By Dr. Shopovick, AuD, CCC-A
Today, I’m pulling back the curtain on what goes on behind the scenes when fitting hearing aids—and diving into some of the most impressive features of the Phonak Audeo Infininio 90 Sphere, one of Phonak’s most advanced hearing aid models. Watch the above video or read along on my summary of features.
What Makes This Hearing Aid Stand Out?
The Audeo Infininio 90 Sphere is built with cutting-edge technology designed to provide natural, effortless hearing, even in the most challenging environments. At the heart of this model is Phonak’s deep neural network chip, which processes sound in real time by drawing from millions of real-world sound environments. Think of it as a “tiny sound brain” working constantly to help you focus on speech and reduce background noise.
Programming Features That Make a Difference
In the Phonak Target Programming Software, there are several features that can be customized to the individual based on their specific listening needs!
- Speech in Loud Noise:
Powered by the deep neural network in the hearing aid chip, this mode helps you hear conversations in busy places—restaurants, family gatherings, or crowded events. It intelligently separates speech from noise for clearer, more comfortable listening. - Soft Noise Reduction:
Tired of hearing the fridge or fan humming? This feature reduces soft background noises so you can focus on what really matters. - Speech Enhancer:
Boosts clarity in quiet environments—perfect for understanding soft-spoken individuals. - Noise Block:
Cuts out steady background noise (like engine hum) without sacrificing important sounds like speech. - Dynamic Noise Cancellation:
Automatically adjusts based on your environment, reducing background noise from the sides or behind while focusing on speech in front of you. - Wind Block:
Great for outdoor enthusiasts—this minimizes wind interference during activities like golf or tennis.
Final Thoughts
The Phonak Audeo Infininio 90 Sphere is more than just a hearing aid—it’s an intelligent hearing solution. I’ve fit many patients with this model, and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. These features are designed to reduce listening fatigue, improve clarity, and make your day-to-day experiences more enjoyable.
If you’re interested in learning more about the latest in hearing technology, call us to schedule a consult, we are happy to answer all your questions!
Transcript:
“Hey everyone, it’s Dr. Shopovick and today I wanted to do a little something different and show you guys the audiologist side of things and take a look at the hearing aid software and show you a few of my favorite features on the new Phonak Audeo Infininio 90 sphere. This is one of Phonak’s most advanced hearing aids and they have cutting edge technology inside. So, this model is really designed to give you a natural, effortless hearing in even the toughest environments.
So, the first thing I want to show you here is this is the homepage when I program your hearing aids to my computer. So, this is where we put in the receiver power and size along with the type of dome or ear mold that is going in your ear. And then once we’re ready to start the fitting, we’ll hit the fitting tab and then we will go into our real ear measurements. So, it is crucial that your audiologist is running real ear measurements to verify that the hearing aid is functioning properly and to make sure the hearing aids are getting programmed correctly. So, without real ear measurements, it’s a lot of guess work when programming the aids.
But when we’re doing real ear measurements, I am changing these frequencies that you see here. And I can make adjustments to every single one of them if I need to. And this is adjusting the gain or the volume along with the different compression ratios.
Next, I’m going to hit on program options and show you some of my favorite features in this new sphere model. So, the first thing I want to talk about is this spirit speech in loud noise. So, this is powered by Phonak’s new deep neural network chip. This feature helps you follow conversations in busy places like restaurants, family gatherings, any sort of very loud background noise environment.
And to kind of go into a deeper dive of the deep neural network chip, this is essentially the brain inside of your I90 sphere hearing aid. And basically, what Phonak has done is they trained this chip with millions of real-world sound environments from coffee shops to parks to, you know, quiet living rooms or if you’re in your kitchen. So, this chip knows how to separate speech from background noise in a way that feels very natural.
So what does this mean for the patient? So, this means that there will be clearer conversations in loud places. So, voices will stand out more while the background fades into kind of a balance um or it reduces that noise. It also means it’ll be less listening effort on the user. So, the chip does all of the hard work of sorting the sounds so that your brain doesn’t have to do that and tire out. And then lastly, it’s going to create a more natural sound for you. So instead of feeling robotic or artificial, sounds are going to be closer to how your brain remembers them.
So, I like to think of it as um the hearing aid has a tiny sound brain and it’s working every second to give you clearer, more comfortable hearing. Wherever life takes you, whatever environment you’re in, it is going to assist you with that.
So, now that we’re um focusing back in the software, there is an activation level for the spheric speech and loud noise. So, if my patient has extreme difficulty hearing in noise, I’m going to move this to moderate. So, this means that the spirit speech and loud noise program will automatically kick in when noise is at a lower level so that they can get the most help. If my patient doesn’t have too much trouble in background noise, I’ll probably leave it at the default. But recently I have been changing it to zero because a lot of people report extreme difficulty in noise.
Then if we go to other programs in your hearing aids, I’ll show you a few other features. So another feature I really like is soft noise reduction, which is right here. So, if you feel like the refrigerator humming is too loud or fan noises are too loud, we can actually turn this to weak, moderate, or strong to help reduce those soft noises to ease your listening experience. So, I really like using that.
Another one that I love is speech enhancer. So, I can turn this to strong to make speech more crisp and clear for you when you’re in a quiet environment. So, if you really struggle with soft-spoken individuals or very quiet individuals, this is a great feature to turn up.
And then another feature here is noise block. So what noise block is doing, it’s reducing steady background noise as well. So, without um compromising important sounds that are around you like speech. So that is another amazing feature.
Then if we go to speech and noise, I also enjoy using the dynamic noise cancellation. So, we can again turn this to moderate or strong. And what the dynamic noise cancellation is doing is it’s automatically um it adapts to reduce the background noise while keeping speech nice and clear. And this if I move it to moderate or strong, it’s really focusing on what’s in front of you while um reducing background noise that is in the back of you or the side. So that’s how you can see this little green beam right there. So that’s just showing that if we increase this, it’s really going to help you focus on what is in front of you.
And then another feature that I love is this wind block right here. So, if you are outdoors a lot, you know, play golf, tennis, this is a great feature to use because it’s going to minimize the wind interference when you’re in those outdoor situations.
So, those are just some of the cool features of this new sphere chip. Um, I fit a lot of these so far on my patients and everyone seems to be loving them. So, if you found this video helpful, um, don’t forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more reviews on hearing aids and hearing health tips. Thank you, and I hope you all have a lovely day.”
