Oticon launches Opn hearing aids and Velox platform

Hearing Aids
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#101

So glad I found this website. Learned so much so quickly. Seems everyone posts their hearing tests but I don’t see a place to do so on the profile?

I have Oticon Alta Pro’s for 2 years and an earlier version Oticon before that since 2008. As a lawyer, I’m in a lot of difficult hearing situations. Civil service and arbitration hearings were the worst. Courtrooms have good acoustics and microphones so we’re better. As a lawyer, if you miss a word you can’t just assume the witness will repeat it, as they may regret what they said! Meetings in large conference rooms also difficult. Changed job to corporate position. Generally better but conference calls are common and difficult.

So, I could use advice on how to get best out of AudD’s setting up my new Opn HA (on order). I don’t feel I’ve communicated my needs as well as the participants here do. So anyone have a checklist of questions to ask or issues to raise?

#102

Very top right…go to settings
Then go to the left side under ‘my profile’
edit signature

#103

I now have the Opn miniRITE and find it so far to be a good experience. I have much better success understanding speech in crowds.
I hear birds I haven’t heard in a long time. I had the Oticon Alta miniRITE for four years and they had a great quality of sound but didn’t help me in crowded situations.

The only problem I am having is feed back. The anti feed back is not turned on because my Audi suggested that would cut back on the frequencies I need help with.
I am using closed domes. Any thoughts?

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#104

Get your audiologist to run the feedback manager. If it cuts the highs then you should probably try custom moulds to help reduce the risk of feedback.

#105

Hi,

the best solution would be to take you audiologist with you to the demanding listening solution.

conference calls: Can you use bluetooth for that? You can adjust the aids that you hear the call via bluetooth and hear the outside (if there are real speakers in the conference room) too.

Apart from that, I can only give a general advice: Most customers want comfort. This doesn´t always give the best speech comprehension. Make sure

  • your fit is real ear verified
  • your settings are on “experienced user”
  • you don´t use too much noise reduction

You might want to experiment with a program with no noise reduction at all. All noise reduction also distorts the signal. Maybe this is not the case with oticon opn (as advertised), but it´s true in general.

Last: You need different compression for louder situations. This is usually done automatically by the aid. Mine have a program “speech in noise”, whenever speech in noise is detected, compression is reduced. I´m quite sure that the opn has something of the kind. I´d say that with the opn, the automatic standard program should do the job. But ask for it. And be aware that increasing noise reduction doesn´t necessarily increase speech comprehension in noise, it´s compression that needs to be adjusted (I can explain that in more detail if your´re interested).

What worries me is that the alta pro is an excellent aid, too. Maybe you need some kind of hearing training. Listen to orchestra music and try to follow the clarinet, or something of the kind.

When you post your audiogram, I might be able to add one thing or two.

#106

I think all aids will allow you to separately adjust the stream (phone etc.) vs the environment. For deposing or court, you might find the Rodger Pen a useful tool. It would allow you to place it by the judge/witness to get a better result. This uses FM broadcast to bring the sound by the microphone to the aids directly.

#107

In the last two weeks I’ve been testing the Linx2 hearing aids after wearing Widex aids for 5 years. My hearing improved tremendously, even my colleagues noticed the difference, so I was willing to buy them. But deep inside I was not very much impressed with the sound quality of these Resound models. My hearing aid specialist (JewelEar Gouda) told me that with some fine tuning she could make them more comfortable. But she also offered me to compare them with the new Oticon Opn.

In the first minutes after she gave me the Oticon Opn’s, I thought that something was missing, it was like she didn’t adjust the volume high enough. But meantime I realized that new sounds entered my ears. Sounds I’d lost for many years.
She said, just come outside with me and there I had a live changing experience. I really could hear again very natural, without the hissing high noises from my hearing aids trying to counteract my hearing loss.

Moments later I drove home in my car and was wondering how the beeps in the car actually sound nice. I had some music on and my window open and could hear 2 cycists talking to eachother driving at the other side of the road.

Ten minutes later I was home and got emotional trying to explain my partner the experience with the Oticons. I did not feel disabled anymore.

All day long I’ve been very very happy. In a board meeting, this afternoon, I could hear every word again. I did not feel stupid having to guess what everybody was saying. Not starting topics which where already discussed…

Although I’ve been wearing the Oticon Opn’s for just a day, I am very much impressed. I don’t even notice wearing them and they are almost invisible. For me, and I assume others who will have the opportunity to try them, Oticon has made a giant step forward with the opn’s. And I just humbly say: Thank you Oticon!

#108

Thank you!

#109

I’ve tried a mic but too many speakers from different directions -typical room set up - arbitrator to my left, opposing counsel in front, wines in center or next to the arbitrator, my client next to me trying to whisper to me. The mic for the witness helped.

Now ive changed jobs and its large group teleconferences that are the worst!

#110

the Oticon rep was in the office with my AudD last week, so I got the Opn demo. I talked the rep into giving me the brochure given to Aud as my husband is an engineer and would want it. I wish I could post it here (it’s very long) as it has fascinating in depth information that my husband has been translating for me. Also got 2 other brochures and a White Paper from her.

LawyerFL

#111

I forgot to mention that the Oticon rep suggested to my Audi to get a Jabra headset to connect to the office phone to use with the Bluetooth capability of the Opn. I will report back on that.

#112

How should that work? The Jabra Headset connects to the office phone via bluetooth, but where do the hearing aids come in?

You can use the aids as a headset if you buy a streamer (oticon streamer in your case). Then you hear the caller directly in your aid and speak into the streamer which is your microphone in this case.

The OPN connects directly to IPhone (not sure about android), but you´d still have to speak into the phone. I doubt very much that the opn connects directly to a standard office phone. I have my streamer connected to my old-style landline phone (more than 10 years old) via bluetooth, this works quite well.

If you have phone calls quite often, those streamers are a really cool thing. You hear the ringing directly in your aids, press a button to recieve the call, really easy. Speech quality is outstanding this way.

#113

Did you register for this forum just to post this testimonial? I hope they paid you well.

#114

Not at all. Nobody paid me anything. i am just very happy with these hearing aids and want others to help in there decission to try them. Sorry for being so positive.

#115

hehe. My brother-in-law who got OPNs felt pretty much the same. :wink: I just wish I could compare properly configured OPNs and Siemens Pure Ric side by side…

#116

I think this level of cynicism is understandable, but I for one believe Emiel. Oticon is fantastic technology. I wear (british) National Health Oticon hearing aids that are just a mid range aid - Oticon Spirit Synergy, and the sound quality is exceptional. The OPN is premium technology and the next years model. I can well believe they are that good.

#117

A new person joins the forum because after wearing the OPNs for a few days is so impressed with the performance wants to share the discovery with others. The very first reply that responds to that post was a long way from being welcoming. Hopefully Emiel is not put off by this treatment.

I am a relatively new wearer of hearing aids and ten days ago moved from the Alta2 Pro Ti to the OPNs. They are better for me but that is my subjective experience. I for one would like to continue reading reviews and user experiences.

Sadly I tend to be very judgmental, cynical, sarcastic and opinionated as a first response to many observations. I also have GERD and high blood pressure. I wonder if it’s related?

#118

This is the Opn product guide- at the link:

#119

Happy to see that others do believe me. Thank you InVision, glucas and gpsgrandpa for posting them. It helped me to not feel a bit silly for being so over-enthusiastic in my first post on this forum. Of course the reaction from xresolutionx hurt me a bit. But again, it is not a matter of believe what I write, it is only my personal experience I had from the first day wearing the Opn’s I wanted to share on this forum.

About a month ago I went to my hearing specialist because one of my Widex aids was broken. Because I had many times problems with these hearing aids before, she told me that she wanted to test the Opn’s on me, but they where still not on the market. I had problems with transpiration on warm days and the Widex aids couldn’t cope with that. She told me the Opn’s would be almost waterproof.

After visiting her shop, I searched every day on the internet, eager to find more information about the Opn’s. This is how I found this forum, and have been reading the new posts ever since. So when I received the Opn’s, this forum, and the new forum from Oticon, where the places I shared my experience. Just for others looking for their quest to find more info about the Opn’s. And although English is not my native language, I tried to do my very best on being as honest and accurate as possible.

For the people with the same quest for info about the Oticon Opn’s, and especially gpsgrandpa :), I will update my experience. I am using the Opn’s three days now and I am still very happy with them.

Yesterday I went on a boat trip with over 40 people on 8 boats. We made stop-overs for drinks, lunch, diner and sunset at different places, with different hearing conditions. It was a good day to see how the Opn’s performed.

I only had to pick up my iPhone on one occasion to change the program and play with the volume, to be able to understand the conversations. Feeling a bit ashamed, because I don’t want to ‘play’ with my phone when talking to people. So I told some of them that I had to fine tune my hearing aids. They found it unbelievable that I could do that on my phone. But it helped me and I could understand them better again.

On the way back from this trip, my partner told me: “maybe you didn’t notice today, but I could see a huge difference. I saw you talking with all those people and before you always avoided these situations. Even on the boat with the wind and the noise from the motor you could understand us very well”. He was right and I was feeling part of a group of people again.

Before wearing the Opn’s, I did not like social talks in big groups and always try to find an excuse not to join. Yesterday I walked once to the side, because it felt strange to find me in the middle of conversations. I was not used to this anymore.

I told my partner that I found it contra-dictionary that after the trial period I have to pay quite a lot of money for these hearing aids, because my hearing was normal now (maybe someone recognizes this feeling). But mean time realizing that without these hearing aids this - feeling part of the community - would not be the case. The Dutch insurance doesn’t cover the premium models. I am paying € 2.250 for each (including great service from my hearing aid specialist). And I could in stead also spend this € 4.500 on a great holiday with my partner… But alas, I think it is well spend.

And yes i found one thing about these aids I don’t like until now, and that is the connection with IFTTT. After trying to implement this, especially the part that the Opn’s can change their program according to your location, this doesn’t not work for me. I only receive a message on my phone telling me that I changed locations, I thought this setting would automatically change the program on my hearing aids. But maybe it is due to my inexperience with IFTTT. So if someone could post some solutions for this (if there are any) I would be grateful.

xresolutionx, you don’t have to believe me, but I would suggest to try the Oticon Opn yourself and share your experience on this forum. I am very curious to read your reviews about them.

#120

Emiel, thank you for continuing documenting your experience with the OPNs. I have to say that I’m always amazed at multi-lingual people. I continually work at just doing english successfully. A number of years ago some friends of my wife were visiting from the Netherlands. Except for an accent they spoke english like native speakers. A year of two later we spent an over-night in Amsterdam. They drove a couple hours to meet us and we took a boat ride tour and talked. It was only when they needed to speak dutch that I was reminded english was not the first language. The other thing I noticed was how difficult it was for me to hear on the boat with all the environmental and people sounds. That you could have a very successful time hearing in that space and that it was noticed by your partner says a lot. Congratulations on finding a technology that works for you.

I have not experimented with the IFTTT feature yet. I have experienced an issue when streaming audio books and calls directly from my iPhone to the OPNs. After listening for a few hours the dual-link to them starts to falter. For a few seconds the audio alternates back and forth from one ear to the other and then works again for a short while. So far the only fix has been to unlink the aids and then do a fresh pairing of the bluetooth connection. It then works perfectly for many hours, sometimes into the next day. Then I have to reset the connection again. It happens in all locations and with fresh batteries as well as partial batteries. It makes no difference if I have the playback set for mono or stereo. My audiologist has been trying to find out more about this. Her sources say they have not had any reports of this happening.

The other thing I’ve noticed is the battery power level indicators on the iPhone and Oticon ON app are not accurate. They indicated I was at about half when right side died. I restarted the aid and within a few seconds it beeped and died again. I did get four and a half days with the two batteries and many, many hours of calls and listening to my audio books. Except for the alternating issues it never lost the connection. The Alta2 Pro aids I had were good for at least seven days of battery life in normal use. I did not use them for streaming audio books and I had stopped using the Streamer Pro 1.3 for calls due to dropping connection issues.