Phonak Brio 4 Hearing Aid

My right one is pretty new. The button that turns them up on the right won’t connect to my Phonak app half the time. Remote Support never connects. More powerful than my Resound aids when listening to voices, lousy audio when Bluetoothing music or podcasts compared to the Resound. All in all I hate these Phonak hearing aids and wish I’d never wasted my money on them. 

My review here is mainly to let buyers know that the information provided in the many write ups on Costco’s Brio 4 is not as clear as it should be.  Based on everything I’ve read  online I assumed that my Brio 4 in the ear aids would be bluetooth compatible.  They are not.   After receiving my aids (which the audiologist at the Costco hearing center stated were bluetooth compatible), I arrived home and proceeded to try pairing with my iphone.  After numerous failed attempts I started doing more research and found that there are actually four Brio 4 models and not all are bluetooth compatible.  Mine is the Brio 4 I 10.  It is not bluetooth compatible, cannot be controlled with the phonak app and has no other adjustable features other  than a push button volume adjustment.  I was really looking forward to bluetooth compatibility and believe I could probably return them for a different model.  However I’ve also noticed that the in the ear bluetooth compatible model (Brio 4 B313 or B13) seems to be quite larger on the outer ear than the Brio 4 I 10 and not sure I want to go with a larger model.  Also I am not interested in behind the ear models, so yet to be decided.  On the positive side, my new aids look sturdy and are functioning well.

I have Phonak Brio 2 at present which I purchased from Costco 3 years ago and still working perfectly. I would like to try the new Phonak Brio 4.

This is my third set of hearing aids and they are the best of the three. I had the Costco Rexton and before that I had the Siemens 500. I rate these better than the Siemens and what I like most of all is the clarity. I also like the ability to switch settings without the use of a remote control. I have a wood shop where I run saws, lathes and shop vacs and I am able to either mute my hearing aids or change the setting to extra noisy and still listen to my radio. I would recommend the Brio 4 to anyone that is hard of hearing.

Even with two levels of noise reduction, low frequency noise, especially wind, are still present so that hearing in noisy conditions still less than desirable.

And, while with several adjustments by COSTCO, Clarity of high frequency Female voices, especially when speaking fast, is still short of what one would like.

But, even as I've had them 4-5-years now, COSTCO has said that there are, at least in their inventory, anything better for just hearing. Lots of additional features but, for just plain hearing, they won't recommends any change.

Like Rechargeable.  Good clarity. Lots of tweaks 

Dislike  have several settings   Use speech in noise and music but others make very little difference and so never use them 

I went to Costco thinking I would buy the KS9 hearing aids, which are much cheaper, but the technician told me I should get the Brio's instead, because I have a lot of hearing loss, and work in a pretty damp environment. She thought the Brio's would be better since the speakers aren't in the ear and I can wear silicone ear pieces instead. So far I haven't had any issues and my hearing aids are going strong, so I guess it was worth the upgrade. 

Regarding the new aids, they are working really well for me, and far superior to the old Rextons before this. I'm still not hearing better in background noise, but I'm told that's because of my hearing loss. I have been using the hearing aids to make phone calls and I can control things on the app, so that's been huge.