I just ordered a pair of Siemens hearing aids from India. They are far cheaper than even Costco and are supposedly new from the Siemens factory in India. The seller said he would program them to my audiogram, but I suppose I’m on my own after that. Does anyone have experience in buying hearing aids from India? Any suggestions on how I can get them reprogrammed in the US? Do dispensers do programming on aids they didn’t sell? Thanks for any advice. --Steve
How much did you pay? Some Siemens are Made in China and available on eBay from any number of sellers. The ones I purchased had 2 adjustments, Gain and a Low / High tone adjustment pot.
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I know that there are sellers of hearing aids from China. They offer to buy their hearing aids. Then they program them remotely via the Internet. Ask your Indian dealer about this.
I know a company in the United States. It offers the hearing aid programmer
Any one else ever purchased from abroad using a current hearing aid test. I always wonder what the mark up is, it must be huge as all the audiologist seem to be well off I must day and it does always annoy me that at the expense of my disability some one is rich.
Steve, Hope you had better luck than we did. … March of 2015 we took the gamble & bought Siemens from India $699… bad move. We sent a current test for them to use to program 4 channels. They came only 1 program & are not usable at all. So we are out $699. A bitter lesson. We cannot find anyone to TOUCH these HAs to re program. They say they don’t have equipment to program Siemens from INDIA. … July 2015 we drove 160 miles to Costco & got Brios, new molds etc. 3 trips, 480 miles, $3,000 & 2 months later, they fit & worked good. January 2016 a mold cracked, so back we go 160 miles + $70 then another trip to pick them up. May 2016 they start eating batteries & 1 is doing some kind of JIVE MUSIC. So we go in again, they clean, change tubes & batteries free, which is nice. VERY nice folks at Costco. They work right about an hour then we turn around & go back. “The 1 screeching has to be sent off & will be mailed to us.” … So we wait with 1 HA working & everyone’s voice has to go up decibels.
a lot of cheap ones are obsolete Siemens / Rexton models that can only be programmed through an access code locked mobile app for 4 frequency bands. I guess there is no option to fine tun them beyond basic settings as these models cant be connected to connexx for programming
minimum channel should be 8 as per research so all less channel HA are crap. thats why not available in us haha
A bigger concern in my view is programming through access code locked mobile app. This can allow any stockist / seller to play audiologist while denying the opportunity of making any changes / fine tuning to the end user. This is exact opposite of how it should have been.