I thought it is simple and clear question if there is any kind of protection from the Phonak to avoid from users who would like to self-program their hearing aids… I know any kind of self-programming is at our own risk and I am not asking for any kind of guarantee. But everything I mentioned above is technically possible and from my sight it would be logical to prevent users from self-programming because manufacturer itself or any support company takes money from us with this support.
Let me see if I can answer your questions. I don’t actually run any fitting software on my computer. My buddy has it loaded on his computer and I just watch him. Sometimes when he runs this stuff on a Windows-XP computer everything gets all slow and all things come to a standstill. Popup windows tell him that the fitting software has detected several viruses and that he should download and run the fitting software virus clean tool for $89.99. I left before he fixed it so I don’t know what his final solution was?? You think maybe it was the fitting software?
And now that you mention it, I do recall hearing on the six o’clock news that warranties were no longer being honored by one of the major hearing aid manufacturers, and that someone had hacked into their database for serial numbers of suspected self programmers. The hackers added serial number of legitimate owners! It caused a big uproar when the legitimate owners demanded refunds and switched their business to a competitor’s products. Oh, wait, I think that was just a dream ;-}
