During this holiday season, the editors at Hearing Health & Technology Matters (HHTM) are taking some time off. However, we are not leaving you without anything to read on our blog this week. Instead, we are publishing a special holiday edition filled with what we call our Readers’ Choices.
HHTM has had more than half a million page views in 2014, and the Readers’ Choices featured this week are the posts published on each of our individual blogs that drew the largest number of viewers during the year.
Whether or not you have read these Readers’ Choice posts before, we think you will enjoy them. And be sure to return next week when all of us editors, our batteries recharged, will publish a New Year’s Eve issue filled with fascinating new posts to get 2015, HHTM’s fifth year, off to a great start.
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Two long-rumored events became reality in the last week or so, both of which will likely have long-term effects on the practice of dispensing Audiology. Both have already elicited large short-term effects in the chatter level and hand wringing departments of our profession.
Phonak Rumors and Realities
The Rumor Mill
Hearing Economics got an email tip last December to this effect:
12/2/13: …heads up [of] some talk that Costco now is offering Phonak — through the Phonak label — at their Canadian stores (likely a US beta test). If true…suspect we’ll be seeing them in all Costcos very soon. … there will be a lot of hand-wringing by private practices if this turns out true.
Further investigation could not confirm that Phonak was being sold in Canadian Costco stores but did turn up something from a different source that was news to Hearing Economics, if not to others:
1/13 & 14/14: …Phonak has purchased the hearing aid department in all [Canadian Sears] stores that had hearing aid concessions. Since that purchase, some of the stores have closed completely because Sears…in Canada…has not been a healthy company. … I could see the [US] Sears operation as being taken over by Phonak. that fits in with their corporate philosophy (same as for ReSound and Siemens, for certain).
The Reality
Premium Phonak hearing aids will be available at all US Costco dispensing offices starting April 1, per the “breaking news” post at the Hearing Blog on March 9. Purported pricing is more than competitive– barely above wholesale invoice cost to dispensing practices–but details are scarce. The next three weeks will bring more information on exactly what models are going on sale, under what names (first model offered will be called Brio), with which features; also, what services will be bundled into the Costco price. Meanwhile, the Phonak and Canada trails remain cold and Audiologists’ reactions to Phonak’s “betrayal” run hot.
Made for iPhone Hearing Aids
The Rumor Mill
This one wasn’t exactly a rumor, since GN ReSound announced they would come out with a MFi hearing aid in the first quarter. The rumor mill seized on that as a means of “taking the stigma out of wearing an aid.” Oticon has announced it’s debuting its own MFi “solution” at the upcoming American Academy of Audiology conference in Orlando (AudiologyNOW!). Unless the rumor is wrong, Oticon’s instrument will still require a streamer when it becomes a reality.
The Reality
GN ReSound unveiled the LiNX on 2/24/14. The LiNX does not remove stigma, so far as Hearing Economics can tell–the hearing aid looks and acts like hearing aids of the past. The aid itself, as Hearing Economics understands it, is GN ReSound’s Verso hearing aid with a 312 battery.[1]What’s different is that the Verso’s DSP is running on a new “smartrange” platform that also houses a wireless radio and its own microprocessor. The latter allows direct, wireless communication with Iphone/Ipad 5 or 5s devices via a 2.4GHz protocol that is unique to LiNX. Then, there’s an iOS app that functions as a remote control for volume control, equalizing, environment switching and “geofencing.” That last means the app automatically changes it up depending on where you are and where you’ve been (e.g., home, work, favorite restaurant, etc). The best part of the app for many will be the self-explanatory “Find My Hearing Aid” function.
The good news about the LiNX is that it offers hands free, binaural phone and music streaming so long as you have the Apple product(s) to support it. As observed in the social media, it’s a techie solution for techies at the moment, but it’s a first step that will eventually ripple out to a wider audience. Reportedly, GN ReSound is not putting a premium price on it — the LiNX will wholesale for about the same amount as existing premium products from ReSound. That is surprising to Hearing Economics.
The less than great news is that there is no telecoil in the LiNX which makes it good for phones but not a far-field solution. Aided hearing will not be augmented in auditoriums, churches, city hall, theater, etc. The 312 battery takes a beating, as we knew it would, getting 5 days with normal use and correspondingly less with streaming. Those who talk on their phones a lot can expect no more than 3 days from a battery. Finally, the iOS app gets us back to the perennial problem of users manipulating their hearing aids into less-than-ideal listening configurations. Just as volume controls were turned down too far in the past, so too can totally connected hearing aids such as the LiNX be turned down to suboptimal listening levels.
The Economic Views
Phonak and Costco: These two companies will do what is in the best interests of shareholders, not stakeholders. As observed above, it’s their corporate philosophy and that of other companies that follow the economic theory of the firm. Consumer stakeholder groups may rejoice at lower Price, though they may derive less technological benefit if supporting services are in sort supply. Audiology stakeholders who feel betrayed and angry are directed to a discussion of the Stakeholder Paradox to come to grips with their emotions. Or maybe move to Canada?
GN ReSound and LiNX. Not everyone, maybe only a few, will want this product at first; ditto for Oticon and other manufacturer’s entry into this market. Economically, it’s the usual tension mediating preferences, utility and budget constraints. Existing hearing aid wearers will have to step up their game to get into the world of wifi, Internet and Apple, but eventually they will. Younger, more techie users of those applications are less likely to need hearing aids and will look askance at ear level streaming that costs the proverbial $6K.; Costco pricing will make more sense to such folk. Altogether, the LiNX signals the beginning of a slow but seismic shift in the Demand curve. It will be fascinating to watch the curve grow.
title image courtesy of gossip girls
