It's hard to believe,
but this new version of the Phonak Roger On just got even better.
Phonak is well known for their assistive listening devices like the Phonak
Partner Mic that will clip onto the shirt of the person that you want to hear
and send their voice directly into both of your hearing aids and their TV
connector that will connect up with your TV,
take the audio from your favorite TV show,
and send that directly into your hearing aids as well. However,
the Roger Microphone lineup, which includes the Roger Table Mic 2,
Roger Select,
and Roger On are assistive listening devices on steroids.
And while you may have seen my original Roger On review from a couple of years
ago,
they just came out with a new second version of the Roger On that has a new
headset mode that I'll be talking about in this video. But before I get into
that feature,
let me cover some of the basics that you need to know about the Roger On.
There are technically two types of the Roger On microphones. Now,
bear with me here, but you have the Roger On and you have the Roger On iN,
and this confuses a lot of people.
These two devices are virtually identical except for one major thing.
The Roger On iN has Roger Receiver software installed inside of it,
whereas the Roger On does not. So if you have Phonak Marvel, Paradise,
or Lumity hearing aids,
you already have Roger Receiver hardware already installed inside of those
devices. However,
those Roger receivers are not active yet until you install the Roger
Receiver software. Now, there's a couple of ways that you can get this software.
You can have your hearing care professional order you a couple of Roger X
receivers and then install the receiver software from those into your
Phonak hearing aids. Or you can go a much easier route and just get the Roger On
iN version of the Roger On that has those receivers pre-installed that can
then be uploaded or installed into your Phonak hearing aids.
This is what makes the Roger On iN more expensive than the Roger On because it
has this software inside of it.
If for whatever reason you already have your Roger receivers activated inside of
your Phonak hearing aids,
do not purchase the Roger On iN version because you will pay more money for that
version.
Just get the regular Roger On and it will work with your Phonak devices.
Still confused? If you are,
make sure that you ask your hearing care professional about this because it will
make sense to them and they'll make sure that they guide you in the proper
direction. Okay,
so once you have this Roger Receiver software installed into your Phonak hearing
aids,
you'll be able to communicate with any of the Roger microphones in the Roger
lineup. Man,
I am pretty sure that I have just said Roger about 20 times so far in this
video,
and I'm not even halfway through the video and I'm gonna be saying it a lot
more. If you're okay with that,
make sure that you go ahead and hit that like button.
It really helps out my channel,
and if you wanna see more videos just like this one,
make sure that you hit that subscribe button with notification bell.
Cause I publish a bunch of new videos every single week. That being said,
really appreciate it. Now back to the video. Okay, so now that we have.
All of the discussion about the Roger Receiver software outta the way,
I'm just going to be referencing this by its name of Roger On,
not Roger On iN from this point forward.
The first original version of the Roger On had four modes.
You had the table microphone mode, the lapel microphone mode,
the pointing mode, and the TV streaming mode.
All of these modes are still available inside of this second version of the
Roger On.
Now all of these features will activate automatically depending on how you're
utilizing the Roger On. So if you want to use the table microphone mode,
all you have to do is set it on the center of the table and it will start
picking up the voices of the people around you using its directional
microphones, which will also cut down on the background noise.
You can even manually select a directional microphone that you want to use by
using the My Roger Mic app on your smartphone. The lapel microphone mode allows
you to clip the Roger On onto the collar of the shirt of the person that you
want to hear.
Their voice will go into the microphone and then send it wirelessly into both of
your hearing aids, significantly improving your ability to understand them,
especially in a background noise situation.
You can even use multiple Roger On microphones on multiple people.
So if you happen to go somewhere and you want to hear three people on a panel
discussion,
you can have one of these clipped to every single one of their shirts or have it
sitting in front of them.
And then you can even use your My Roger Mic app to activate which microphone is
streaming into your ears at any given time.
The pointing mode is one of my favorites because this allows you to point at the
Roger On at the person that you want to hear. So if you're in a cocktail party
situation and you have different people coming up to you at different times,
you can just hold this in your hand and then point it at the person that you
want to hear without being really creepy about it. Ultimately,
the directional microphones on the Roger On will cut through all of that
background noise and focus on the person that you're pointing at.
The TV streaming mode is made possible by connecting the base station of the
Roger On up to your TV.
And then as soon as you set the Roger On inside of your base station,
it will start streaming the audio directly from that TV into both of your
hearing aids,
substantially improving the audio quality of your favorite TV show.
As you can see, the Phonak Roger On is an extremely versatile tool,
but they did add a new feature in this second version. You see,
there's a major flaw when it comes to Phonak hearing aids,
and it has to do with the two-way audio feature.
Two-way audio allows you to hear the sound of whatever you have your devices
connected to, like your smartphone or your computer.
But it also means that when you talk,
your voice gets picked up by the microphones behind your ears and sent to the
person on the other end of the line. There's two problems with this.
Number one is that if your voice is not loud enough to be picked up by the
microphones behind your ears,
the people on the other end of the line are not gonna hear you very well.
The other problem is, is that if you're in a background noise situation,
all of that background noise ends up getting into the microphones behind your
ears,
and the people on the other end of the line have trouble hearing your voice over
the noise. This problem presents itself whether you're talking on the phone,
whether you are in a Zoom call, or a Microsoft Teams meeting.
Unlike other hearing aid manufacturers,
Phonak does not allow you to switch off of this two-way audio feature and
use your smart device or your computer's microphones to pick up your voice.
But this is where the new headset feature of the Phonak Roger On version two
comes into play because you can plug the Roger On version two into your laptop
or even into your phone for it to pick up your voice and send it to the
people on the other end of the line,
and you can get this as close to your mouth as you need to for the other people
to hear you better. Now,
I've tested this thing out on multiple Zoom calls and Microsoft Teams meetings,
and it works like a charm. I even tested it out on my smartphone and the people
on the other end of the line can hear me much better. Unfortunately,
the Roger On version two only comes with a USB to USB-C cable.
The USB-C plugs into the bottom of the Roger On version two,
and the USB is supposed to plug into your other electronic devices.
The problem is,
is that my laptop does not even have a regular USB anymore and neither does my
phone.
So that means you're gonna have to go out and purchase an aftermarket cable that
plugs into whatever type of device you have. Now, I've confirmed that it works.
Just make sure that you actually get a data cable to do this,
not just a power cable.
Even though these cables are not that expensive to purchase yourself,
the Roger On is gonna cost you over a thousand dollars,
and it would've really been nice if Phonak would've thought about that and given
you a couple of extra cables. Ultimately, though,
being able to get the Roger On version two closer to your mouth on phone calls
and on Zoom calls and Microsoft Teams calls significantly improves the
audio quality for the people that you're talking to. Overall,
I would consider the Phonak Roger On version two to be one of the best,
if not the best assistive listening device on the market. In fact,
the only thing that I wish it had is a telecoil function.
Just in case your Phonak hearing aids do not have a telecoil,
and you guys know how much I love telecoils. Nevertheless,
if you want your Phonak hearing aids to work substantially better than what they
do right now,
you should strongly consider getting yourself a Phonak Roger On version two,
I promise you will not regret it.