Oticon hearing aid models, prices, and reviews

Hello my name is Heather and I am new to the hearing aid world, I just received my first pair at the end of July 2021. I chose, well, I have hearing loss that’s hereditary in my family, for about the past 5 years I’ve been following my hearing, 1 side is fine, and 1 side I need a hearing aid. So I’m still in the trial period but I am trying out both hearing aids to see if that helps. I bought the Oticon More brand of hearing aids, one of the things I was looking at were Bluetooth capabilities, as well as, the fact that I’m a teacher in a preschool setting, so there’s a lot of background noise and lots of little children, and so my audiologist was able to advise me on different brands, and different specialties that they have, and it looked like the Oticon was gonna be the best fit for me, in the classroom setting. One of the things I really like, I’ll take one out and show you, is they’re super easy to put in and take out. They’re small, they fit right behind the ear, they’re very discreet, in fact many people, once I’ve shared with them that I have hearing aids, they’re like “what!?” and often times when I wear my hair up, they don’t even notice them, so I like that part about it. One of the dislikes, and pretty much the only dislike I have right now is that when I’m using the Bluetooth on my phone, the volume adjusting doesn’t go super loud, so if I’m in a setting where there’s a lot of background noise, or if I’m in a store, or somewhere like that, sometimes it’s very hard to hear the person on the other end of the call, through the Bluetooth. So I’m working through that, I’m making the best of it. So would I recommend these to a friend? I most certainly would. They have made a world of difference in my ability to hear, especially some of the details of conversations if I’m in a group setting, I feel like I’m not missing out on anywhere near as much as I was without the hearing aids. My number 1 advice I would give to you if you are considering hearing aids is to give it time during your trial period, wear them everyday, that first week is gonna be a little bit rough, or uncomfortable as you’re adjusting to them, and I remember thinking, oh my goodness, I feel them, I hear everything, my hair rustling would make noise, but, you do get used to it, and now I’m to the point where I automatically put them in, and I kind of forget that they’re there, except for that they do amplify and make me be able to hear conversations and participate in a lot more activities because I’m able to hear everything a lot better. So good luck to you as you research them and I wish the best for you.

What’s up folks, my name is Nick and today, we’re gonna talk about the Oticon Real 1 miniRITE R. So just a few housekeeping items to get out of the way before we jump into this review. Number 1 I’m trying these hearing aids through ZipHearing, and if you don’t know what ZipHearing is, it’s a nationwide service that helps people get all the name brand hearing aids for thousands of dollars below retail, and if you want a link for the website, it’s right there. Just a very brief overview of my hearing history. I was diagnosed with a hearing loss, it’s fairly mild, however my biggest issue is hearing people in loud noisy environments, and I work in education, so I deal with noisy environments on a frequent basis, and that issue needed to be addressed. I have used a few other devices as well, so I will be comparing some of the pros and cons with these other devices, so please make sure you stick around to the end of the video, so that you can see that comparison. So if you’re still here, we’re about to get real with the Oticon Reals. So these hearing aids are brand new from Oticon and they follow in the footsteps of the More hearing aid. The hearing aid that I was supplied and the hearing aid that I will be talking about specifically is the 1 tech level, which is their most premium level, it is the miniRITE and it is the R for rechargeable, variant. So as you can see, on the screen, you are now currently looking at the hearing aid. It comes in a variety of colors which can be found found on ZipHearing’s website. These are the black, they’re black, there’s none more black. Now you’re taking a look at the charger that comes with your hearing aid devices. It uses a cable with a USB at the end that plugs into a brick, which you can then plug into an outlet to use this charger. The deep neural network is something that Oticon uses to identify what they use as an artificial intelligence, it uses a 360 degree microphone to capture 12 million real life sound scenes, right the data was then used to train these hearing aids onboard AI so that it can learn to recognize each type of sound and how important those sounds are to you, right is it just noise, is it wind, is it the fan, is it the vent, is it someone talking, right that’s important, that’s not noise, that’s important. So that artificial intelligence is going to kind of compensate for that, and it’s going to say okay that’s that’s just annoying sound, we’re gonna bring that down, but that person you’re talking to, we’re gonna boost that up. And I can tell you, personal experience, totally works, in those noisy environments, I heard people perfectly, and all that sort of chatter, just melted away, and was no longer a bother and it wasn’t a distraction and it wasn’t an interference, right, it just became something that was there that didn’t bother me and wasn’t causing harm. Now, one of my favorite things about these hearing aids is actually the app, um so it uses the Oticon Companion App and I’m gonna be posting maybe here, maybe here, I dunno yet, but you’ll see on screen, I’m gonna put some screenshots of the different things that are going on in the app. One thing I wanna get out in the open is that this app is super clean, the user interface is clean and crisp, um, it’s very user friendly there’s not a lot of confusion behind it, so this app is by far one of my favorite things about these hearing aids. As far as how it connects to the app and how it connects to the phone, these hearing aids use what’s called an MFI bluetooth standard which means Made for iPhone, um it can connect to Android devices but the standard protocol is MFI or Made for iPhone which allows you to connect your device instead of going through the Bluetooth menu, you’re actually gonna go to accessibility, and you’re gonna go to Hearing Devices, and that is how you’re going to connect these to your phone. So what has my experience been like with these hearing aids? I mean first and foremost, as soon as I put these in my ear, I knew these were something different, these were a step above many many many hearing aids. Immediately upon putting the receivers in my ears there was a crispness and a clarity and a boost to the audio quality and the sound quality that I was getting pumped into my ears and it was shocking. Without sounding cheesy, these were out of this world, I was highly impressed and that was within the first 2 minutes of wearing these and I can tell you, spoiler free, that experience and that positivity did not go away. It only got better. Additionally, not only was the sound quality from the outside world crisp and clear, but the streaming quality of the audio, when you’re streaming music or video or something from your phone or your device, that was amazing. Something else that really stood out to me was the ease of use and the ease of connection and the ease of setup involved with these hearing aids. Trying to pair them via Bluetooth wasn’t a thing, you just went into your iphone, into your accessibility, into your hearing devices, turn these off, turn these on, press connect and it was done, everything just worked, and it was really refreshing to not have to fumble around with things and look in the manual and look up answers on the internet, it just worked. So we’re gonna get back to this app because like I said, this is probably one of the top features for these hearing aids. Other apps are, a little bloated, or maybe they run slow, or they’re clunky or maybe it’s not user friendly, it’s not intuitive, the Oticon Companion App was all of those things, it went smooth, it was user friendly, it was clean, it was fast, it was responsive, everything is laid out where you would assume it would be laid out, it was very intuitive and you can tell that they spent a lot of time on that while they were developing the app. The battery life, the battery life on these Reals is fantastic, it lasts all day, just to give you a heads up, I usually put my hearing aids in at around 7, 730 in the morning, and I take them out at around 11, midnight, 11pm to midnight, so that’s you know, let’s do some math, that’s like uh, 17 hrs? Yeah. One of the most important things I can say is and this is gonna sound a little weird, but when I was wearing these hearing aids, I never thought about them. They never crossed my mind. It wasn’t like oh I’m hearing something weird or like oh I’m missing this or like oh they feel weird, right, that’s one of the biggest compliments I can give, is that when you’re wearing them and you’re using them, you forget they’re even there, they’re just doing their job and they’re doing it well. Now this video cannot only be positives right, there are some negatives and we’re gonna talk about some of these negatives right now. Negative number 1, in some situations where the hearing aid is trying to compensate for sound input, and trying to lower certain levels or boost certain levels, there is a little of a warble, right an increase in decrease in certain frequencies at a fairly rapid rate, it’s not debilitating right it’s not breaking your ears or it’s not breaking the hearing aids, it just, it can be annoying. Now, this didn’t happen all the time, it was very rare that this happened and basically what’s going on is that neural network, or the AI that’s based in these hearing aids is trying to give you a better sound. One of the biggest cons is actually remember we were talking about that MFI bluetooth connection, um that’s actually one of the biggest flaws, biggest cons here for me. Um, I am a multi-device guy, I have an iPhone, I have an iPad, I have a computer, I have an Apple watch, so with the MFI it’s really just 1 device at a time, right, it’s either your iphone, and then you have to physically switch it to your ipad and disconnect it from the phone, so that can be a little annoying. Finally one last con is the charger, right, I like the charger, I don’t like that it doesn’t have a lid right, so when you’re charging these, they just kinda sit here and your domes hang out in the front and they’re exposed to the elements right whatever, dog hair, dust, whatever. I would’ve liked a charger that had a lid or something to cover the hearing aids while they are charging. Second, this cable cannot be removed from the charger, right it is attached here, which might not be an issue if you’re just gonna leave it and never move it again. But if you need to pack it, or let’s say you have an animal that likes to chew on cables, you can’t just simply replace it with a USB to USB-C, right at that point this whole charger is kinda kaput, it’s gone and you gotta buy a new charger. Um, I would’ve liked a removable cable just to kind of resolve those issues. Alright everybody, so editor future version of Nick here, I just found out that that little charger issue that I was complaining about is easily resolved with a premium SmartCharger, it is a small travel sized charger that actually has a battery inside of it that you can charge with a USB-C cable, and it’ll recharge your Oticon Reals up to 3 times per charge, um and that has a lid and it keeps everything sealed and looking good, so yeah, problem solved, it’s a premium upgrade called the SmartCharger. So now we’re gonna compare these to the Phonak Lumity 90s that I have, they are both the highest tech level, they are both premium versions of their respective hearing aids, so I feel like it’s pretty fair comparisons. First, the app, Phonak has an app, Oticon has an app, whose is better? Uh, there’s really no debate, Oticon wins. Their app is way more intuitive, it flows nicer, it’s user friendly, um it is faster, it is less confusing, it just wins in pretty much every category. One way that the Phonak actually kinda beats the Oticon is the Phonak has tap control, right, so you can actually double tap on the hearing aid to answer a phone call, to hang up a phone call. Oticon you have to use the buttons, uh, is it less convenient, maybe, right, um is it, game changing, no, it’s just Phonak has the tap, Oticon does not, you can use the buttons on both though, so, Oticon sort of loses that one. The Bluetooth connections, may not be a big issue for you, but for me, it was a significant issue. The Phonak is going to win, because the Phonak you can connect up to 8 devices simultaneously so I can effortlessly and smoothly change from my phone to my iPad to my computer, with the MFI Made for iPhone connection, it’s one at a time, and you have to disconnect and reconnect in order to make it work. You remember that warble we talked about earlier? With the Oticon, where it was trying to compensate for the frequencies, um Phonak kind of has a similar issue, but handles it in a different way, I prefer the way Phonak’s AI handles it rather than the Oticon. The button positioning right, where are the buttons located on the hearing aids. The Oticons, the buttons tend to be lower down towards the bottom of the hearing aid, whereas the Phonaks are a little higher up more towards the top of the ear. For me, I tended to prefer Phonak’s button positioning, rather than the Oticon, so for that one I’ll give it to Phonak. Pricing, um, from what I understand, they are both very similar in price, so they both win. And furthermore, you will win, if you go through ZipHearing because you’re gonna save thousands of dollars, and trust me that is not an exaggeration, personal experience, that’s why I’m a ZipHearing customer, because they saved me thousands of dollars. So, to kind of wrap all this up, right, I know we talked about a lot, I showed you a lot, we talked about a lot, we went over a lot of things. Overall, these are a great purchase. You will not have a bad experience if you choose the Oticon Real 1 miniRITE R, right, they’re the premium level, they’re top of the line, the artificial intelligence or the neural network is fantastic, um the streaming quality is superb, the crispness, the clarity of the surrounding sound that is coming into your hearing aids, unbeatable, right, it’s up there with the Phonak it sounds fantastic. You will not be disappointed. Do I recommend these for you? Do I recommend these for my friends and family? Absolutely. Are there are couple downsides, a couple things that maybe I didn’t like, that you might not have a problem with? Sure, everyone has an opinion and you’re allowed to think whatever you want about these devices. But objectively these are fantastic hearing aids, the technology, the craftsmanship, the quality, everything is top notch, so let’s get real here, the Oticon Reals, 9 out of 10, 10 out of 10, right, they’re fantastic. So make sure you check these out, make sure you talk to your audiologist, talk to your hearing specialist, and you know what, give ZipHearing a call and see what’s going on with these. Thanks for watching and I hope to talk to you guys soon.

Hi, I'm Virginia from Chattanooga, TN. I had hearing loss about 10 years ago and I tried several hearing aids which I wasn't happy with. And then I tried Oticon. I really like Oticon. I'm now wearing another pair that I bought recently, and this is what they look like. The best thing I like about the Oticon is at night you plug them in by your bedside, the next morning you take them out and they're ready to go. So if you're having hearing loss, please give Oticon hearing aids a try. I think they're the best.

Hello my name is David P., I am the owner of a pair of Oticon hearing aids, which I have been wearing for about 3 weeks now, and I can say that I am very very pleased with them. The history of how I wound up with hearing aids is as follows: about 4 months ago I had tried to remove some wax from my ears with q-tips and I got the wax jammed into my ear. I went to an ENT who removed the wax and said he would like to perform a hearing test, which they did. And I was very weak in the high ranges, and when I thought about it, I was missing words on the TV, a lot of words, so maybe there was some truth to it, but I gotta tell you, it was a big big shock that I needed hearing aids. Never in a million years did I ever think I’d be wearing hearing aids. I did nothing for a couple of weeks and then I decided, alright I’m gonna give it a try, I went back to the ENT office and they recommended that I take the Phonak hearing aids. I did that, and from the get go I had problems. First, I sweat a lot, and they were getting moisture in it, and nobody told me to use some kind of device to remove the moisture. So it went back to the Phonak people, they repaired it, got it back, and then the same thing happened again. Well, I was not pleased with the Phonak and I started looking around for other places to go, and I found ZipHearing, and lo and behold, hey, there was a big difference in price between the doctor and Zip, and so I looked into it, and they recommended the Oticon. Now one of the things I like about the Oticon, is that it has a dome that goes into the ear that’s round that seems to fit in, and the one for the Phonak was like a big ring around this thing and it was not sitting all the way into the ear, so I found this very very beneficial. The hearing aid is quite small, people don’t notice that I’m wearing a hearing aid unless I tell them. Quite honestly I’ve been telling people, hey, I’m wearing a hearing aid, it’s very simple to put in, and I’ve been very pleased with it. The service that I’ve gotten from the provider for the hearing aid has been very good, they have been very patient and have gone through all my concerns, and I feel very pleased with it. In looking for hearing aids, when I realized what I was looking for, I tried to search and gain as much knowledge as I possibly could going on the internet, looking at different providers and different manufacturer and so forth and so on, and I examined just about every hearing aid possible, with all the ramifications and so forth, and ZipHearing, they seemed to care, and I was very pleased with the service that I’ve gotten. Thank you very much, bye bye.

Hi, I’m Jeff from New Jersey. I’d like to talk to you about my hearing aid experience. About a year ago I was in Las Vegas with my 2 sons, and in the casinos I was really missing a lot of conversation and my son even said to me “dad, you’ve gotta get your hearing checked.” Well like most of us, it took me a long time to kind of you know acknowledge that need and go to an audiologist, but indeed finally I went to an audiologist. I have what is typically age-related hearing loss, and the audiologist there recommended Oticon hearing aids. They’re pretty much top of the line hearing aids and I was thinking to myself wow do I really need to spend that kind of money and so I went to another audiologist maybe thinking that I could perhaps get something for a lot less, you could go to Costco and get you know serviceable hearing aids but how good are they, you know, I don’t know the answer to that, and you know I wanted something that was going to last and do very well for me. The second audiologist suggested recommended the same hearing aids as the first audiologist and so I went online to see what I could learn about Oticon and while there I discovered ZipHearing. ZipHearing offers the same Oticon hearing aids, but for two thirds the price, so I was very interested, I was concerned that, you know where these seconds or reconditioned or something like that, they are not. ZipHearing has a network of audiologists, they sent me to an audiologist very close to me and he, and his test came up with the same answer, yeah I’m really best served by these Oticon hearing aids. I’ll show them to you, they’re incredibly small, I believe these are called receiver-in-canal hearing aids. They work, it’s very simple this goes behind the ear, you pop this into you ear canal, this little piece into your ear canal, do on the other side as well and boom you’re good to go and they’re really, there we go, and you can’t see them and they do a great job. I expect they’re gonna last me for years to come and I’m incredibly pleased with them. If I had any advice to anyone considering hearing aids, the advice is, do it, you know for me it was missing those few words in conversations, especially in places like restaurants or when there’s a lot of background noise. So if you have any concern like that I strongly recommend you get yourself tested for hearing aids. Good luck to you.

Hi, my name is Adam. I live in Seattle Washington. I was born and grew up deaf I have a profound hearing loss. Both of my ears have 120 dB hearing loss.With a hearing aid I generally can hear about 60 dB. I went to a Deaf school and back then I had a body aid with wires and ear pieces.It was pretty big and it had these wires and eventually I got hearing aids behind my ears. I’ve had analog hearing aids. I had digital hearing aids. I really enjoy listening to environmental sounds and usually I do pretty well. I'm unable to really understand words. I've had lots of different hearing aids but this most recent one I just got, this. It’s called an Oticon Xceed 3 BTE UP… WOW!! It's interesting because I really didn't experience a lot of the things before, but now I hear a lot more. I think it's more powerful but it also has a lot more detail. I'll give you a few examples…In the morning when I'm cooking breakfast… I've cracked eggs and I can see them bubbling but with this new hearing aid wow I can actually hear the the sizzle of the eggs! That was the 1st time I ever experienced that. Very very inspiring. I went to a friend's house this summer. It was a beautiful warm summer day. We are sitting outside chatting and I started hearing something that I thought was static or something. I asked my friend since I wasn’t sure what was going on. I had never heard anything like that before and I was hoping it wasn't something wrong with my new hearing aid. My friend said “no no no no, what you're hearing is the highway, the freeway from way over there and the wind is bringing the sound.”I was flabbergasted! I had never heard traffic from the freeway before. Another example… I love hiking! I like looking at the trees. You know the Seattle area has beautiful trees! So I was going by walking through the forest, and my friend was with me. And I heard this weird sound that had a “wrack, wrack, wrack” I asked him what it was and and he said “Oh yeah that's two crows over there fighting.” I couldn't believe it. I had never ever heard birds before. Those high pitches were never available to me! This is really an amazing and inspiring hearing aid! When I'm driving… this is interesting.. you know when you turn on your turn signal ? I did that and I heard “click, click, click” WOW! I had never heard the turn signal on my car before. Those are the kinds of examples that really make me feel good about this new hearing aid. It's very powerful and it has amazing detail. I would highly recommend for people who have profound hearing loss. This Oticon XCeed … I would recommend it very highly. It has benefited me greatly and I really wish you good luck in deciding on your new hearing aid.