Do not pay for the Fitting Software, it's Free

@cvkemp said: (member archive)

-<snip>- if you want aids that you program then order them from a company that sends you the aids and the hardware and software for programing them yourself.-<snip>-

If you are thinking about self programming you should be skeptical of advice from a person who gets $6000+ hearing aids free.

imo> Don’t settle for the all-included-package deal for HAs plus custom programming equipment. When you buy these you are restricting yourself to a single brand and excluding the better/top brand HAs.

Oh my… what a dumb-ass!

No free aids for aholes

@pvc said:

I don’t doubt that. I am a US Navy Vet myself.

Whether you earned it or not is not my point. My point is that your viewpoint as to why some may want to program their own hearing aids may be skewed because you get the best/premium HAs for free. While you are wearing your best/premium HAs, your advice to others who don’t get them free is to buy junk HAs. That appears skewed to me. At a minimum it’s bad advice.

I do not give a damn if you program your hearing aids are not. I just want to let everyone understand that if you get stolen software for that it is a crime that can cost you $50,000 and time in jail. And it can also cost the same for the person that gives you the software or illegally sales you that software.

@cvkemp said:

I do not give a damn if you program your hearing aids are not. -<snip>-

That’s great cvkemp! We finally agree on something.

@pvc said:

… Can Newbies use advanced search? …

Yes.

Here’re some tips11 for making Advanced Search more powerful:

• Search multiple words use Boolean operators such as:
> - AND (ex. ajax AND instant) - OR (ex. ajax OR instant) - NOT (ex. ajax NOT instant) or use the minus sign (-) (ex. ajax -instant)
• Search for an exact phrase using quotes:
> - (ex. "instant email")
• Search for wild cards using asterisks (*)
> - (ex. *mail)

@pvc said:

… or otherwise make it difficult to obtain.

No kidding! IMHO, the difficulty of obtaining gray-area fitting software in the USA is getting close to the point where it’s easier to just pay the eBay surcharge.

The cat-and-mouse game keeps ratcheting up, and it’s becoming awfully difficult to obtain fitting software in the USA.

• Some manufacturers make older versions available (for example Phonak supplies iPFG 2.6c and PFG 8.6c), but those are less and less useful. Any hearing aid that came out in the last few years can only be programmed by recent versions of the software (Target 3/4 in Phonak's case), which is a whole lot less easily available.
• It used to be that the other side was simply the manufacturers, and many of them were rather relaxed about "looking the other way" so long as the user didn't publicize or try to make any money off what happened. But starting around 2010 the FDA also became involved, so the other side is now a united front of the manufacturers and the FDA. The manufacturers can no longer afford a relaxed attitude, because now the FDA might come after them. So gray-area fitting software has become much harder to obtain in the USA in the last few years.
• The seemingly-straightforward links turned up with a simple Google are actually nefarious. I've spent all my time either a) removing malware that was apparently embedded in the various modified 'setup.exe', or b) verifying that the link didn't actually contain what it said it did (anybody want yet another copy of "7-Zip"?-)
• It turns out that in all posted reports of a link that works, both ends have been outside the U.S. From within the U.S., [phonakindia.in] appears to not have any website at all, and all attempts to download the "secret" files (odd triple-dot names) from [phonak.com] are immediately rejected with a 403.

It appears at this stage the main way folks in the U.S. have a fighting chance in the cat-and-mouse game is to triangulate through some sort of anonymizer server so their IP address does not appear to be in the U.S. I for one am not used to doing that and don’t quite know how to go about it (is there some sort of browser TOR-like plugin that knows what to do?).

That, or have a friend in Europe who will find one of the not-quite-legitimate copies, download it, burn it onto CDs, and mail those CDs to you.

Sellers have apparently figured out it’s too difficult for them to resell a whole lot of copies, and don’t even try any more. Sales of onesy-twosy copies however still have a good chance of remaining under the radar. The ideal situation seems to be an audiologist who retired, sold his entire office full of equipment in bulk to a technical equipment reseller, and the reseller recognized the “not exactly legal” fitting software and split it out for separate resale.

@cvkemp said:

… If the other companies wanted you to be able to program them yourself then they would have provide the hardware and software. … more business than I want to think about have gone under due to piracy. …

I don’t think these facts are accurate, and so I very much disagree with the conclusion.

HA manufacturers would be quite happy to sell fitting software/hardware …if they could. So if piracy has nothing to do with it, what really are the reasons most HA manufacturers don’t provide fitting software/hardware?

Reason 1) If it became too popular, self-programming would mean significantly fewer people making appointments with audiologists, causing them to be quite upset with the manufacturers. Balancing competing distribution channels is a very common business issue (for example: franchisees vs. mail order), not just something in the HA world. My understanding is all these specific cases are examples of what’s more generally called “cannibalizing your own channels”.

Reason 2) The FDA won’t let them. Currently the FDA classifies fitting software/hardware the same as actual HAs, as “medical devices” that should only be provided through a trained professional. That’s why fitting software/hardware is so much easier to obtain outside the USA than inside. Why else besides different regulatory systems do the same HA manufacturers behave so differently in different countries? (Britain is a halfway-in-between case, as standard fitting software/hardware is relatively easily available but it doesn’t matter because so many HAs are “locked” to their NHS and can’t be reconfigured by standard software/hardware anyway.)

I would be glad if there was someone around here who could program my Pure 7bx’s. But unfortunately that’s not the case. There are only a few people in the whole country who can do that, but they live too far away. The local audi’s have no idea what EQ is and I had to require a vent for my molds myself as they don’t know what it’s for. I hear high freqs almost perfectly, so in my knowledge I need a vent.

I find it unfair that I have no access to the fitting software, and the local audis don’t mind educating themselves to program current HA’s. So the only way for me to get the most out of my aids is to travel 350 miles and back and do that again if need a little change.

Fitting software should be available for at least those who don’t have reasonable access to proper audis.

where is… around here? there are certainly more than ‘a few’ in the US.

Ah, “around here” is a little country very far away from the US that most of people have never heard of. Most of the “audis” here are nurses. They can do the first fit, but that’s pretty much it. If I only had the software…

@helpbunny said:

Ah, “around here” is a little country very far away from the US that most of people have never heard of. Most of the “audis” here are nurses. They can do the first fit, but that’s pretty much it. If I only had the software…

hot damn my gdmfsob’ing crystal ball is busted again… well shit return them you wouldnt be any worse off since they suck anyways.