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How to buy a mini Pro (USB 2.0 Hearing Aid Programmer)

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Thanks for sharing this info, TRY. I’m going to call BuyHear on Monday and order a same MiniPro set up you did and hopefully for the same price of $175.

In reply to @TRY

@TRY said:

bought my aids from the only company that my insurance recognizes in all of the Houston area. That chain dispenser is a division of Starkey. $9250 with 3 years of warranty, service, and unlimited adjustments—the only way they would sell them! But they do not really know OPNs or the software, and now they are implying I come in too often and stay too long and correct too many of their errors. Thus, the Genie2 and MiniPro.

$9k, Jeebus, that’s a lot of money.

Do you get a ride on his yacht every year thrown in with that?

In reply to @TRY

Thanks for sharing. I’ll be in the same boat as you very soon. I’m currently cramming on Genie and Oticon software so I can improve upon the programming of my OPN aids. Looking forward to collaborating.

In reply to #35

@pvc said: (unavailable)

This reminds me of similar situation a couple of years ago. We got a vendor to price match Costco’s older Phonak Quest (Q90) technology with a brand spanking new Phonak Audeo V90. A few ppl got some good deals before they wised up.

See Connect Hearing will price match Costco Phonak Brio? or Spam? (member archive)

Yep, I think TRY was lucky to get the $175 price from BuyHear for the MiniPro kit because I just got off the phone with them and they quoted $225 for the kit now. I told them I heard that a couple of forum members here said they got the kit from them for $175 and they said that they only gave that price to people who purchased from them.

So it seems like they’ve wised up and raised the price now. I think $225 is still a good deal compared to $259 ?($209 for the MiniPro from Alibaba and $50 for the cables from Signia?) But it’s not as sweet as $175.

Also, they didn’t seem “keen” to sell it because I left a voicemail and email to Joel (in programming) on Saturday and never got a reply from him. Had to call back today and got Adam who asked somebody (maybe Joel?) for pricing and then quoted me $225.

I’ve decided to hold off on buying it for $225.

Edited

I got the same $225 price from them. Joel is apparently not the guy to talk to. He doesn’t sell stuff. I guess he’s the programming support guy.
I agree…still a good deal. Even if Aliexpress would return to the earlier known price of $160 and then add the parts from thehearingclub then you would be at $230.
I’m not yet certain that the package deal includes 2 CS44’s and 2 312 pill flex strips.
They say they would send an email but I haven’t seen it yet.

Yeah, I called them again ready to buy at the $225 price, but I got William who passed me to Joel again (with no answer). But the guy I talked with this morning was Adam. So I called back and asked for Adam and left him a voicemail.

While waiting for him to call me back, I’d like to get confirmation from folks here that this is what I’ll need to make sure is included in the BuyHear MiniPro kit so I can verify with them:

  1. The USB Mini Pro with the USB cable that connects to the PC USB port.
  2. A pair of the standard CS44 programming cables.
  3. A pair of the flex strips for the 312 battery (for my Oticon OPN1). I think PVC showed Flexconnect # 390-01-180-05 (pair) in one of his threads.
  4. TRY mentioned that he also got the USB3 hub. I’m not sure what it’s for? Is that just to convert from USB2 to USB3? How do I know if I need this or not? I supposed that I should ask for it anyway because TRY said it was included in his kit.

I plug my mini Pro into my computer and then I unplug it when I have finished with the fitting. The mini Pro is USB 2.0 and it is backwards compatible so you can plug it into a USB 1.1 port.

I don’t see why ppl get these USB hubs an have a gazillion USB devices continuously plugged in.

I use mine the same way. I don’t see any need for the hub.

OK, so I placed the order with BuyHear for the MiniPro kit for $225 through Adam. I mentioned to him that one of our forum members here was not a customer of them but got the $175 pricing anyway (I didn’t name any name, don’t know any name anyway). Adam said that he’ll check with Luke (the owner) when he has a chance to talk with Luke later on, and if Luke is OK with the lower price, then he’ll refund me the $50 difference.

I’m still waiting for the email of all the particulars :frowning:
Let’s hope Luke finds a way to do it for the $175. I seem to recall someone there saying that they don’t have any in stock though so it’ll be a wait anyway.

Adam from BuyHear already charged my credit card right away. He never gave me any indication that it’s out of stock currently. However, the email confirmation for my order says that an email confirmation for a FedEx delivery will be sent within 7-10 days and that they commit to a 2-week delivery. I only ordered yesterday and I haven’t seen any FedEx confirmation yet.

Finally got the email. Will be placing the order. But yes someone there had indicated that they don’t have stock. So it’ll be some unknown wait to receive.
Other than the email address problems, I’m very impressed with all the people that I have spoken to there. Very patient and helpful and informative. Nice customer service.
A little choked at the extra $50 above what TRY and Abarsanti apparently paid but what are you gonna do.
Considering I have to convert to CDN$ that comes to about $290 for me. To other Canadians, the shipping to Canada is $40 US. If you’re close to the border then use one of those border services and get free shipping to there

Edited

In reply to @Volusiano

@Volusiano said:

Adam from BuyHear already charged my credit card right away. He never gave me any indication that it’s out of stock currently. However, the email confirmation for my order says that an email confirmation for a FedEx delivery will be sent within 7-10 days and that they commit to a 2-week delivery. I only ordered yesterday and I haven’t seen any FedEx confirmation yet.

Well it’s been 2 weeks and I never got any FedEx delivery notice nor any update from BuyHear about my MiniPro kit order based on their commitment to a 2-week delivery according to their email confirmation. I know that they told Z10user2 that they don’t have it in stock but they never told me that it’s out of stock. Anyway, I called them today for an update and had to leave them a message. I tried getting through several times because nobody answered until finally Teresa picked up. But as soon as I said I called about an order she forwarded me to somebody else’s voicemail.

I wonder if anybody who ordered it from them recently has any update on this?

Update: I called them again a bit later, got a hold of somebody, and they told me that it’s going to be at least another week if not longer because it’s an international shipment coming to them. I asked why they charged my credit card already on the day of the order if they don’t have it in stock and they said that they have to pay ahead for the order first.

I have been speaking to them on occasion and early last week they said by the end of the week. Today I spoke to Luke the owner and he said there were apparently some issues with payment to China in that it didn’t go through for some reason. He said it appears to have worked on Friday and now they’re waiting for delivery.
I have not placed the order yet. I have the email invoice ready to go. I generally prefer to order things knowing they’re in stock. When they finally say they’re in stock then I’ll be placing the order.

Thanks for sharing. I too am in the same boat. I emailed earlier this month but did not get an update. Glad to have some visibility into this order at the very least.

In reply to @z10user2

@z10user2 said:

I have been speaking to them on occasion and early last week they said by the end of the week. Today I spoke to Luke the owner and he said there were apparently some issues with payment to China in that it didn’t go through for some reason. He said it appears to have worked on Friday and now they’re waiting for delivery.
I have not placed the order yet. I have the email invoice ready to go. I generally prefer to order things knowing they’re in stock. When they finally say they’re in stock then I’ll be placing the order.

Thanks for this update, z10user2. I’m not thrilled at all that they didn’t tell me that they didn’t have it in stock and went ahead and charged my credit card on the same day. On top of that, in the order confirmation email, they even said that they commit to a 2-week delivery.

Transparency is all it takes to keep up with customer satisfaction and whether they omitted this detail to me up front on purpose or through negligence, on top of not bothering to give me any update after their 2-week order commitment had passed, they’ve left me unimpressed with their customer service.

Good thing there are more and more competing online channels popping up like FactoryDirectHearing.com20 and the one I recently learned about Audiometrix (hearingaids.pro) who’s actually been around longer to keep everybody on their toes and give consumers like us more leverage.

Volusiano:
But do those others offer the minipro? It wasn’t until TRY found this out from Buyhear that we all learned of that alternative to the OP supplier.

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