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Have you ever bought Aids on Aliexpress?

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Hi all, I was searching a way… just to save my money to get hearing aids due to my very low budget. I don’t trust to buy used aids because you can’t know in what conditions the electronics is. At first I searched on Aliexpress just for my curiosity but then I was surprised when I found “famous” hearing aids’ brands like Phonak, Oticon, Signia and so on; look at these ones:

Of course if you buy from China you can forget any warranty and assistance so if your aids broke you could just trash them but look at their prices! You just need an audiologist in your neighborhood to set them, just it.
Do you think they could be genuine?
Have you ever bought hearing aids on aliexpress?
Do you know if there’re other very cheap global web sites where to buy hearing aids?

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Well thats interesting, yeah I’ve brought a few things over the years from here, not but programming device’s and all were genuine, the Bolero B30P for that price is better then the prices offered by the Indian guys, they will be genuine models, they are old models no longer sold in western countries so quite common to see these still being sold in places like China, India etc
To make this a really fantastic deal go and program them yourself, it’s easy enough and will help offset the “no warranty” i don’t know what level of loss you have, but you could easily change the earhook to a slim tube and fit domes, you’d only need to see an audiologist to get your .

Hi there, I’m confused about your statement, the “famous” is a link to the Phonak Bolero B30P and Nadia Paradise, these can’t be compared to any aids, which i may say are definitely not “el-cheapo junk aids” OTC has minimum standards set by the .

In reply to @darthvagrant

When buying from AliExpress I do tend to generally receive the (working) items exactly as described, and on offer are indeed top at rock-bottom, but not totally fancy prices. These are not junk HAs (which are on sale, too). However, as also noted above, my big concerns are warranty and return policies if things go wrong (apparently, “buyer protection” is hit-and-miss, by seller), and I doubt manufacturers will help you out either. So I do not order things from, say, over 100 USD. This is not your Amazon.

In reply to @tenkan

Tenkan: The “hearing aids” do NOT have the amplification required to address any extensive or profound hearing losses. The government to which you allude to “having minimum standards” is in fact germane to this limit of amplification. They have no blue tooth or other connectability to other devices. Legitimate hearing aids have wonderful features of cell phone direct two way connection, music streaming, and several other (vital to me) features. These are NOT found on OTC “aids”.

@darthvagrant I’m well aware of the differences, your statement was that the models been offered in the OP’s links are nothing more then “ el-cheapo junk” you seem to be confusing with OTC which are registered and regulated by the , funny enough they still class an OTC as a medical device! Best to read up on the facts.

OTC Hearing Aids: What You Should Know30

What are over-the-counter hearing aids, who can buy, where to buy, how they work, labeling, and returns.

Hearing Aids and Personal Sound Amplification Products: What to Know15

Learn about hearing aids, including OTC hearing aids, and personal sound amplification products.

And …

The Best OTC Hearing Aids of 2024: Reviews and Prices68

We break down over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids and rank them based on unbiased testing to help you confidently pick the best hearing aid for your needs.

Full List of OTC Hearing Aids in 202424

Here is a comprehensive list of all the OTC hearing aids currently approved for sale by the FDA.

The “sense” of a purchase like this would be a “bet”, I mean I bet the aliexpress’ seller sends genuine and working hearing aids to me.
If this happens then my gain is to get well-known brand’s aids (oticon, resound, phonak, etc.) with a strong discount (eg. -70% as in my links) and I’ll just call my audiologist to set them, if they break then I evaluate if it will be more convenient to buy another pair from aliexpress or to pay for a repairing.
Otherwise if the aliexpress’ seller sends fake or not working hearing aids to me it’s almost sure I’d waste my money. In the case of not working hearing aids I could try to send them back and ask a refund but it’d be a bet anyway. In the case they’re fake my audiologist’d notice this as soon as he’d try to set them by sw (I guess) so I’d waste my money.
Due to that if I buy from aliexpress I’d buy only one hearing aid, just to evaluate if it’s genuine and working, if not then I’d waste relatively few money, if it will be a success then I’ll buy the other one.

I’ve already got my and I know my hearing loss (severe-profound on my right ear and moderate-severe on my left ear) so I’ve only to get hearing aids compensation graphics to choose the best ones for me among the aliexpress famous brands’ ones.

By the way, can you suggest me a well-known but old model that automatically connects with a cell phone via bluetooth?

@audio_hunter said:

By the way, can you suggest me a well-known but old model that automatically connects with a cell phone via bluetooth?

In this case, it would have to be an (made for iPhone) type , ReSound,Signia come to mind but there’s lots see here.

List of Made for iPhone hearing devices - Apple Support2

These Made for iPhone (MFi) hearing aids are compatible with iPhone and iPad. Those marked with an asterisk (*) are also compatible with Mac.

If your not into Apple products then the easiest direct and easy to get would be Phonak (or equivalent from unitron) Marvel platform, all others would need a extra accessory to use with Android.
The unitron “flex trial” could be an option for you, but you’ll definitely need to go for those, just remember that asking any audiologist clinic to program HAs not brought from them can be problematic.

Edited
@tenkan said:

If your not into Apple products then the easiest direct and easy to get would be Phonak (or equivalent from unitron) Marvel platform

That’s interesting. I already searched informations about Phonak’s Marvel platform (thanks @firenzel :slight_smile:) but now I’d be glad to see which Unitron’s models are capable of the so called “Bluetooth wireless hearing aids” which means you don’t need any 3rd party device to link your to your phone, just accept your call by your phone and you’ll hear your caller’s voice from your HAs.
I’ve found this Unitron explanation web page:

What is meant by Bluetooth wireless hearing aids?9

but I get “error 403” when trying to open this
http://unitron.com/content/staging/chance-2018/en/professional/support/bluetooth/phone-compatibility.html2
to check my phone’s compatibility. It’s an old keyboard cell phone Alcatel 20.08g
https://www.alcatelmobile.com/it/product/feature-phone/all-feature-phones/alcatel-2008/
and it carries “Bluetooth 3.0 + EDR” so theoretically it’d work with Unitron’s Bluetooth wireless HAs because here

Home

it’s written: “For phone calls, any phone supporting Bluetooth 2.1 or newer should work”. Could someone ensure me of that?
What about that difference between 2.4 GHz and 10.6 MHz bluetooth? I mean not necessarily I’ve to point to the newest Unitron’s 2.4ghz models to get this features but the older 10.6mhz models will be compatible; is that right?

Unfortunately there’s no Unitron HA on aliexpress but we can find this brand on mysecondear, eg. moxi blu 15… it’s a bit more expensive than aliexpress (990eur/piece!) but this is the price to get my EU warranties :slight_smile:

By the way… do you know if it’s true or false that Unitron is worse than Phonak though both ones belong to Sonova? I guess there’d be a reason if Phonak is more expensive than Unitron.

PS

@tenkan said:

asking any audiologist clinic to program HAs not brought from them can be problematic.

Why? You pay him/her for the job and you get your new aliexpress/mysecondear’s phonak/unitron HAs programmed :slight_smile:

Finding an audiologist to program aids not bought from them is challenging.For whatever reason, most are not willing to do it. The ones that are often charge what seem to be rather high prices ($500-$1000)

Regarding Ali Express. I’ve never bought hearing aids from them but bought a hearing aid programmer that I had some issues with. Their first response to having issues with something is basically asking you how much the issue is worth to you. For example. I bought the programmer for $150 and had some glitches with it (not deal breakers) and reported the issue to them. They asked and I said $50 seemed reasonable. They agreed and refunded $50 on my credit card.

In reply to @audio_hunter

@audio_hunter said:

it’s written: “For phone calls, any phone supporting Bluetooth 2.1 or newer should work”. Could someone ensure me of that?

Read that with a pinch of salt, but seriously it’s so cheap to update to a later model phone it’s not worth worrying about it.

@audio_hunter said:

What about that difference between 2.4 GHz and 10.6 MHz bluetooth?

Never heard of 10.6MHz Bluetooth, but regardless with a newer phone it’s just going to work out of the box with any Phonak or Unitron Bluetooth .

@audio_hunter said:

By the way… do you know if it’s true or false that Unitron is worse than Phonak though both ones belong to Sonova?

I haven’t heard this, they are the same but with different software , they certainly use the same chip /circuits so one would think you’d get the similar results, I’ve used both and couldn’t tell any difference.

Some years ago I bought a new pair of Siemens Pure Binax 7BX for $550 on eBay from a U.S. seller. At the time these were the current release model. They arrived factory sealed and the included receivers that were in separate boxes. My audiologist examined them and interfaced them to his computer. He said they certainly looked authentic and fully functional, but that the serial numbers looked unusual and he couldn’t tell what country they were from. I programmed them myself and they work great. I bought another pair from the same seller so I would have a backup. These are the hearing aid that I use today. I wish that I knew were the seller got them from.

@tenkan said:

but seriously it’s so cheap to update to a later model phone it’s not worth worrying about it.

There’s a “thing”… all this thread is not about me but about my 91yo grandma :slight_smile: We gave her that phone for older people because its keyboard is very big and loudspeaker is very powerful. We can’t give her a smartphone because it’d be useless. Due to that I like to establish for first if her phone will be compatible with that phonak/unitron function. Maybe I’ll send an email to Unitron to be sure of that, I see thi is a difficult question to answer here because her phone’s too old.
Anyway maybe there’s another problem about phonak’s “Bluetooth wireless” function. As we can read from naìda marvel 30’s user guide: Chapter 11 “Phone calls”: "[…] Your hearing aids pick up your voice through their own microphones.", in other words I guess these work as a speakerphone themselves when running this function. Well, my concern is: what if she lives in a rest-house with a constant loud environment around her? It’d be useful to try HAs with this function before buying them but it this case it’s impossible. Anyway here I’d like to hear your experiences about this.

@MDB said:

The ones that are often charge what seem to be rather high prices ($500-$1000)

I think there was a misunderstanding for “programming” due to my bad English :slight_smile: I just meant I can pay any audiologist in my neighborhood to “set” my grandma HAs’ channels up to the right volume and this is what I kept on doing every 6 months though we bought her HAs from another audiologist back in 2017. Honestly I don’t know what you mean for “programming” but I can tell you I spend only 20 euros (about 20$) for this volume regulation… so what do you refer to when you said “500-1000$”?

@elminero said:

Some years ago I bought […] from a U.S. seller […] I bought another pair from the same seller so I would have a backup

Tell us his name please :slight_smile: This thread is about old-famous-cheap HAs you can get from the web.

@elminero said:

I wish that I knew were the seller got them from.

Did you see ideograms on its box? It could be a hint :slight_smile:

Another question about phonak, signia, siemens etc. HAs on aliexpress: sometimes we can read “Imported Chips” on the title; what does it mean?

If you’ve got an audiologist that will adjust hearing aids they didn’t sell you for 20 euros, count your blessings. In the US, most audiologists don’t want to have anything to do with hearing aids they didn’t sell you. The ones that are willing often charge the high prices. It’s a little more complicated than turning up the volume. Programming entails entering an into the programming software, verifying in some way that gain is adequate and adjusting various other settings.
From your description of how she uses the phone, she may be happiest just using the hearing aitds without bluetooth connection.
Buying from somebody online is always a risk, but my one experience with AliExpress is that they were credible.

The reason audiologists are generally reluctant to fit they did not sell you is that they make truckloads of money from the sales margins of HAs they provide you themselves. Self-fitting your HAs is not a huge deal; the combination of Target software and Noah Wireless (PC, USB) enables you to do the process mostly automatically for (e.g.) Phonaks, as described elsewhere in this forum. The really tricky part with ordering from (e.g.) AliExpress (your gamble) are concerns with warranty and returns (and, in my case, customs). You don’t know if your seller still exists a week from now, and I definitely do not trust the AliExpress broken-English “buyer protection”.

In reply to @MDB

I’ve had my hearing aids reprogrammed at my local university hearing clinic. There was absolutely no problem. Service was top notch by a highly capable audiologist. Rates were cheap. It couldn’t have been a better experience. I continued going there until I replaced the hearing aids.

@RobHooft said:

they make truckloads of money from the sales margins of HAs they provide you themselves

Not only this… consider that the audiologist that sold her in 2017 began to make “mistakes” in setting their channels from 2021 to persuade her to buy new HAs! I noticed that when I called the current audiologist and he showed me all the settings/graphs on his laptop and it was obvious the volume was set too low. So he pumped up the volume and… miracle, my grandma could hear again! Now you know why I pay this other audiologist for HAs regulation and every time I claim to stand along him in front of his laptop to see how he’s setting her HAs.
Now her right HA has reached its max volume (it’s a widex passion with M receiver) so we’re going to buy a new one (at least just one HA).

@MDB said:

From your description of how she uses the phone, she may be happiest just using the hearing aitds without bluetooth connection.

Due to the average-high loudness around her or what else?

I bring another contribution this get-good-and-cheap-but-old HAs thread :slight_smile:
I’ve just found this phonak’s “price and reference guide”7 updated to june 2023. Unfortunately (for me) prices are in rupees so I must convert them in euros but I find this guide very interesting because I think it shows the “real” prices, I mean before the “truckloads of money from the sales margins of HAs they provide you themselves”. Eg. naida marvel 30 sp (page 13): mrp 37000 rupees = 414 euros… I regret not to live in India :slight_smile:

Probably the manufacturers set very different prices for retailers in India and places like the US and Switzerland, as they do for pharmaceuticals (when they can)… So it is both this ‘regional pricing’ and the margins for audiologists that produce the astronomical prices we see in some places. And it is up to us endusers to be creative and navigate the system…

Yep @RobHooft … The manufacturers dictate the price consumers can afford, and obviously, in the more affluent countries, they milk it dry…Cheers Kev :wink:

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