Going from Oticon OPNS1 to More1 aids

I have been thinking back over my OPN1, OPNS1, and now my More1 hearing aid experience. The OPN1 aids were ITE disposable batteries and I was going through batteries every three to four days. The sound was better than my Oticon AltaPros but they always seemed out of balance, the right aid wasn’t as clear and the sound was weaker. The aids were returned to be repaired twice with some help but really not enough to really help me I understand speech the way I needed and wanted. I dealt with them about 18 months, and the VA replaced them with the OPNS1 rechargeable aids. The sound was much better and the aids balance very well. I had no issues with the battery life and placing them in the charger became second nature at night. I did have issues with connectivity with the TV adapter, the iPhone and app. The real issue was two fold, the t-coils had static and the ear molds would slip back and cause feedback. As long as the ear molds were pushed in correctly I had little to no noise issues. But as I look back even with the word recognition being better then anything before I was still struggling to understand speech in so many environments. Noisy environments were not an issue with either the OPN1 or the OPNS1 aids, and the normal environmental sounds were better with the OPN1 and even better with the OPNS1 aids. I was so surprised when my Audiologist said I was getting the More1 aids seeing I was doing better with the OPNS1 aids, but I have to say that the difference has been amazing. The sound clarity is amazing, and the word recognition is even more amazing for me, than I have ever had before. I do wish for better connectivity with the iPhone and iPad, and I wish for a better app. With IOS15 the connectivity is better between the iPhone, app, TV adapter and aids, but the capacity to have both the iPad and iPhone paired is still crap.

Worked the American Legion October festival yesterday at a open air covered location, the metal roof and concrete floor made for a huge amount of echo. I had issues hearing but no worse than others with normal hearing. With music, the wind, people talking and cars and truck traffic the noise was unbearable for some of my fellow friends there with their hearing aids but I managed no worse than others with so called normal hearing.

All these hearing issues like wind, traffic and echo sure make it tuff to communicate. It’s impressive that you were able to understand speech at all.
Did you have fun?

It was great just being able to do the fund raiser. The first one in what seems to be a long time. I have missed all of the fun things we normally do in this community, the virus scares have stopped so many important activities and fundraisers for the communities in this area. I dearly miss my volunteer work at the VA Clinic. My fellow brothers and sisters really are struggling with hearing aids and need help. To me this whole virus thing has been so cruel to so many that need help. Not so much financial but just a friendly hand or someone to set with and talk to face to face.

I was able contact my audiologist this morning, he had been forced quarantined, but luckily he was fully vaccinated and didn’t even have any symptoms. He will be checking with Oticon and he says he can download the latest Gene2 software. I just will have to be patient and give him time to catch up on his schedule.

@cvkemp said:

Ok a minor issue and I am wondering if anyone else is having the same issue. At times when I mute my hearing aids the right aid will un-mute on its own. And when it happens if I remute the aids then they become out of sync until I restart the aids.

Haven’t had that issue.
Do your More’s play a jingle when you mute them? I never had that w/previous generations.

@cvkemp said:

he says he can download the latest Gene2 software.

Great news.
I hope I can convince whoever I see tomorrow to do so, because I’m already at 1.1.1 firmware.

Yes the my aids plays the jingle and I kind of like it. I have no idea when I will be able to get my aids update. Oh I have noticed something else since updating my iPhone to IOS15 I am noticing more Battery drain of my iPhone and for some reason my aid. It isn’t much more for the aids but a couple of percentage points over a 12 hour period without streaming

Have you tried un-pairing all devices from your aids and see if that changes anything? Giving this a try for a day or two.

It would take remote controls out of the picture.

it has happened when I am out on my bike, and i didn’t have my phone with me. What I have paired to my aids now is the iPhone, the connect clip, and the TV adapter. The Apple Watch can only talk to my aids through my iPhone. And the TV adapter can only connect by way of the command from the aids. And the connect clip can only talk to the aids if it is powered on. I only power the connect clip on if I am needing it for the laptop or my fire tablet. I even was wondering about my WiFi mash router and powered it down for a check.
About the only other thing I can think of is some kind of noise spike but why only the right aid. One thought I did have was it seems that the right aids has some control over both aids. It is always the first to be paired to the iPhone.

@cvkemp said:

My VA audiologist said he will not do firmware updates over the remote apps any more way too many failures. I will have wait until early November for the update. Not sure why other than some issues that Oticon and my audiologist are trying to understand. I was first old that my issues with my aids unmuting was known by Oticon, but now Oticon seems to be backing down from that statement.

Chuck, it’s very interesting that you’re having an issue primarily with 1 aid.
As you know, I use android, and about a week into my trial of the More’s, I started getting phone call disconnects, and media streaming would stop.Sound only came through the left ha.
Thought it was my phone, but did it when paired to my PC, too.
I tried my ConnectClip from my OPN’s, and same problem.
Was fine with my OPN S’s, so i knew it was the More’s.

I stopped using them for a week, and since I resumed wearing them 2 weeks ago, they’ve been stable, so I have no clue whether or not our situations are relatable, and I know you hate not wearing your More’s, but maybe leave them powered down for 24 hours or so, and see.

So, @Volusiano, I’m asking this question out of curiosity: what causes firmware downloads to fail to install correctly?

@SpudGunner said:

So, @Volusiano, I’m asking this question out of curiosity: what causes firmware downloads to fail to install correctly?

Are you assuming that the firmware download fails to install correctly?

Normally, if that’s the case, you’d already get an error up front that the installation was not successful. In the old days when it had to be done via a wired interface because they didn’t have enough memory to install a fail/safe mechanism in place, most likely you’ll brick the device and that’s why it had to be done via a wired interface for better reliability compared to a wireless interface.

With the More, since they allow it to be done wirelessly via the NoahLink Wireless (actually it’s the only way now), a failed download/installation has most likely been designed not to brick your device anymore. They probably have enough memory now to preserve an old copy and still download a new version so that if the download or install is not successful, they can just restore the already-in-place old firmware and retry the new download/install again. And if that is the case, it most likely can also allow them to roll-back the More to the older firmware version if they want.

So if you have an issue with the More and assume that it fails to download and install the firmware properly, it may be something else and not a download/install failure. The more likely issue is probably a bug in the new firmware. Assuming that there’s no bug and nobody else experience any issue but you, then the next likely issue is either something wrong with the hardware.

If it seems to be too coincidental that you experience issues exactly right after a firmware download, but nobody else with the new firmware has any of the same issues, then it can also be corruption of the memory where the firmware resides, which may cause erratic/inconsistent behaviors. If this is the case, maybe it can be reinstalled depending on whether it’s designed to be able to do this or not (by masking out the bad memory areas before a retry). Only the mfg would know these backdoor kind of things.

@Volusiano said:

If it seems to be too coincidental that you experience issues exactly right after a firmware download, but nobody else with the new firmware has any of the same issues, then it can also be corruption of the memory where the firmware resides, which may cause erratic/inconsistent behaviors. If this is the case, maybe it can be reinstalled depending on whether it’s designed to be able to do this or not (by masking out the bad memory areas before a retry). Only the mfg would know these backdoor kind of things.

Yes, I’m assuming corruption because the new firmware doesn’t crash, but it exhibits “buggy” things like:

1. Intermittent connect/reconnect of the left HA (reported by others), and
2. Trouble with the features of this site (can’t get the “Quote” function to work correctly. I reported this to rasmus and he says it’s an issue with my browser.)

I repeat - the new firmware doesn’t crash - it just acts “buggy”.

(Thanks for your replies.)

1. If the issue with the intermittent connect/reconnect of the left HA are reported by others as well who upgraded to the new firmware 1.1.1, then it’s more likely that it’s due to a bug that exhibits itself in your left HA and other people’s left HAs as well. It’s most likely not due to corruption because if your firmware memory is corrupted, it’s unlikely that the others’ firmware memory are corrupted just the same as yours to exhibit the same behavior.

2. I’m not sure how the issue of not being able to get the “Quote” function to work on your browser relates to the new Oticon More firmware 1.1.1 suspected issue, Jim?