Widex Allure Review by Dr. Cliff

It's not often that you see a hearing aid manufacturer release a new pair of hearing aids with fewer features than the generations before it. But that's exactly what Widex has done with their latest release, the Widex Allure hearing aids. As someone who has been following Widex's trajectory for years, I have to say this move both surprises and intrigues me.

My perception of Widex is that they've found a niche with designing minimalist hearing aids, and honestly, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. There's something to be said for hearing aid technology that isn't overly complicated and just does the basic things really well. Widex has traditionally been known for developing some of the best hearing aids for musicians, audiophiles, and individuals who suffer from tinnitus.

What Makes the Allure Different

Not that long ago, I reviewed the Widex Moment SmartRIC, which had a completely different shape than a traditional receiver-in-canal hearing aid to make their microphones more horizontal. The goal was better directionality - isolating speech coming from a particular direction - and it could actually get you a 1.5 decibel signal-to-noise ratio improvement.

But here's where things get confusing: Widex just spent the better part of the last year telling us how important horizontal microphones were for better directionality, and then they go and design this regular receiver-in-canal hearing aid that doesn't have that same horizontal microphone placement. It's great news for people who thought the SmartRIC looked goofy, but bad news for those who wanted that additional 1.5 decibels of signal-to-noise ratio improvement.

Technology Levels and What You Get

The Allure comes in four different technology levels: the 440s, 330s, 220s, and 110s, with the 440s being the premium offering. My recommendation remains the same for everybody - you should go with the highest level of technology you can reasonably afford. If you can't afford the premium level, drop down to whatever you can afford, and it's your hearing care professional's job to get the most out of those devices for you.

One thing that's immediately apparent is that you can get the Allure in any style you want, as long as that's a rechargeable receiver-in-canal style. For whatever reason, they're not going custom yet, and they're not giving you a variety of different form factors. You basically just get rechargeable - there's no disposable battery option.

The W1 Chip: Real Innovation

The most exciting development in the Allure is the new W1 chip. This chip is four times faster and has four times more memory than their previous chip, allowing for more sound processing without delaying the processing speed. This chip enables a feature called Speech Enhancer Pro, which is by far the biggest improvement you'll see with the Widex Allure.

Speech Enhancer Pro performs a 52-band input analysis, allowing for granular separation of speech and noise at the input level. This gives a cleaner input before they do their 15-channel optimization and sound processing. Because the W1 chip is so much faster than their previous chip, it doesn't create additional delay with this sound processing.

When you compare the previous generation Widex Moment to the new Allure, the Allure was rated higher when it came to less annoyance in noise and overall preference. The Allure PureSound lowers your speech reception threshold by an additional 4.3 decibels, which is impressive.

PureSound vs Universal Programming

It's important to understand the difference between the Universal program and the PureSound program. The Universal program has a longer processing time - around 2.5 to 3.5 milliseconds to process sound. But if you have the PureSound program active, that typically only takes around 0.5 milliseconds.

This is one of the key features that people love about Widex hearing aids - there's not a lot of sound processing going on, and even if there is more processing taking place, it doesn't delay the processing speed. People report cleaner sound quality when you process the sound less.

The PureSound program is really only intended for individuals with mild to moderate hearing loss who are using more of an open-fit dome. For individuals with more significant hearing losses, you'll typically get more benefit from the Universal program that's doing more digital features to improve speech intelligibility.

Third-Party Testing Results

When I looked at what HEAR Advisor says about the Widex Allure's performance in background noise, I was surprised by the results. The Widex Allure is the only hearing aid I've ever seen perform worse after tuning, going from an overall score of 4.6 before tuning to 4.2 after tuning, largely due to its poor ability to limit feedback.

As far as performance in background noise is concerned, it only had a speech-in-noise score of 2.5 out of 5, which ranks it toward the bottom of the top 10 hearing aids on the market when it comes to background noise performance, and below both the Widex Moment SmartRIC and Widex Moment Sheer.

What They Took Away

Here's where things get frustrating. Widex has officially moved to cloud-based programming software for the Allure hearing aids, but they've actually removed features from the software. Some of these missing features include:

• No remote programming capabilities
• No Zen fractal tones for individuals who have tinnitus
• No ability to perform recalculations
• No ability to look up programming without hearing aids being connected
• Missing Sensogram feature

The absence of Zen fractal tones is shocking to me, considering that Widex hearing aids were traditionally considered some of the best hearing aids for individuals with tinnitus. This is probably going to force hearing care professionals to go away from the Widex brand onto different brands just to get some form of tinnitus masker.

Limited Customization Options

I'm not overly impressed with the level of customization you can do with the Widex Allure hearing aids, especially on the lower technology levels. The top-tier 440s have 15 different adjustment bands for your hearing care professional to customize, while the bottom-tier 110s only have four. Having only 15 adjustment bands in the top tier is still significantly lower than what you'll typically find in other major hearing aid brands that give you around 20 to 24.

There's also no telecoil program option inside these hearing aids, and no CROS option available.

Bluetooth and App Features

The good news is that you do get Bluetooth LE Audio inside the Allure devices, plus made-for-iPhone Bluetooth and ASHA protocol for Android. This means you can stream audio from both Android and Apple devices. However, you only get hands-free phone calls if you're using an iPhone.

I'm super excited to see Bluetooth LE Audio because the sound quality is much better, the stability is better, and the battery drain is lower. Unfortunately, you don't get to use Bluetooth LE Audio with Apple devices yet - hopefully Apple eventually gets their stuff together and switches over.

The Widex Allure app is pretty basic, but you can do all the things most people would do anyway. You can change between programs, use the AI Sound Assistant for A/B comparisons, adjust sound with a three-band equalizer, and control directional focus.

Limited Accessories

As far as wireless accessories go, you're relatively limited with the Widex Allure devices. You can basically use their Widex TV Play 2 and the Widex RC-DEX remote control. That's it. There are no remote microphones with these hearing aids.