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Colour selection!

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Most important question of the day, now that I’ve decided what aids I want to get it, what colour do I pick? I know there have been similar posts in the past, but they’re all old so I think it’s time to revisit.

So I’m looking at Oticon Opn 3, Minirite-T. First off, very disappointed in the limited colour range available, secondly very disappointed in the fact the “T” version loses color options over the smaller “non-T” version!! What the??

Anyway, here’s the link to the colour selections See all our available hearing aids for every kind of hearing loss | Oticon84

Note, my hairline is similar to the gentleman in the top right (on my ipad display anyway), with the light blue/white shirt, so I’m not looking to hide anything.

At 53, I don’t give a rats what people think about my wardrobe, although I do still need to project a professional image at work, and I don’t feel any of the stigma of wearing hearing aids that I’m surprised still seems to be a prevalent attitude with some people.

Just as glasses are now an accepted every day part of society, and a fashion statement for many, I believe hearing aids should be considered the same. Thank goodness there are more colour choices these days than Cadavre Cream which was all I ever saw growing up, but still, some nice bright colours would be appreciated more than all the mute earth tones.

If I’d stayed with Resounds, I would have probably gone ocean blue, pearl white or anthracite, maybe even ocean camo if it was still around. I was even considering a different colour for each ear, for easy differentiation of which ear fit which aid, although finding two colours that didn’t clash might be tricky - the old black & white might have been classic.

But, that colour range isn’t available in the Opn’s, not even the blue on the model. Really leaves me limited choices. So, Diamond Black, Silver or Steel Grey? I think Silver Grey is a little too “in between” for me on it’s own.

One thing I hate with these brochures is their fake lighting conditions, just like new car brochures, it never looks the same colour in real life. The silver looks almost white, and I’d like white, but if in reality it looks more like alumium silver, I don’t think I’d like it. My iPhones have always been space gray because I like that colour. My last car was also that colour. I’ve also had lots of white cars. My current car is white. I guess I could go steel grey one side and silver grey they other - they are close enough not to clash, but different enough to make a statement.

So, what’s your thoughts on colours? Any thoughts on your colour choices, good bad or just silly (e.g. it matches your dog’s coat is a good reason) greatly appreciated, let’s have some fun!

Russell.

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Royal blue looks ok but so do metallic ones. Hard to tell in photos. Did you have the option of seeing the colors in the actual material they are made of? Many audiologists have sample plastic bits to show the colors as they really look.

I wanted purple but it was not an option so I went for champagne in my Phonaks.

@Psocoptera said:

Did you have the option of seeing the colors in the actual material they are made of?

Possibly. I’m still awaiting an email from my local audi to see if they can price match the one 90 minutes away, before I decide who I’m buying from.

Purple would be cool. My first bike was purple :slight_smile: I wonder is there anyone who does custom paint jobs on aids? I’m a bit of an astronomy buff and love Hubble Space Telescope images. An Orion Nebula would be awesome!

@Russ said:

Was that to match her hair though, or just because she likes black?

Hmm, I wonder if anyone dies Zebra pattern HA’s?

She has got black hair but she got black because she likes to pimp her and black was a good base colour.

I used to have zebra Phonak HAs. :wink:

Another thought just occurred to me. I wonder if I’ll come up against any resistance from the audi in buting two different colour aids? Do they always custom order every aid, or would thye keep a bunch in stock to sell on the spot?

If it’s custom ordered I don’t think there’d be an issue, but if on-hand, I could see them saying no, as they wouldnkt want to split a pair and then have an odd one of eahc colour that they couldn’t sell to someone else? I’m guessing most sales are pairs, not individual aids.

Anyway, looking at the Opn colour selections again, a two-tone selection, picking ythe colours closest together might be the least odd, ut thwt would mean the Terracotta and Chroma Beige probably, but I’m not sure I’m into browns.

I’ve been madly Googling trying to find real photos of people wearing the different colours, but have come up pretty well blank.

Nice!

While I haven’t found many pictures of the Opn colours, apart from stock, I have seen some funky colours in other brands, even a mix-n-match selection in one brand, Phonaks maybe, and also a Think Pink campaign two-tone that looked stylish.

@Don said:

The case is what is changed. So it should be easy to change to two different colors, and then change your mind later if you want.

So case changing is a service the audi’s offer? I’d have thought with an ip68 rating on the Opns, that any modification by anyone except the factory would not be premitted.

The blue is my favourite. Too bad it’s not an option.

I think the black is pretty slick.

Technically one should be grounded for housing changes, and most clinics don’t have a grounding matt. Nonetheless, I’ve never had a problem when doing a housing change but more and more manufacturers aren’t allowing it.

@Neville said:

more and more manufacturers aren’t allowing it.

That’s true actually. I had to order my housing from Germany and then send it to an independent repair lab in the UK to be changed as Phonak itself wouldn’t change it.

I ordered “anthracite” for my Quattro’s (not rec’d yet) as I have dark brown to black increasingly gray hair and at least 1/2 the year, I let my hair get quite shaggy, the better to be able to ignore winter chill (you lose 25% of your resting body heat through your head-all that neuronal metabolism!).

But a color (colour) problem I’ve wondered about. Dark colors are great at absorbing heat from the sun. They’re also better at radiating it than lighter colors. Most electronics have a pretty high heat resistance but actually Li-ion batteries expected lifespan decreases with increasing long-term heat exposure. So I’ve wondered ordering the rechargeable Quattro’s whether I’m going to have a heat problem in sunny old Texas (104, 105 deg F in July and August these days is not unusual) and whether a dark color is going to be counter-productive. I usually wear a hat when outdoors for UV protection. Perhaps HA color would be of little consequence unless I careless decide to leave my HA’s for awhile somewhere that they might be exposed to direct sunlight.

But having owned both dark and white vehicles in Texas, it’s amazing how much difference color makes in solar heat absorption (and beyond that how much of a difference even clear infrared window films make!).

Edited

Good point Jim, although ai suspect if your aids get enough heat to cause an issue, your skin is going to suffer a lot more than your aids, but ai could be wrong.

I’ve recently acquired a 3D printer, and was interested in which materials would survive outtdoors the longest. Someone raised the idea that black materials get their blackness from charcoal/carbon sources. Since carbon is UV resistant, they implied that black would be more UV resistant than other colours, in material which does not have any stated UV protection. How true that is, I’m not sure.

No one has chimed in with any other cons unfortuantely. Do white hearing aids become dirty? Do dark ones show scatches more? Does gloss wear off? Does matt become glossy? Given ’s get a lot more rubbing action than a lot of other plastic materials would, I expect they should show some wear signs after a while?

I’m hoping to hear back from my audi today as to whether she has samples I can go peruse to see what they actually look like. In my range of colours, apart from black and chocolate, I’m still torn between all the other colours.

Russell.

@Russ said:

Do white hearing aids become dirty? Do dark ones show scatches more? Does gloss wear off? Does matt become glossy? Given HA’s get a lot more rubbing action than a lot of other plastic materials would, I expect they should show some wear signs after a while?

It’s inconsistent, honestly. Gloss wears off more often than matte becomes glossy, but seemingly only for certain people (depends on the acids in the oils of their skin?). I have users with five year old aids, consistently worn, that look nearly new. I have other users who come in and yell at me that the hearing aids are “junk” because they “break down so much” and the microphones are caked with sticky grime every time.

Edited

Thanks Neville. It’d be interesting to correlate those responses against records of who do routine maintenance on them.

Seems I’m now visiting my Audi this afternoon to choose colour and place the order, but I still can’t decide! She only has 1 actual unit to view, so no real world comparisons :frowning: Might end up being a random pick. I’m leaning to two-tone in the silver/greys, but the beige/terracotta combo does intrigue me.

I pressed Starkey on this and they do make available some metallic colors … I think it was for those allergic to the type of plastic used. But there is actual metal in them so wireless is then not an option. Too bad.

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