Product release: Resound Vivia, an AI-driven hearing aid
Koorosh Nejad- Feb 9
- 4 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
After lagging behind the AI movement for a few years, Resound finally launched a new family of hearing aids in February 2025. The new family of Resound Vivia is available to patients in the US and Germany from the 20th of February. I have yet to have a pair to try Resound Vivia myself and reflect on the performance of the technology, but I thought I would give a heads up to the audience in the UK, in case you need to assess your options. The release of this product in the UK will be from mid-May 2025.
I will update this article likely in late May when I receive a demo kit of Resound Vivia to try. Please check the Update section of this post for my notes on a trial of Resound Vivia.
What makes Resound Vivia unique, different, and worth considering?
Resound Vivia is AI-driven - Like Phonak Infino Sphere, it has two chips, one dedicated to AI and DNN processing (artificial intelligence and deep neural network). Only the premium level 9 of miniRIC rechargeable Resound Vivia has access to DNN sound management. Resound Vivia DNN is trained with 13.5 million sound samples and can only be activated manually by switching the hearing aid program to Hearing In Noise.
Intelligent Focus - Again, like Phonak Infinio Sphere and Oticon Intent, Resound Vivia uses an accelerometer and can have a deliberate focus on the person you turn your head to focus on. The AI will manage the background noise so you can hear speech better.
Range - Resound Vivia covers mild to severe to profound hearing loss.
Long battery life - Despite having two chips, the Resound Vivia will give you 30 hours of run time. This is the longest battery life for a double-chip AI-driven hearing aid as of the date of this article. If using the DNN for noise management, the battery life drops to about 10 hours.
Smallest RIC - Indeed, Resound Vivia is the smallest RIC hearing aid it might carry this title along with Starkey Edge.
Technology levels - Resound Vivia comes in 4 tech-levels, Resound Vivia 9, 7, 5 and 4, where level 9 is the premium model.
Rechargeable and battery powered - Resound Vivia comes in different power sources, including rechargeable, battery 312 and battery 13 models (which also have a telecoil system).
CROS system - Resound Vivia comes in CROS and biCROS systems.
Auracast - Resound Vivia does communicate through LE Audio Bluetooth as well as Auracast (more on Auracast here).
Compatibility - Vivia connects to the older legacy accessories, including Resound miniMic, MiniMic and Resound remote control and older model TV streamer.
Where are the rooms for improvement of Resound Vivia hearing aids?
Customisation - There are only 10 channels to adjust the gains on the frequency range of the hearing aid, which is quite limited compared to other premium hearing aids.
Speech in noise - While Resound Vivia received a reasonable score on all aspects, the independent Hear Advisor gave a low rank to Resound Vivia when it comes to speech in noise. See the analysis here.
Is Resound Vivia a good hearing aid for day-to-day listening?
While Resound Vivia is certainly the best hearing aid that Resound has built so far, I am afraid it may come short for those hoping to enjoy a conversation in a noisy background.
References:
Updates
April 2025 - Came across this article on BBC that elaborates on auditory processing disorder (APD) and the importance of hearing less processed sound that is in line with Resound Vivia sound processing and noise management technology. Please see this article on the BBC here.
May 2025 - Received a pair of Resound Vivia and programmed them for my mild to moderate cookie bite SNHL. I have tried Resound One, Resound Omnia, and Resound Nexia before trying Resound Vivia. I can confirm that the overall sound processing of Resound Vivia is quite similar to Resound Nexia. The sound was quite loud and jarring on a first fit, i.e on a full prescription (100%) setting (I am a long-term user of hearing aids). I had to set it to a first-time user, which reduces the prescription gains to 70% and set the sudden-sound noise control to max, and the noise management in moderate and loud noise to the max control to get the jarring and harshness to a reasonable level. This is in line with Resound Nexia and the model before it. If you are keen to buy Resound Vivia, my advice is to make sure to buy it from an audiologist who has good experience in setting Resound hearing aids, as it takes a lot of skill to set Resound hearing aids properly.
May 2025 - Resound Vivia has good noise management when I used them in a busy high street with several cars passing by, as well as when I used them in a bus ride. They did a better job when I used the Speech in Noise program. The transition from one program to another is harsh. For example, when you switch from Universal to Speech in Noise, you'd hear the environmental sound rise loudly, and then it calms down as the transition is completed. This takes about 2-4 seconds. On a windy day, I had to use the manual adjustment in the Resound App to set the Wind Noise control to the maximum to avoid the wind noise.
May 2025 - The Bluetooth range of Resound Vivia is better than other hearing aids I have tried, with the exception of Phonak. Please see our report on the Bluetooth of premium hearing aids here. The streaming sound through Resound Vivia, similar to other hearing aids, was a bit hollow, even though I had set them for moderate bass. The fitting was a tulip dome.
May 2025 - Resound Vivia on speech intelligibility (TBC)
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