The New Widex Evoke – Release Date May 14, 2018
A new product release is always an exciting time!
Widex is a great hearing aid that we have worked with in past years with their Unique and Beyond platform, but now we get to see a new chip which is improving the hearing aids overall ability to analyze and clean up a noisy signal.
What we know about this new platform from Widex is that they have added to the available fitting rationales from their previous product. They made changes to better meet the needs of different hearing aid users. The goal is to ensure that each different person gets optimal amplification depending on their previous experience using hearing aids.
The Evoke is constantly analyzing the environment around the patient. In Evoke (as compared to their Beyond product), they have made changes to how accurately the sound is categorized. The two new sound classes make a total of 11 sound classes with the new classes being social and classic music. The social sound class is designed to give the best sound in smaller gatherings reducing soft sound from a distance leading to more effortless listening. This effectively creates a bubble around the patient to allow them to hear well in small groups by reducing soft level noises following louder bursts of speech. This same feature helps with the music setting by enhancing the soft parts of music to enrich the overall sound.
Variable speed compressor. Dual compressor design allows the hearing aid to use both slow and fast acting compression to allow for both audibility and intelligibly. The different compressors vary depending on the environment that the hearing aid detects. The fast compressor is best illustrated in the social sound class. The fast compressor is used to make quiet sounds even quieter by reducing them to be below the hearing thresholds.
A new special program called “impact program” is an advanced program optimized for very challenging noisy environments by creating a sharper overall sound to increase speech understanding in noise. This is only available in the Evoke 440.
Widex has four available technology levels from the Evoke 110, Evoke, 220, Evoke 330 and Evoke 440.
If you are interested in this technology, give our office a call and book a consultation with one of our Audiologists.