Personal comparison between OTICON REAL 1 VS MORE 1 VS OPN1

Yes OVP it’s only available within the software, it’s not designed for this purpose.

@Volusiano said:

You mean 2 clicks instead of 1 click to go back and forth? That’s still a heck of a lot better than dragging the phone out

We’re all different… I figure that keeping my fingers off my aids is the way to keep the mics clean, my phone is usually near to hand, and I use iPhone triple-click which is almost instantaneous.

I change program/volume in two situations: 1) Watching TV with my wife, I stay in the General program but lower the volume so my perception of the TV’s loudness matches hers; 2) Getting in the car, I switch to the Music program (a custom one, not the Oticon Real default) and tweak the volume a bit, so I can enjoy music from the car stereo. And then switch back to General when I get out of the car. Other than these cases, I’m almost always in General with the configured volume level.

@cvkemp said:

I live in a community that caters to its retired residents and we have theater musicals, plays, lectures, hiking Trails, a full gym with indoor pool, 9 golf courses. 11 lakes, tennis courts, and a lot more. There are clubs for everything you can think of. And this community is loaded with old muscle cars and motorcycles.

Hey Chuck, you sound like a real estate agent!!
Can you get me a quote on a 2 bdrm, 2 ba. unit?

I definitely am not a salesman. I triedmy hand at working at Home Depot after I retired from my IT job and found I am too darn honest when asked my opinion about something. This community is a really nice place but since COVID the place has gone crazy price wise. I get calls weekly from some reality people wanting to sale my home for some unreal price. The last offer was almost 5 times what my wife and i paid for it. But at our age i am not moving again.

They have the same chip, the oticon rep told me the only difference is that the real’s have wind and sudden noise suppression. I also tried the real, there was no difference for me. So I decided that it wasn’t worth spending 7000 for the same hearing aids. I also priced the more’s thinking they would be cheaper. But they are only 100 dollars cheaper.

As long as the app stays connected to the app and phone

I totally agree with everybody’s opinion about own experience. This is very subjective and everybody has very different hearing condition.
For me, I couldn’t suffer over 1 month to wait the hearing aid (MORE1) to be fixed by using the OPN1. OPN1 is very nice. I was surprised a few weeks ago I put them on for a few days while deciding for the REAL or waiting.
I really like listening to the music while driving and spending time at home. OPN1 was NOT very good for me to listen to the music. All the sounds seem like sharp and too much articulate, I feel like it’s too much metallic. That’s the one of main reason that I purchased the REAL and later sometime to have them updated fully after CAT (?) test, which is available middle of May, 2024.

Recently, I have played with app (IPHONE) for REAL hearing aids and I quite like the sound equalizer setting. Initially I thought it might be annoying but it’s quite good. Especially, during the driving a vehicle, I can turn down the LOW by 2 db and increase 1 or 2 DB of mid. It is perfect for me without any disruption. When I work, I just increase the high by 2 DB and mid 1~2 DB which makes me hear/listen very easily. At home, I just set it as default. At first, I thought it might be annoying but it’s very simple and they made the very efficiently.

Thank you.

Regards,
Jung(John)

I jump from Bernafon Zerena 9 (which is technologically equivalent to OPN1) to Oticon Real 1.

For overall. Been wearing Since 13 Dec 2023 so I don’t have much to add, please take it with grain of salt. I find it approximately 30% improvement for me and it is not placebo. Oticon Real1 just definitely work better than Zerena9. I feel like I finally breakthrough the barrier of impossible. 30% improvement may sound not much but it is BIG for me. I used to focus every mental effort very hard to understand what people say and shamefully ask them to repeat 2-3 times. Real 1 just make it easier effort.

Oticon marketing hype is not all that hyped after all. OR Technology advanced in 5 years apart have something to do with it. Oticon Real 1 is using DNN to sort out the background noise and speech. I guess its work for me. I am so happy with it.

I am DIY, I do explore every option and feature in the Genie2 and experiment with it as much as I can. Now Real1 is clear-cut winner.

To compare the Real1 with the Zerena9 using an analogy, let’s liken it to race cars.

Imagine the Zerena9 needs 600 horsepower to cut through the wind resistance to reach speeds of 300km/hr.

The Real1, on the other hand, can accelerate to 300km/hr with just 450 horsepower because it has better aerodynamics.

In other words, the Real1 uses less Gains to process sound than the Zerena9 to achieve the same level of hearing. It’s an interesting comparison, possibly due to the newer technology in Real1, which is 5-6 years ahead.

Hope you get what I say.

I used to laugh at new feature “Wind” and “Sudden Sound” stabilizer. I take it back.

I didn’t realize how much I work with fans in my office. And I had no idea how annoying it is when the wind passes through the hearing aid while driving with the windows down.

The Wind Stabilizer really helps a lot in this regard. It smooths things out so well that I hardly notice any wind noise. When I work with a fan blowing in my face, it usually creates a whooshing and whirring noise that interferes, but this feature makes it disappear completely.

For Sudden Sound, I have no idea. I guess it not useful for me because I don’t get struggle with Sudden Sound. I kind of like it.

Bernafon Zerena9, I have to use Remote Microphone such as Bernafon-Soundclip (in Oticon is called ConnectClip) to hear people speaking in the heavy background noise. With Real 1 I have pretty confident I can rely on hearing aids alone without Remote Microphone. I bought ConnectClip but… I very rarely use it!

The Oticon Real 1 sounds slightly different from the Bernafon Zerena9 (which is roughly on par with OPN1 technology level). However, when I conducted tests and adjusted the gains to match my hearing loss,

I found that the sound signatures of Oticon and Bernafon are very similar. But Real1 use less gains to achieve what I want to hear.

Oh bummer. Mask wearer speak still suck! it’s so frustrating. No matter what, it’s still difficult to hear people wearing masks clearly. Even though it has improved significantly and become much easier to understand.

If you expect to hear better with Mask wearer speaker. Don’t be. You will disappointed. But still better though.

@mami2529 said:

I jump from Bernafon Zerena 9 (which is technologically equivalent to OPN1) to Oticon Real 1.

I would disagree that the Bernafon Zerena 9 is technically equivalent to the Oticon OPN 1. I don’t think the Bernafon aids subscribes to the Oticon open paradigm starting with the OPN and continues to this day with the Real. Sure, the peripheral technologies may overlap and be equivalent, so that gives a lot of people the impression that they’re the same. Costco HCPs might also have pushed that narrative as well. But based on what I read in terms of the core technology, they don’t seem to have anything alike (the OPN and the Zerena).

But of course sharing your experience between the Zerena and the Real is definitely a welcome and interesting piece of information to read. It’s a rare data point that I have not seen shared before. So thank you for that!

@mami2529 said:

I have a job that I need to hand so dirty a lot of times. It is so inconvenience to wash your hand or wipe clean your hands before touching your hearing aids. I hate to put my sweaty finger on my hearing aids and risk the moisture sipping into the microphone port.

If you have a ConnectClip, use it as a remote!
If not, order a Oticon Remote check this link for accessories.8

I think that you made the right decision there. I think the 4D sensor is kinda gimmicky, but I think the DNN 2.0 is the key significant improvement here because it’s supposed to give you from 10 dB SNR for speech in noise to now 12 dB SNR. But while gimmicky by itself, I think the 4D Sensor feature, when used in conjunction with the DNN 2.0, is very appropriate because it allows the hearing aids to receive more on-the-fly tactical input from you based on your head movement to know when to apply this improvement of speech over noise contrast more appropriately.

The only drawback by going for the Intent instead of the Real is that the charger and the receivers on the Intent are not going to be as compatible with the More anymore, compared to compatibility between the More and the Real. But you do supposedly get 5 year use out of the Intent size 13 rechargeable battery now (vs 3 years on the Real), and the charging time is also reduced to only 1 hour for a full charge. So those should be worthwhile improvements on the battery front, worthwhile enough as trade-off for less compatibility to your More.

I personally have found the right aids and the right fitting for my hearing loss. I have the More1 aids as my backup set of aids and the Real1 aids as my primary set of aids. Both sets of aids are programmed as close as possible to being the same, and I have the same programs on both sets of aids, general, MyMusic, Lecture, T-Coils, TV adapter, and remote Microphone. I admit the biggest difference is the speech in noise, which is much better in the Real1 aids. I also find that the wind noise is much less with the Real1 aids. The new generation of Oticon aids sounds interesting but I don’t see the VA providing me with them and to be honest I don’t see the need for them at this time.

Just going through the instructions for the new INTEND aids and i see something else that i don’t like; I am use to thr rocker control on my aids, and the new INTEND aids don’t have it , just a simple button. The concept of having to remember which aid controls the volume up or down or the program forward or backwards is totally like relearning again. I don’t understand why the change all ov a sudden, just like i don’t understand thr contact charging, the contacts are a source of charging failures.

On the OPN originally they don’t have the rocker switch, only the single push button. Like with anything, once you get used to it, it’s really no big deal. If you have to remember up is for increase and down is for decrease on the rocket switch, then it’s not really any different to remember right is for increase and left is for decrease on the single button. The bigger deal is the resistance to change than it is to get used to operating things in a familiar way.

I’m not sure why the change all of a sudden either, but I can probably guess 3 things: 1) The rocker switch might be less reliable than the single button setup. Perhaps Oticon observed more repair rate on the More and the Real for the button switch, so they decided to go back to the single switch. 2) The shorter Intent doesn’t have enough room to fit the rocker switch in, hence another good reason for them to revert back. 3) Perhaps Oticon collect use data on how often the switches are actually used manually, as opposed to people making the adjustments on the phone app, and they notice that more adjustments are made on the phone app instead of using the buttons, hence the switch back to the single button to improve reliability or make it fit into the Intent better (or both) with justification that the impact is minimal because most people use the phone app to adjust volume and change programs anyway.

I don’t really think that contact charging would be a source of higher failure than induction charging. After all, the contacts for charging as can be seen on the aids are pretty big and protruding out well, and the charging well is pretty small and provides a snug fit. There’s really no way the contacts would be missed when the aid is dropped into the slot. The Apple AirPods Pro 2 is still contact based charging as well, and the pods can only drop into the case 1 way. As long as it’s designed to be fool proof and not allow it to be dropped in more than one way, it shouldn’t be a problem. A magnetic “snap” in should also secure it in place from falling out anyway.

There are a number of disadvantages in induction charging that might have prompted Oticon to go back to contact charging. First off is the room the induction coil takes. Now that they need to go to size 13 from 312, maybe a new induction coil for the size 13 would be prohibitively large. By getting rid of the induction coil, they can use that saved space for something else, like maybe the accelerometers.

And induction charging at a higher rate for size 13 might generate too much heat, especially if they want to accelerate fast charging to a full charge in only 2 hours. A little bit of heat can be advertised as “drying”, but a lot of heat might be considered “cooking” instead. Heat is the enemy if Lithium Ion batteries, and if they now want their size 13 battery to last for up to 5 years from the original 3 years in their size 312 battery, they better do everything to prevent heat build up.

I don’t think the normal users really care whether it’s induction charging or contact-based charging, as long as it works and it works reliably. If you need to make connection with something dozens of times a day, day in day out for 5 years, then maybe reliability with contact charging would be a concern and contactless charging would really have a big advantage (think brush motor vs brushless motor). But if you make contact for charging only once or twice a day, especially in the form of a “drop in” contact that does not require a snug, cannot-come-apart easily-unless-pulled-out contact (like how you need to PLUG in a charging connector to a smart phone), then reliability should not really be a big concern in the first place.