices. It doesn't matter if
those devices are Android, it doesn't matter if
those devices are Apple. And it can be actively connected
to two different devices at the exact same time. No longer do you have to
constantly turn off the Bluetooth on the one that you don't wanna use and turn on the Bluetooth on
the one that you do wanna use. You can actively have both
of those devices connected at the exact same time. So if you're streaming
audio from your computer and then you get a phone call, you can actually answer that phone call without having to switch
over your connection. I've been testing out this
Bluetooth functionality for over a week now and the only thing that I have to say is (applauds). The Paradise hearing aids allow for truly hands-free phone calls. And the way it can do that is it actually uses the
microphones on the back of the hearing aids to pick up
the sound of your own voice. So while you're streaming the audio from the person talking to you from your phone into the hearing aid so you can hear them, the hearing aids are also
picking up your voice and sending it through the phone line to the person on the
other end of the line. What's even cooler is that
you don't even have to search for the push button anymore
to answer a phone call. All you have to do is reach
up and double tap your ear. That will answer the phone call for you. And then when you're done on the phone, you give it another double
tap and that hangs up. Your hearing aids will even announce who's calling inside of your
ear, so you don't even have to look at your phone
to see who's calling. It's not only phone calls
that you can stream directly into your ears, either. You can stream in any type of audio, whether it's an audiobook,
whether it's a podcast, whether it's music or
whether it's a YouTube video. And you can stop and start
the streaming of that audio by just giving a double tap as well. If you're not actively streaming any audio or receiving a phone call,
you can use this double tap to access your voice
assistant like Siri, Bixby or your Google Assistant. So you literally don't even need to pull out your phone anymore. Hold on a second. Call Ashley. Hey, yeah. Yeah, I'm recording my
Audeo Paradise review video. Yeah, I can't talk right now. I just wanted to demonstrate
to everyone watching the video how I don't need my phone
on me to make a phone call. Yeah, I know, it's pretty cool. Yeah, okay, yep. Talk to you later, bye. These hearing aids also let you connect to up to two TV connectors so you can stream audio
directly from your TV into your hearing aids at
the level that you prefer while allowing family and
friends to hear the TV at their preferred level at the same time. The Paradise hearing aids
still give you wireless access to a Phonak PartnerMic and they also give you
access to a RogerSelect or RogerPen using the
RogerDirect integrated receivers to improve how well you can
hear in background noise. You can also connect to a remote control or use your myPhonak smartphone app using Bluetooth Low Energy. The new myPhonak smartphone
app is very similar to the previous myPhonak
app, which was used with the Marvel devices
with a few small additions and a few improvements
to existing features. It gives you the ability
to adjust volume and change between different programs
in the remote control screen. It will also let you make
customizations to your own audio by giving you access to
clarity and comfort quick keys at the top, a three-band equalizer to adjust bass, mids and treble. Noise reduction adjustments,
speech focus adjustments which now provides directionality and a spatial noise
canceler for even more help in a background noise environment and compression settings, which are listed under
the dynamic section. You can then save your preferred settings as a custom program that you
can access again in the future. While I love the functionality
of the myPhonak app, it still has a few issues. For instance, if you
go in and you actually make your own custom
program and you want to be in those custom program
settings that you have created, every time that you get a
notification from your phone, so whether it's a phone
call, whether it is an email, whether it is a text message or whether it's your Ring doorbell app, whatever the case may be,
if it sends you a signal to your hearing aids, it kicks you into
Bluetooth streaming mode. But when you come back out
of Bluetooth streaming mode, you don't go back to the custom
program that you were in. It actually takes you back to AutoSense. And if you don't wanna be in AutoSense, then that's a problem. So unless you turn off your Bluetooth when you create that custom
program that you want to be in, anytime that you get a notification, it completely messes everything up. The other problem is is that every one of these custom programs that you create, and you can create a lot of them, they get wiped out when these
hearing aids are connected to my fitting software. So if you come in for a follow up visit and you're like, hey, I
made five awesome programs that I love to use all the time. If I hook you up to my computer, it is going to wipe
those custom programs out and you'll have to recreate them again. I have confirmed that
Phonak is actively working on these issues, but they've been there for quite some time now. I just hope that Phonak
figures it out really quick and sends out a formal
update to fix the problem. Another one of the cool
things about the app is that it still allows
you to do remote care, which means that you can
have a programming session with your hearing care provider
through your smart device from the comfort of your own home, even if you are in an
entirely different country. The only problems I run
into with remote care is that I cannot perform
maintenance or repairs on your hearing aids. And I cannot perform hearing
aid firmware updates remotely, which can be an issue if you
live in a different state from your provider and you
need to have an update done. According to my Phonak rep, I have done more remote care sessions than any other provider who
works with Phonak hearing aids. And the reason this is is
because I absolutely love it. I can do remote care
sessions with my patients no matter where they're at. So if they're here in the
wintertime and I'm working with them in my office
and then they go back up to their northern states where
they spend the summertime 'cause it's way too hot
out here in Arizona, I can still have access
to their hearing aids. I can do data logging
checks, I can check in and see how they're doing,
I can do programming changes and they don't even
have to be in my office. The remote care feature
also has AudiogramDirect which means that your
hearing care provider can test your hearing thresholds with in-situ audiometry right
through your hearing aids. The app also has a new and
improved Hearing Diary 2.0, which lets your hearing care
provider assign listening tasks so they can evaluate your performance with your hearing aids. Phonak has also introduced
a new operating system called AutoSense OS 4.0, which has all of the same great
features as AutoSense OS 3.0 with a few key additions in
addition to the motion sensor. These include dynamic noise cancellation for noisy environments, which can improve your
signal to noise ratio by four decibels, which
can be the difference between understanding someone in noise and not understanding someone in noise. It also includes speech enhancer. Now, speech enhancer is
used for quiet environments. So if you have difficulty understanding soft-spoken individuals
even in a quiet situation, speech enhancer can
provide an additional boost to these soft talkers. Phonak is also introducing
a new fitting formula called Adaptive Phonak Digital 2.0. And the main focus of
this new fitting formula is to do three things. First, is to use adaptive
compressions speeds. So instead of just using fast compression or just using slow compression, they end up using a
combination of both of them in order to increase the dynamic range of the hearing devices and to reduce the
perception of reverberation. Second is to utilize more
linear high level gain in order to provide better
access to speech cues particularly in noisy environments. And third is to perform
a better precalculation for mild to moderate hearing losses to improve first-fit acceptance. Now, for those of you who
have been watching my channel for awhile, you know that
this is a pet peeve of mine. When any manufacturer says that they have improved
their first-fit calculations to improve first-fit acceptance, they are basically suggesting that your hearing care provider only needs to hit the autoprogram button, instead of actually performing
real ear measurement. So I'm gonna take this
opportunity to tell you that it is never okay to just
accept the first-fit settings no matter how close they might be to your hearing loss prescription. Why do I say this? Because even if the
first-fit settings were able to get you right on your
hearing loss prescription for the amount of
amplification that you need, there is no way to know
this unless you verify it with real ear measurement. So instead of focusing
on first-fit acceptance, let's start focusing
on actually programming your hearing aids to the point where you get the maximum
amount of benefit out of them, instead of just good enough
to get you to keep them. Now, if you don't know what
real ear measurement is, I highly recommend that
you watch my videos that I will link in the description. Because if you want to
get the most out of a set of Phonak Audeo Paradise hearing aids, you need real ear measurement to do it. As far as technology levels go, there are four different tier levels from premium to basic that
can be put into any style of Paradise hearing aid from
the size 312 battery version all the way up to the
rechargeable telecoil version. The premium P90 level
gives you full access to all of the new Paradise features, including dynamic noise cancellation and the speech enhancer. It also gives your hearing care provider the most customizability to
maximize your hearing potential with your hearing aids. Each time that you go down
in a technology level, certain features are eliminated
and so is the ability to customize your devices. That being said, if you are
looking for a good hearing aid and you cannot afford the
highest level of technology, you have plenty of lower cost options. When it comes to the specific cost for a Paradise hearing aid, it will depend on where you live, what
services are included in the purchase price and
ultimately the quality of professional care that you receive. What you did not see on that
list was a CROS transmitter for those of you who may
have single-sided deafness. Now, you may be aware that
the Marvel line of devices also did not have access
to a CROS transmitter. And I know that some of you out there are going to be disappointed in this, but just know that Phonak has told me that their engineers are actively working on a CROS solution, but if and when we'll ever
see that, I'm not sure. All right, guys, my apologies
for this video being so long. There was a bunch of stuff to cover and I didn't really wanna
leave any of it out. And with all the cool new
features that we find inside of the Phonak Audeo Paradise
hearing aids, I suspect that they will pick up right
where the Marvels left off and be one of the most
popular hearing aids that we see released in 2020. That's it for this video. If you have any questions, leave them in the comment section below. If you like the video, please share it. And if you wanna see other
videos just like this one, go ahead and hit that subscribe button. Also feel free to check out
my website, DrCliffAuD.com. (upbeat music)
