Oticon Real -vs- Bernafon Alpha XT -vs- Philips HearLink 9040 (same hearing aids or different)?

[pvc]

First here's the specs;

• Oticon Real 1|2|3 → Product Information
• Alpha XT 9|7|5 miniRITE TR Product Information; couldn't find current, substituting older VIRON 9|7|5 miniRITE T R → Product information
• HearLink miniRITE T R 9040 | 7040 | 5040 → Product information

Are these hearing aids the same hardware? Yes, I believe they are. However, that doesn't mean you you are purchasing the exact same product. We already know that the hardware can be de-featured as in a typical example of Oticon's three Real models, 1|2|3 specs with linked above. That is, Real 1, Real 2, and Real 3 have different capabilities! Another example of de-featured hearing aid models is Unitron's trial hearing aids, which can be up leveled using the fitting software when the trial expires.

The method used to produce de-featured models in unimportant. The simple existence of de-featured models is the important takeaway! And we know that manufacturers have been de-featuring models for a long time by offering "tiers", example (Real 1|2|3). Here's another → opinion on this subject from a well known professional. I call him UB.

So how can we compare the capabilities of these three different "brands" which appear to be the same hardware, and may or may not be de-featured? Pfft, it's difficult to compare.

• Each uses completely different (GUIs/Graphical User Interface) in their fitting software
• Each uses different customer brochures to describe their wiz-bang hearing aid technology, example "Hybrid Technology"?

Maybe your guess is as good as mine. But my suspicion/opinion is that the best features are reserved for the primary brand Oticon.

 

[Volusiano]

To add to what you've said above, @pvc , even if the Oticon Real shares the same hardware platform as the Philips 9040 and many of the peripheral technologies (like frequency lowering, feedback management, sudden sound stabilizer, wind management, etc), their core technologies are different. The Oticon core is a DNN-based AI focused on balancing sound components in a sound scene in accordance to the open paradigm. Meanwhile, the Philips 9040 core is an AI based engine that is focused on removing noise from the noise-infused speech, and it does not subscribe to the open paradigm like the Oticon aids do. It's like you said, Oticon probably developed a couple of AI-based core technologies, and they put one on the Oticon brand, and the other one is put on the Philips brand. So a lot of same peripheral, but different cores.

Now whether one core technology is better than the other core technology is subjective to the user's taste and preference. I can't really say one core is better than the other core. But my hunch is the same as yours. I also think that Oticon keeps what they think is the better core, and William Demant licensed the other core to Philips.

 

[pvc]

Yep, there's more than one way to bake a cake. For simplicity, let's think of hearing aids as three basic components;

• Microphones
• Processor/Amplifier
• Speakers

In this case all three components start out as identical (or at least mostly identical, maybe one flavor could require more memory or such. However, you can populate the Processor component with whatever firmware instructions you choose. Thus, if Oticon has a few different core technologies they were playing around with, it would be simple to load one brand with the → Open Sound Paradigm set of instructions for the Oticon brand, and load another brand with the → Hybrid Technology set of instructions for Bernafon, or also with the → SoundProtect set of instructions for Philips.

The fitting software would be different and require three different (GUIs/Graphical User Interfaces); Tip: You can mouse click the images (multiple times) to enlarge and you can even mouse-drag images that expand beyond your browser window capacity, or to mouse drag amongst all three images.

 

[pvc]

it might be a long discussion to talk about sister companies. I call them sister companies, alike-but-not-alike. The manufacturers have soooo many relationships it becomes difficult to figure out what they are doing.

Sometimes we like to pigeonhole hearing aid manufacturers as evil corporations only out to make a buck. But maybe there's another reason for these seemingly duplicate efforts. What if they don't know for sure what works best for the majority of HoH-Community members. Maybe the majority of their management staff are not even hard of hearing? So how would they know which technology is the best approach?

HMm; Another motive for these sister companies could be to simply hedge their bets and gauge which "core technologies" have good success rates? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Altimis]

The Oticon core is a DNN-based AI focused on balancing sound components in a sound scene in accordance to the open paradigm. Meanwhile, the Philips 9040 core is an AI based engine that is focused on removing noise from the noise-infused speech, and it does not subscribe to the open paradigm like the Oticon aids do. It's like you said, Oticon probably developed a couple of AI-based core technologies, and they put one on the Oticon brand, and the other one is put on the Philips brand. So a lot of same peripheral, but different cores.

Initially, I thought Bernafon didn't use AI in their new hearing aids like the Bernafon Alpha XT, because Bernafon seemed to promote "Hybrid Technology," which sounded quite ambiguous. I assumed they wouldn't use AI for processing at all.
However, after reading the brochure and product details, I found that Bernafon does use "Machine Learning," which is a type of AI.
But why doesn't Bernafon advertise their AI?

This is Bernafon Alpha XT brochure

https://www.hearingaid.org.uk/files...t/bernafon-alpha-xt-hearing-aids-brochure.pdf

 

[Volusiano]

Usually if AI is used in the core technology, then the marketing is focused on it front and center, instead of burying it inside as a small part of the whole thing. I'm not sure why the Bernafon Alpha XT does not put the AI part as the front and center of its marketing material. It does not seem to look like the DNN AI approach that Oticon uses. It looks more like the AI core technology used in the Philips 9030/9040 hearing aids that trains the AI to remove the noise from noisy speech samples. That's because it focuses on what it calls Smart Noise Reduction to clean up speech signal from the noise (as seen in this part of the brochure you mentioned, shown in the first screenshot below), which is very similar to the depiction of the Philips 9030/9040 AI as seen in the second screenshot below.

It also seems to advertise the Wind & Contact sound handling, which is 1 or the 2 new features in the Oticon Real and the Philips 9040. The noticeably missing feature is the Sudden Sound Stabilizer. It's not clear to me why it wouldn't have both.