It's really, really awesome for me
Hello, my name is Leah, and I am a 21 year old college student that is a hearing aid user. Now I have a newly discovered hearing loss. I was diagnosed with mild to moderate hearing loss at the age of 21. So just a couple of months ago, and this is, in fact, my first pair of hearing aids that I have gotten thanks to Zip hearing. Now, for me personally, what I struggle with is, something called sound discrimination. So, it's not that everything in my environment is soft and difficult to hear. It's more so that everything is really loud. Everything is kind of amplified and I can hear what's going on. I just have difficulty, discerning particular sounds or discriminating between, let's say, somebody who's talking to me and a really loud environment. So that's kind of what led me to get my hearing tested and eventually get a diagnosis for hearing loss. Now, the hearing aids that I have are the Phonak Audio Lumity L90 slim and so I can show you right here I have them I took them out for this. This is so this is the charging case that they come in. and if you open it up, you will see these are the two hearing aids. There is a left and a right port for each of these that the respective hearing aid goes in. And then on the back here is where you plug it in. So, I could take one of these out and we could take a look.
Now again this is the slim model. So, this is a little bit more kind of slender than some of the other Phonaks that there are. But this is what it looks like. and again, this is the right piece, but the right and the left look practically identical. So, in terms of why I chose this hearing aid, the Phonak Audio Lumity’ s do specifically focus on sound discrimination, which is what I needed. again, I don't need a hearing aid that makes everything loud. Everything in my environment is loud enough. I just need something that would make it a little bit easier to focus on a particular sound and hear what people are saying. Also, another big reason that I chose this specific brand, and this specific pair is that they are Bluetooth compatible. For me, that was really important because I am a really big music fan. I listen to music constantly, whether I am taking a walk at the gym, at a library, studying, whatever it may be. I am always listening to music. So that was one of my primary concerns when getting a hearing aid was, I didn't want anything that was going to impede my ability to listen to music. So, it's really, really cool that these are Bluetooth compatible because they allow me to listen to music. Not only do they allow me to listen to music all the time, but they actually make it a lot easier for me to listen to music because, it means that I don't have to be constantly digging in my bag for headphones, putting them in, taking them out, doing whatever I do. These are already in my ear all of the time, and I can just go on my phone and start playing some music, which is really awesome.
Something else that I really like about the L90 in particular is that these have tap control. So, this was really important for me because like I said, I am a huge music fan. But one of the primary places that I listen to music is at the gym. I am a personal trainer, so I am at the gym constantly. and when I'm at the gym, sometimes it can be really, really difficult if I have to listen to something that's going on outside of my music, whether that's another person that's speaking to me, an announcement, a coworker, whoever it is, or whatever that sound is, the tap control makes it really easy because I can just tap on one of my hearing aids and the music will switch off. And now for me, that is a lot easier than finding my phone, which is usually on the ground or in my bag or behind the desk. So, it's a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot easier for me to stop and be able to hear somebody talking without the music to continue to play. So that was a big thing with me, was the tap control.
One other feature about the Phonak’s that I really did appreciate was automatic pairing. So, what this means is that when you go to charge your hearing aids, as soon as you put them into the charging case, they disconnect automatically from your phone. That also means it works in the inverse when you take them out and are ready to wear them again. They pair to your phone automatically, which is really great because I don't have to worry about pairing them all the time and kind of struggle with that. So that's really, really awesome because I don't even have to worry about it. I just take them out of the case in the morning. When I am ready to put them on, pop them in my ears and I am good to go.
So again, some of the things that I really like about the Phonak Slim hearing aids is the Bluetooth feature. it's really, really awesome for me because it allows me to watch videos, listen to music, take calls, and do all of that kind of discreetly and without having to use any extra equipment, which is really awesome. and again, things like the tap control and the automatic pairing are really not only useful, but super convenient. The only complaint that I have about these hearing aids really, is that Bluetooth can be finicky sometimes. but, you know, that's kind of standard with any Bluetooth device. It's not going to work perfectly 100% of the time. Sometimes it's about the device's proximity to the hearing aids. sometimes it's about, you know, whether or not the Bluetooth on your phone is actually working. So again, and this has never been that big of a deal that I have had to go get them fixed or looked at or anything like that, it usually just takes a couple extra seconds, in order to pair. But that being said, overall, these are amazing, and they have really improved my ability to do things in my daily life and be comfortable and be able to hear other people and other sounds to the best of my ability.