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Oticon launches Opn hearing aids and Velox platform

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gpsgrandpa, now that you’ve been wearing OPN’s for a couple of weeks, have you experienced an improvement in hearing similar to JustinHIS’s experience? He says the OPN’s are as much of an improvement over Alta 2 Pro’s as the Alta 2 Pro’s were an improvement over unaided hearing. That’s remarkable. Do the OPN’s seem that much of an improvement over Alta 2’s to you? Thanks.

I have been trialing Costco’s Bernafon Junos for almost 2 months now. Speech clarity was somewhat better than my 5 year old Starkeys, but overall I would rate the Bernafons as good but not great. This past week I demoed the Opns. In the office, they sounded very good just programmed to my hearing test. With a restaurant scenario playing on the sound system I could hear both the audiologist and my soft spoken husband in front, on the side and behind me. After a tweak to the mid-ranges I could hear my husband from the end of a hallway with my back turned. Meanwhile, paper rustling, footsteps, etc sounded “right”. It really was pretty incredible.
This audiologist (in a high rent district) charged $6000 for the pair with standard 30 day free return (that can be extended), 3 year warranty, 2 year loss/damage coverage, all adjustments etc. She has already fitted more than 10 clients with the Opns and gave a very thorough testing with up to date equipement. My husband feels I’m being ripped off since a different audiologist quoted $4400/pair, telling us he was giving us all the incentives that Oticon is giving him. However, he did the sloppiest hearing exam I’ve ever had and hasn’t actually fitted anyone with the Opns yet. He is also a half hour further away. I think over the 4+ years these aids should last I’m getting my money’s worth.
The aids will be in next week and I’ll post my experience. I do feel a little bad about having to return the Junos to the very nice Costco .

In reply to @ziploc

@ziploc said:

gpsgrandpa, now that you’ve been wearing OPN’s for a couple of weeks, have you experienced an improvement in hearing similar to JustinHIS’s experience? He says the OPN’s are as much of an improvement over Alta 2 Pro’s as the Alta 2 Pro’s were an improvement over unaided hearing. That’s remarkable. Do the OPN’s seem that much of an improvement over Alta 2’s to you? Thanks.

ziplock, in my opinion I don’t have enough personal history using hearing devices to be able to make the comparison that JustinHIS can. I wore the Alta2 Pro’s for a couple of months. During that time I feel I discovered the benefits of by using a Top-of-the-Line device. If the aids would have made and kept a good solid bluetooth connection with my phone I don’t think I would have changed to the OPNs. But my audiologist made the offer to exchange them so I did. The day after I got them I was out at a noisy job site talking and interacting with half a dozen guys. It wasn’t until later in the day that it dawned on me how invisible the OPNs were. I could hear everyone in every situation without feeling I was using a hearing device. It was so effortless that I wasn’t aware I had a hearing problem. On Father’s Day I was at a restaurant with my adult sons and baby granddaughter. Again it wasn’t until we were getting ready to leave that I felt it was effortless to hear. Also during phone calls the connection is not lost. I would say they are better for me. I wouldn’t want to go back to using the Alta2 Pros.

In reply to @RForbes

@RForbes said:

Update…

First some background: I am an Oticon Agil Pro wearer for 6 years. I went to local audi through Truhearing.com agreement. I trialed some Alta Pro 2 Ti and liked them very much; but during the trial I became aware of Oticon Opn upcoming launch, so I returned Altas. (Altas costs $4,400 for a pair through TruHearing.) Audi was not very familiar with Oticons, so I decided to look elsewhere. Found another audi (45 minute drive) that was familiar with Oticon. He suggested I try Signia Pure 7x while I waited for him to get Opn demos. I liked the Signias ok (4 days), but while waiting, I came across buyhear.com.

I sent buyhear.com my audiogram. They talked with me on phone about Opns and whether they were a good fit. I purchased Opns for $3,600 for the pair. They received the Opns a couple days later, called me and discussed how they should program the aids. I received the aids 3 days later (7 days after initial purchase).

Opns are great. The fluttering or warbling of some tones that I experienced with Alta Pro 2s is much less with Opns. I expect after one adjustment, I will be pretty good to go. I am a music minister, so I need to hear in many different settings to be able to let buyhear know what I need. For the adjustment, buyhear will send me something for a couple of days, so that they can adjust remotely. Next week, I will be around a ton of different musical groups, so its a good week to give Opns their first big challenge. The staff at buyhear have been great thus far. (I’ll continue to update during my 60 day trial period.)

By the way, I did speak with hearingrevolution (also known as Hearing Care Solutions). They have Opns for $2,100 per ($4,200 for a pair). You can go to local audi and purchase through hearingrevolution.

More…

I attended a music conference (vocal, orchestral instruments, organ, piano, guitar, drums, etc.) this past week that was a significant challenge for any hearing aids. The Oticon Opns passed the test with flying colors. Opns are great for me. I do need some minor adjustments, but overall, I am very pleased with my choice. I expect to have them adjusted in about one week. I’ll update again concerning the service of buyhear.

I am a relatively long time wearer (2009) and tend to frequent this site when something new comes out primarily to come up to speed on the latest. I don’t often post so please be gentle.:slight_smile:

I was originally a Phonak wearer (out of the recommendation of my provider) then moved on to Oticon Alta Pros for the benefit of better bluetooth connectivity as I spend 90 % of my day on the phone. Decided to try the OPNs recently specifically for the iPhone integration.

I’ve been trailing the OPNs for a few days now and have decided to purchase.

In general I share other’s experience on overall sound quality and would say that there is something “natural” about these HAs that the Alta Pros couldn’t deliver. Speech comprehension for folks behind me (like when people are seating in the back seat of a car and I’m driving), as well as speech in noisy situations is much better than with the Alta Pros.

From another thread…

@gpsgrandpa said:

The BIGGEST issue is at times I think the phone is doing some unknown activity and the connection alternates back and forth from one ear to the other for maybe 4-5 seconds and then it’s over.

I wanted to chime in here (seemed more relevant) as I have had this experience as well where the HAs would bounce back and forth between the right/left side and then normalize. Spent quite a bit of time troubleshooting and, while not trouble free, I think I’ve narrowed the bouncing back and forth to another bluetooth device (a Panasonic DECT phone) that was connected to my phone as a secondary headset. My issues would only happen at home where this Panasonic phone is and I realize this is not the same as Grandpa’s reported. When I removed this device on the iPhone (Forget this Device) the issue went away for the most part. Still figured I mention it in the hopes it might help others figure this out.

I have had some connectivity issues where the HA’s don’t re-connect when powered up or successfully go between iOS devices (iPhone/iPad) as they should but i believe this is all related to iOS and not the haring aids… YMMV.

I’ve also had the clicking that folks report and think this is somehow related to bluetooth interference with other devices such as 2.4Gz cordless phones, wifi routers, etc. For me, moving away from sources of interference makes the voice quality improve when this happens.

Waiting anxiously for the ConnectClip to come out as according to what I’ve read this is what will enable me to connect my office phone to the OPNs using my existing Plantronics Bluetooth MDA200 hub and Plantronics SSP2714-01 bluetooth adapter.

Hope this helps.

Thanks all for the various posts as it helps tremendously to see other’s experiences.

Thanks

Luna thank you for posting your experience. At the moment it works for me to Forget and Pair the daily. It only takes a minute or two. It also seems to make a difference whether I listen to an audio book during the day or not. Yesterday I had calls on the iPhone during the day for a couple of hours. The longest over an hour. I did no other audio streaming. I never had a connection issue and no alternating, side-to-side audio.

I’ve been led to understand the OPNs are still a work in progress. I read recently that there is no way for consumers to turn off the iPhone looking for connections. When I get into either of two vehicles I drive that I have set up a BT stereo-receiver connection it seamlessly connects to the phone. I can stream audio or take calls with the vehicles audio system taking precedence over the OPNs. Within seconds after turning the vehicles off the HAs are again primary for calls and streaming. Plus the company pickup I drive is an older model with quite a bit of road noise. I have had no problems carrying on a conversation with passengers. Again the OPNs are invisible and I can forget I have a hearing problem.

In reply to @RForbes

RForbes thank you for keeping us updated on your OPN experiences. For a person new to hearing aids like myself I think having a working relationship with a good audiologist is vital to a successful start. With no prior experience how would one ever know if the aids were working the way they should be. I frequently am told that a little knowledge is dangerous. That said since I am a techie person I can see my self tempted to do what you are doing when I’m looking for new years from now. It will be interesting to see how your interaction with buyhear goes.

In reply to @gpsgrandpa

Grandpa,

Thanks for the reply. I agree that this is on the relative bleeding-edge of technology (some bugs to be expected). I would also say that the iPhone s/w may well be the culprit and not so much the Hearing Aids. This is a relatively complex setup and sometimes its surprising to me it all works together as well as it does!

I don’t have problems that require me to forget and re-pair but I do have some initial connectivity problems when the ’s first go on. To address those, I’ve found that turning off bluetooth and back on sometimes helps. Rebooting the HA’s (turning them off and on) and starting the Oticon ON app on the iPhone at the same time seems to always help. Other HA users seem to have initial connectivity issues as well based on this post Use Made for iPhone hearing devices - Apple Support so, again, it might not be an Oticon issue…

What version of the iOS (iPhone) software are you running?.. in this particular case the old advice of running the latest might help.

I should add that i’m not meaning to discourage folks here from using the OPNs… I find them much better than anything else I’ve used before even before you take into consideration al the iPhone integration (which is very cool).

With respect to the car issues you have, sounds like others have somewhat similar experiences with other HA’s (see https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7372004?language=en1) which leads me to believe it might be an iOS/iPhone issue.

@gpsgrandpa said:

Luna thank you for posting your experience. At the moment it works for me to Forget and Pair the HAs daily. It only takes a minute or two. It also seems to make a difference whether I listen to an audio book during the day or not. Yesterday I had calls on the iPhone during the day for a couple of hours. The longest over an hour. I did no other audio streaming. I never had a connection issue and no alternating, side-to-side audio.

I’ve been led to understand the OPNs are still a work in progress. I read recently that there is no way for consumers to turn off the iPhone looking for BT connections. When I get into either of two vehicles I drive that I have set up a BT stereo-receiver connection it seamlessly connects to the phone. I can stream audio or take calls with the vehicles audio system taking precedence over the OPNs. Within seconds after turning the vehicles off the HAs are again primary for calls and streaming. Plus the company pickup I drive is an older model with quite a bit of road noise. I have had no problems carrying on a conversation with passengers. Again the OPNs are invisible and I can forget I have a hearing problem.

Thanks.

In reply to @gpsgrandpa

I have been watching this thread daily and after 3 days with the OPNs, I’ll offer my initial observations.

I am 71, a retired engineer, a sometimes choir singer and a hearing aid wearer for 18 years. I have used Oticon Agil’s for the past 6 years and have been mostly satisfied, with the usual complaints about speech in noisy restaurants and large group situations. I rely on the streamer with my Android phone. I have been trialing Trax 42 aids from Costco since February. They are a better than the Agil’s, I am happy with the hearing specialist at Costco and ecstatic over the price. I had planned on revisiting my long term audi but was delayed due to her health issues. Two weeks ago, she recommended the OPNs and fitted a pair last Thursday.

My hope was that my experience with the OPNs would be either similar to the Trax, saving $5000 or vastly superior, diminishing my bank account but improving my daily life experience.

After a busy 3 day weekend with family including grandkids and several group events, I think these OPNs are very good indeed.

The fitting is direct from my . As usual for me, I have the normal program plus one for speech in noise and one for music. The sound from these aids is very natural. I seem to hear everything and everyone with very very little of my usual “pardon me” responses. The big event was a restaurant dinner with all 9 of us around the table. I briefly tried the noise program but found no advantage over the normal program. I heard everyone.

I have a few environments that I haven’t exposed these to yet: dining in any of our favorite casual restaurants and a couple of large group events. I should hit those in the next week or two.

I also have a few concerns: battery life is one. My right aid died on the third day; the left a day later. I think these need the bigger size 312 batteries. I also miss my streamer. Not only did it work well with my phone, I found the buttons a convenient and discrete way to adjust volume and change programs. Maybe these aids won’t require my frequent fiddling. The ConnectClip may solve both or an iPhone may solve the streaming issue, although I worry about even shorter battery life. Also, I am not enthusiastic about “playing with my phone” to control my aids.

In reply to @Luga

Luga - I have iOS9.3.2 which my phone tells me is the latest and greatest. I imagine the iPhone is as much the problem as the OPNs.I felt I had to reply to one of the Apple support links you posted. A working solution was offered by one of the posters. Another person replied the solution had worked when all the best and brightest at Apple support could suggest was to just turn the phone off when in the car. I noted that if the best and brightest wore hearing aids a fix would be top priority.

Perhaps a solution will be forth coming but for now it only takes a moment to Forget and Re-Pair when I take them out of the dryer in the morning.

arbywon - It would seem the right aid must be the primary. It is the aid that the battery died in first for me. I’ve just been changing them mid-week now instead of once a week. I hear you about seeming to be play with the phone when turning the volume up. I work outdoors frequently and I could never tell when my Streamer Pro was on or not. Being able to see an iPhone in the sunshine was the feature that got me to buy one in the first place. So far I haven’t had to change volume during normal everyday use except once. For that I had the audiologist turn on the option of using the buttons as volume control.

@chatteremail said:

Does the Opn have a music program available (the aids are new enough that my audi didn’t know offhand)?

No, there are no special purpose programs at all except for an acoustic phone program.

In reply to @chatteremail

@chatteremail said:

Does the Opn have a music program available (the aids are new enough that my audi didn’t know offhand)?

Thanks!

Marc

Yes Marc. I have a music program but in the 5 days I’ve had the OPNs, I’ve had limited opportunity to evaluate. My initial impression is that the normal program is much better than my old Agils in dealing with special situations but my music program is higher bandwidth and less compression so I still expect it to be useful.

Ron

In reply to @arbywon

New user and my first post. I will be getting the Opn for trial on July 11, so soaking up what everyone is experiencing with this new product.

i had hearing issues for 15+ years, but just toughed it out and put off HA. I added my audio gram in the signature, so you can see my high freq is very bad, but bass sounds in more normal range. Hoping the Opn can be programmed to help without enhancing the bass noises I am hearing fairly normal.

So far I trialed the Lyric for about 5 days before I had the audiologist remove them. She had told me they were not a good match for my profile given the limited programming, but I really wanted the 24/7 without changing batteries. I then tried the Phonak Audeo 90 for about a month. I really didn’t like their Bluetooth solution and needing the clip mic 6-8" from the HA which was really frustrating.

I have an iPhone 6+ so hopefully the Opn will work better. I was surprised they didn’t offer a hands free mic for the Opn. I understand the iPhone mic will pickup conversation without being right up to your mouth? In my area, hands free in the car is the law, so this is important to me.

i will keep following everyone’s progress and will post mine once I get started.

In reply to @arbywon

Ron,

Is this music program something custom you created or something that the Audi turned on for you with a check box? If custom, can you share how it was done? I’m interested in getting a music program…

Many thanks!

@arbywon said:

Yes Marc. I have a music program but in the 5 days I’ve had the OPNs, I’ve had limited opportunity to evaluate. My initial impression is that the normal program is much better than my old Agils in dealing with special situations but my music program is higher bandwidth and less compression so I still expect it to be useful.

Ron

@Luga said:

Ron,

Is this music program something custom you created or something that the Audi turned on for you with a check box? If custom, can you share how it was done? I’m interested in getting a music program…

Many thanks!

I am guessing it was a check box but it was so quick, I didn’t notice.

In reply to @Luga

Does the Opn have a volume and program control independent of the Iphone? Photos and ads seem to suggest it does. But my audiologist told me in May that one needed an Iphone to use it. I have no need for a smart phone and am using Alta2 Pros now.

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