So this weekend my Oticon Opn S1 HA’s started malfunctioning. What happens is when I put them on the charger both HA’s LED’s flash red 3 times and that repeats over and over. I have read online that it says this is a system malfunction with the HA’s. I have contacted my Audi, and was told I need to take my HA’s in so they can be sent in and have the batteries replaced and the firmware updated that this is a known issue.
It seems funny that both HA’s would start this behavior at the same exact time? Or is this common?
Does anyone know what version of firmware that they will be updating it to? and besides the “fix” what else does this version of firmware do?
I have not had my HA’s long 4 maybe 5 months, this seems pretty soon for lithium batteries to be going bad. Has anyone else experienced this?
If both of them are exhibiting the same symptom at the same time, it seems very weird and it may be the charger that went bad and not the 2 hearing aids. I’d bring the charger to your audi visit as well and make sure to try to use your audi’s charger (if they have one) at least to rule out that the charger is the malfunctioning piece.
@russell.newsom, Your audiologist should be able to order some replacement lithium-ion batteries and replace them in the office, as well as update the firmware if an update is needed. What interests me is that you were told that the malfunction “is a known issue.” Can you get any clarification from your audiologist on that? If it is a known issue, then Oticon should be sending out a quick fix to everyone who bought their OPN-S products, not just waiting for reports of the malfunction to occur. Please keep us updated. Thanks.
What you have done is put the aids into the charger back-to-front. The flashing red is a warning that you have done so.
When I say, back-to-front, I do NOT mean swapped Left to Right. I mean with the receiver wires and mould facing the top surface instead of hanging in the cut-out area.
The reverse polarity destroys the batteries and they will need to be replaced with new ones.
The receiver wires should hang in the cutout area for correct orientation and the indicator light should glow steady red until fully charged (then steady green).
Newer chargers have a diagram affixed to show the correct orientation.
This problem is well known to the manufacturer, Oticon, and they should tell every audiology dispenser as well.
So, as it was explained to me what the issue is, is this. The current firmware has a bug in it that will allow the batteries to fully drain and I mean fully drain. The firmware is designed to power the HA’s off at around 5% of actual batter life left. What is happening is that the firmware is buggy and will actually allow the batteries to fully discharge. Once fully discharged they are not able to be charged in the normal method. So they are replacing the batteries and updating the firmware. Now from what I understand my Audi could change the batteries and update the firmware. But since they are still on warranty Oticon does not pay the Audi to do the work or provide the replacement parts. So that is why Oticon is requiring them to be sent in.
As for the putting them into the charger wrong. my charger slots are shaped to match the shape of the HA’s it would not be possible to put them in backwards. not to mention I have had these for a few months. and have not once ever put them into the charger backwards.
I did get the Audi to test them in another charger in office to be sure that my charger was not causing the issue and the problem persisted even in a brand new charger. So what Oticon is saying seems legit so far.
I would still like to see release notes for the firmware that is being installed to see what all is changing besides just the fix. I am fairly certain there are some feature updates included in the update and would like to know what they are.
Hmmmm…interesting. Thanks for sharing this info, @russell.newsom I’ll keep an eye on my batteries. I wish that Oticon would be a little bit more upfront with customers when they have product issues. It would be nice if they would notify customers directly though our warranty registrations, rather than wait for us to visit our audiologists first. I’ve found that, often times, audiologists don’t always know about the “known issues” because Oticon doesn’t always tell them right away. Readers of the Forum often know the latest info before the audiologists do. That reflects poorly on Oticon.
Resurrecting this thread.
I have the same issue, 1 flashing in the charger.
I have 2 sets and swapped batteries to confirm.
It’s the battery that is bad, why??? Who Knows.
Now where to find aftermarket Battery???
Not seeing anything on-line.
If the battery is completely dead and cannot be recharged, DIYER can try to activate the battery, take it out, apply a voltage of 3.5-4.3V DC between the “+” and “-” and hold it for a while, this usually brings the battery back to life.
To be clear, I don’t have an OPN S and have never used this way to activate the lithium ion batteries in OPN S, but it has revived the lithium ion batteries in some electronic devices, such as mobile phones.
If you have a variable DC power supply that’s the best, you can also try to connect three AA or AAA batteries in series, they will provide a DC 3.6-4.5V voltage.
It usually only takes a few minutes for the battery to come back to life, but be careful not to confuse the polarity of the battery and the power supply.
Good luck!
I wonder if you can use a universal smart battery charger that can detect different types of battery chemistry and applies the appropriate charging voltage and current through them. But if they’re too smart, maybe they’d still detect that the Lithium Ion battery is dead and not charge them anyway.
The universal smart battery charger is only about $30 on Amazon. I have two 18650 Lithium Ion batteries (they’re slightly bigger in size compared to a AA battery) used for my headlight (flashlight). Originally both can be charged just fine on my smart charger, but eventually the smart charger refuses to charge one of the two. My guess is that it’s been discharged too deep to recover.
However, if I used the basic included charger that comes built into the headlight, which is just a 5 V plug with perhaps some built-in basic circuitry to stop the charging when full, this bad battery gets revived enough that I can switch it over to the universal smart charger half way through, and the smart charger will then accept this bad battery and continues to charge it the rest of the way to full. But from then on, I would have to do this “revival” every single time I need to charge this bad battery.
My point here is that there’s no guarantee that you only need to revive your bad batteries once and they’ll act like normal again. There’s a possibility that you’ll need to revive them each time like in my case. But then again maybe if you don’t deplete it too much and charge it right away when it’s only half depleted or something, then repeated revival is not necessary. It doesn’t hurt to try, I guess.
