Phonak Virto R Infinio Custom Hearing Aids: Exploring Fit, Features, and First Impressions

Hello, everyone, and welcome to This Week in Hearing. Over time, I’ve had all kinds of things in my ears, including true wireless earbuds, going back to the very beginning, not to mention custom hearing protection and custom in-ear monitors. But I’ve never tried a custom in-ear hearing aid. So I was more than a little interested when I received an invitation to visit Phonak U.S. headquarters and research center to be fitted with the new Virto R Infinio and get the details from Christine Jones. Stay tuned to the end where I share my initial impressions. Christine, thanks a lot for joining me today. You know, it’s interesting, this is the second time we’ve talked in, and this space is really interesting because, of course, in your past, you were the director of this very research facility and a couple of other things in between, and then we talked in New York at the media event for the Sphere. So great to have you again. Thank you. Hi, Andy. Thank you for having me. Yes, I am working on doing many jobs around here at Sonova. Now, it was interesting, this, this hearing aid, because you actually had a Virto which was based on the Infinio platform, but it certainly looks like a much different beast than the one I’m wearing today. Yes. Right? We’ve had the Virto non-wireless devices out for about a year now, and now we’re launching a real game changer, which is the Virto rechargeable Infinio. So it’s a fully wireless and rechargeable custom in-the-ear product. Yeah, so the rechargeability is obviously one of the big things, but there seems to be a lot more behind it too. So let’s talk about the audiological performance first. Sure. Okay. So in the whole process, from ear impression to a fitted hearing aid, it looks like you’re doing a lot of different things. So, for example, I saw that once you have digitized the ear canal geometry, you’re using that to help you decide the receiver, you’re using it to help decide the vent, and even, are you actually even accounting for the ear canal resonances based on the geometry? So in other words, you’re kind of simulating real ear performance? So the entire fitting process has really been revolutionized by something that we call the Right Fit approach. There are four building blocks within this Right Fit approach. One is we’ve got new modeling rules, so we’re able to really get a tiny custom device well-recessed in the ear with a faceplate getting close to the aperture of the ear canal. So that’s what’s giving you probably the smallest rechargeable custom device in the market. Then we’ve got the acoustically optimized vent technology. So this allows us to look at the geometry of your ear and also your audiometric needs to create the most optimal pathway for the vent to deliver both the, both the aesthetic and the acoustic experience. Then there’s the acoustically optimized receiver. This is taking all the guesswork out of the process for the HCP. Instead of just selecting a receiver based on your audiogram, we can also use that earmold impression to look at residual ear canal volume and also add in headroom for any potential progression of the hearing loss in order to, to select the right vent to deliver the right amount of necessary gain and still get it into the smallest possible package. And then finally, we’ve got biometric calibration. This is an AI-informed approach that looks at 1,600 different data points on the impression in order to decide the best placement of the directional microphones on the outside, but also optimize the acoustic settings inside in order to give you really personalized directionality using the collection and the, the reflection and the, and the direction of sound arriving at the external ear in order to optimize the performance of the directional microphones in correspondence with that. So you said something which was really interesting. You can actually change the position of the directional microphones that can be located in a different spot within the face of the hearing aid? Yes, where, where the, where the faceplate is going to have the directional microphones oriented and then the internal settings. In general, for the user, this means about an additional 2 dB of signal-to-noise ratio improvement over a device that’s modeled without biometric calibration. Okay, so you’re able to use the pinna cues to get another couple of dB out of the SNR? well, to use the pinna cues to inform Yeah. the positioning, yes. Yeah, so the pinna cues inform the positioning and then you’re able to get another couple of dB. Yep. So if I put the Spheres back in, I’d have a couple of not counting Sphere mode, right? But if I just use them in the same speech in noise mode that this one has, I should realize a little bit better SNR? One of the theoretical benefits of a custom product is that we are utilizing the natural enhancement that the ear is providing. I haven’t seen specific data comparing a Sphere to an ITE, but I know in, in particular, the biometric calibration is a unique tool within the Sonova toolkit for getting an optimal performance out of a custom device. Okay. It’ll be interesting to try it out as people by now have may have noticed I’m wearing them. Very comfortable devices and you can’t even tell if I’m looking forward, but I haven’t had enough experience with them yet. Stay tuned when we go to a loud restaurant this weekend and put it through its Yeah. … compare the experience with the Sphere. I can’t wait to hear. So, yeah, the interesting thing in the start is I can tell that the directionality of sound is very natural. And I suppose that’s where you’re really taking advantage of pinna cues there. Yes. I, I’ve been running a lot with mine and I really appreciate knowing when somebody’s coming up from behind me and I need to scooch on over. And so, so then you also have a new version of AutoSense to go with it. Yes. And what’s the difference between AutoSense 7 and 6? Yeah. So I think one of the greatest things about the Virto is that it’s leveraging all of the speech understanding and sound quality benefits that Infinio Audeo is loved for and more. So with Virto, we launched AutoSense 7. AutoSense 7 has 18 times the real life speech material that it was trained on, and so the result of that for the user is the additional precision that it can match the scene with the, with the right user experience. So whether the scene needed more comfort or more speech enhancement, intelligibility AutoSense 7 is gonna do even a better job of matching up that user experience to user needs and preferences automatically. Okay, yeah, makes perfect sense. Larger training data set, and you get a little more refined tuning in various situations. Yeah. Begs the question, are you going to use or update the others to 7.0? Don’t have any information on that yet, but the Virto R Infinio is the first product to launch AutoSense OS 7. Okay. And go ahead. Well, there are a couple other features within the Virto that are contributing to the excellent sound quality and speech understanding. We also have APD 3.0, that’s similar to the Audeo, and we know that the user preference for first fit is 93% of users in our, in our lab preferred the sound quality of APD over a leading competitor. So we’ve had a lot of success out of the gates with that fitting approach. And then we also have a portfolio of features called SmartSpeech, and this is the first time that SmartSpeech has been available in a custom product. So that means speech enhancer StereoZoom 2.0, and motion sensor hearing all within the little custom product. Okay, so then StereoZoom 2.0, if I go into speech and noise mode, that will kick in StereoZoom 2.0, correct? For speech in loud noise. So this the binaural narrow beamforming reserved for the most challenging conditions, yep. Oh, okay. So yeah, I have to look at the programs I have in mind, do I have speech in noise or speech in loud noise? I can’t remember. You’ll have both. I’ll have both. Yeah. Okay, so they’re, they’re there, so I can get StereoZoom 2.0. Correct. Which will be a different effect on the Sphere, because the Sphere doesn’t have StereoZoom, you rely on the deep neural network instead. Correct. Okay. Yes. Okay. And it’s interesting when you, you talked about the, the fitting. Is the fitting going to be a little bit closer with these? And the reason why I ask that question is because if the fitting is informed by the ear canal geometry, then theoretically the fitting should almost be relying on a simulated real ear measurement because you, you’re calculating the ear canal geometry, and I found when I got fitted with these, my real ear was very close, which is not always the case. Mm-hmm. So would you expect that experience in the fitting to be a little bit better or closer to real ear targets? these are totally personalized for you, right? And that’s one of the benefits of going the route of a custom product versus a stock, off-the-shelf product that might require a little bit more fine tuning to achieve the same thing. Yeah, okay, because I suppose if you’re using a RIC with a dome, you’re never quite sure where the dome’s gonna land in the ear canal That’s right. when you mold it custom, you’ve got a whole ear canal geometry, you can predict a lot better. Is that the case? And part of the right fit experience is that when that hearing aid is connected to target, it’s sending all of the information to target so that it knows already in the fitting, like what receiver and what the venting is. And so all of that can be built into the first fit without the fitter needing to interact with the software at all. Okay, okay, very good. And of course rechargeability is a big thing, right? I mean, I, I never wanted to change batteries. I mean, when I first got fitted with anything rechargeable was still fairly new and, but that was like, I’ve already had like 10 different true wireless earbuds, I’m like, “I’m not changing little batteries. want rechargeable.” And I suppose that’s only getting more popular. For sure. I, think every user I’ve spoken to, once they’ve interacted with a rechargeable device, they all say, “I will never go back to the hassle of batteries.” And I think the rechargeability of this product is really desirable for the end user because it is such an easy experience. It has the little clamp Yeah. … Show more, more. with magnetic posts, so when you just kind of set the hearing aids down, they automatically adhere to these posts in the perfect position for charging. So it takes very little dexterity or manipulation in order to get them properly seated in the charger, and then when you take them out, they will automatically turn on and the battery …the last 30 hours in the automatic mode, or most people would like to be doing some Bluetooth streaming throughout the day. So for a heavy Bluetooth streaming use case of about eight hours per day, you would still get a full day use of 16 hours of battery life. Okay. So eight hours of streaming, say, and eight hours of listening in automatic mode, still good to go? Still good to go. Yep. Okay. And we do see, you know, Infinio wearers are, are pushing, you know, well above 12 hours per day because the hearing aids are doing, you know, just the right thing for them in all of these different …you day full of internet meetings, that’s what I… You know, there are days where I’m on an internet meeting for half of it and then have some dinner, washing the dishes, listening to a Yep. …that sort of thing. Maybe a couple of phone calls. It’s not hard to do, shockingly, yeah, in modern life, and that’s where the universal Bluetooth, I think, is still a huge consumer advantage because it doesn’t matter if you have an Apple iPad and you have an Android phone. You can connect to eight different Bluetooth devices and two can be connected simultaneously. So, you can remain connected to all of your, all of your guys. Well, same as the other Infinios and, in fact, even my Paradises Yeah. …eight and two. There is So same, right? Same connectivity? same connectivity, although like other Infinios, this one is powered by the ERA chip, which has enabled an even more stable Bluetooth connection which is a big benefit to the user. And with new with Virto, we have a one-step pairing process. So for fitters, this is gonna be a great ease of use feature for getting people hooked up in the office. When you open up the My Phonak app and it connects with the hearing aids, that will also connect them to their Bluetooth streaming and for their hands-free wireless connectivity for phone calls. So there’s not a need to pair the app separately from the other Bluetooth functions. So I was gonna ask you how that went, except when I got fitted, I did it Yeah. …I think it was, like, 20 seconds from top to bottom, like, so I have to commend you on that. The fitting was super smooth. Yeah. I love it. Well, I, we have the feedback that HCPs don’t wanna spend a lot of time being the, the Bluetooth navigator for patients. They’d rather spend that time in, you know, other counseling activities. So let’s get them connected real fast and then with the stability very little troubleshooting and follow-up down the road. Okay. Yeah. No, it was, it was very, very smooth and that was on an S23. It’s not the latest phone. Yep. Go. …I’ll try with an iPhone too. Will it be the same experience? Yeah. Okay. Now the old one, its connectivity was through a T-coil, right? You had a T-coil inside. I mean, the Virto I. Uh-huh. Had a T-coil inside and that was your only connectivity, right? You had to wear the neckloop to interface to your phone or what have you. Right. So now this is Bluetooth classic. Do you still have a T-coil in it? No T-coil in this one. You’re right. The non-wireless do have an optional T-coil. This one has the universal Bluetooth connectivity and then it also has RogerDirect. So if you have a Roger microphone, you can interact wirelessly with the Roger for your accessibility needs as well. Right. Okay. But no external T-coil device available so I could have a T-coil receiver that will interface with the hearing aid directly? We don’t have one, no. Okay. Yeah. So then I would revert to the what I do like with an FM system too is I plug the Roger into the FM receiver and set the thing aside. Yeah. And let that Roger up. So in a, in a loop setting, you’d want to grab one of the loop receivers and Roger it up. Yeah. You could experiment with that. I haven’t tested that. Well, Yeah. That’s my go-to always. Well, you have all the technical impacts. Well, it’s really the only way. If you don’t, if you have no T-coil and a hearing Right. …the only way to get an assistive listening system without wearing a Yeah. …is to Roger it up. Correct. So yeah, you just That would be, the this one. through the short, you know, audio cable and do it, so that’s what you would do here? Mm-hmm. Okay. So let’s talk a little bit about the style. Okay. All right. Because when, when I think about in-the-ear hearing aids, right I’ll think about what Robin Gillon said, right? Mm-hmm. He said, “I’m much more comfortable wearing something that looks like an earbud than a RIC,” right? That’s his lifestyle. I get that, right? But on the other hand, there are people who, you know, they’re kind of like they’re self-conscious, the impression that if I’m wearing an earbud, you know, it means don’t talk to me. Mm-hmm. Right? Clearly in designing this, you wanted to look like a modern, stylish earbud, and you’ve succeeded. It’s a very nice looking device. It doesn’t look like a hearing aid at all. But how do you see that going forward? Do you think there will be people who might benefit from the in-the-ear style, but would be afraid of it, or do you see people migrating to more acceptance of earbud style? Do you see more people like Robin coming up, in other words, that would make this more popular going forward than in the past? Yeah. how does Phonak look at it? I really think that the style, that this miniaturization, the customization, the look of the Virto I, Infinio Virto R Infinio, is, is really something that could appeal to everyone. You mentioned Robin Gillon. He’s the ambassador for this product. Robin is, like, a world-class freestyle skier and a pilot, so he has some really specific lifestyle needs for his hearing aid. But he also has, you know, kind of this, this young vibe where he wanted a very modern, high-tech looking device. So he’s got black faceplate. It does resemble more of an earbud type of style, although it’s not you know, something that’s super visible in his ear where people would say, “Oh, maybe I shouldn’t talk to you,” because it does have that deeply recessed, you know, custom aesthetic as well. So I think for, for the younger folks who are looking for something that has that more high-tech look about it, they’re gonna gravitate towards what Robin had selected, which is a black faceplate, more of an earbud styling. But on the other end of the spectrum, we’ve got older folks. Maybe they’ve got dexterity issues or, you know, tactile challenges where the two-piece system is really difficult for them to place appropriately in the ear. And having not just the the usability of the charger, but the usability of just that one custom piece where when you get it in right, you know it’s in right, and then nothing else to manipulate behind the ear also has huge benefits. So I think having the option of a custom product that still offers the performance benefits of, of the RICs is, is gonna be a game changer. Which is really a first for Phonak, right? Because if I look at the Virto I, right, it really wasn’t… didn’t have the same performance as the Infinios in general, right? No connectivity, this sort of thing. Exactly. And now you’re in the same exact place, right? If I get an Infinio, non-Sphere Infinio, and I get these, they have exactly the same functionality. Exactly right. So does that, does that… Are you anticipating that’ll be a pathway towards a greater use of the in-ear style versus RIC? I am confident. also, as you mentioned, the popularity of rechargeable hearing aids is undisputed in the industry at this point. So having all of the, the RIC performance and the usability and aesthetic of a custom that’s also rechargeable is gonna be a hit. Okay. Looking forward to seeing how it plays out and just who chooses it versus the RIC style. Yep. So be watching going forward how this goes. For sure. And I think that there won’t just be sort of one profile of, of what the ideal custom user of the future will be. I think it’s gonna hit a lot of marks for, for a lot of different people. Well, thank you very much. This has been a great conversation. Any final thoughts before we go? You know, I I can’t wait to hear what you think after you’ve been out at that restaurant. And in addition to those performance benefits, the RightFit technology is most likely going to be the smallest custom rechargeable device on the market. So I think it looks great on you, Andy, and I can’t wait to check in and hear more. Well, thanks, and actually I’m gonna hold back on sending this in and I’m gonna give them a fly for a few days and leave some impressions like I did with the Sphere. Yeah. And so yeah, happy to, really looking forward to trying it, my first custom hearing aid experience. A great device to, to try it out as a first-time user. Hey, it’s just like us. We’re not usually first, but when we do it, it’s gonna be a game changer. You’re just waiting until the time is right. Looking forward to taking them out for a spin. Thanks a lot. Thanks, Andy. Being new to custom in-ear hearing aids, they did take a bit of getting used to. My own voice sounded different compared to RICs, but the occlusion was not excessive and I quickly adapted. One tends to speak at a lower volume when wearing an occluding earbud. That didn’t happen here. They were comfortable enough to wear all day straight away, staying firmly in place when talking or eating. Locked in place while running too. And it’s nice to hear everything with perfect comfort and no issue with occlusion in the footsteps either. Over the weekend, I wore them in one-on-one situations, in a small group, and at a large family gathering. What I noticed, especially in the larger setting, is that the directionality of sound was more pronounced than with the RIC. I don’t have particular trouble with directionality wearing a RIC, but it was just more natural with the Virto. That and the overall hearing performance made socializing with them a relaxing experience. Audiologically speaking, access to pinna cues is probably the best argument for choosing in-ears. Alas, I would have also put that to the test in noise, but the night we went out was stormy. Probably for that reason, the restaurant was mostly empty, foiling my attempt. The new pairing process is also worth mentioning. Going at a deliberate pace, it took me exactly one minute to pair them with my Samsung Galaxy S23. What really makes it easy is that it’s all done step by step within the Phonak app. No need to pair within the Android settings and no hopping back and forth between different screens. I didn’t try it with an iPhone, but I’m told it’s the same. I have a feeling HCPs are going to love this. Music quality was also very good for a hearing aid. While they will never match these, I think most people will find the Virtos quite usable for everyday listening. Phonak has come a long way with custom in-ear hearing aids, introducing for the first time a Virto with full bidirectional connectivity and all-day rechargeability. These are sure to generate a lot of interest. Thanks for watching or listening to this episode of This Week in Hearing.