Oticon Real

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 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 Steve Smallwood, and I was a long-haul trucker for 20 years and I mean long haul. California to New York. California to Maine. And sitting behind a diesel all those years I got so I couldn’t hear anything. I couldn't hear somebody snapping their fingers next to me. So, I went to see these people hearing science in Walnut Creek, California, and they introduced me to this brand called Oticon. And they are absolutely amazing. Let me quit fiddling with my phone and show you because I don't have the model number in front of me. But all you really need to know is Oticon. Check this out. See how easy it is to take him out. Take a look at that. Wait a minute. Can you see that? That is about the same size as I get in the camera here. Hello? There we go. It's about the same size as my thumbnail. That is tiny. And this is how easy they are to put back in. Not to mention I really don't. As easy as it is to take them in and out. I don't ever want to take them out because I can't hear anything without them. I know I can hear everything. They are worth every penny. In fact, I'm thinking about getting a second pair. So even when they are in the charger, I got a pair of hearing aids. Even when I am sleeping, I hate getting up in the middle of the night, going to the bathroom and not being able to hear the water running. That really sucks. Oh, I shouldn't cuss. That really stinks. But you know what? These things. I can hear everything. I really love the fact that I can hear stuff outside my window, and I wonder, is the window open? Just a little? Maybe. But I can hear the squirrels running across the fence. I can hear birds chirping in the neighbor's yard. I can hear my kids yelling at me from down the hall. I can hear everything and it's really great. So don't waste your time looking anywhere else. Go straight to Oticon. Find an Oticon dealer near you. I just looked up a hearing on my phone hearing aids in the town I lived in, and they served me this place called Hearing Science here in Walnut Creek, California. And these guys are great, and they fixed me up right now. And they said I had moderate hearing loss. I'm like, that's moderate. Next step is sign language. You know, I don't know how modern it was when my kids would be talking to me, and I couldn't hear them. I could see their lips moving, but I would definitely find who's dealing Oticon in your neighborhood and go there and get some right now. So, thanks for your time.

Yes, I wanted to pass on my experience of my hearing aid. I'm 86 years old, very active, and I have worn hearing aids for the last 15 years. Those have all been Phonak, which has been good hearing aids, but they did have a few faults, of which I started looking around and actually I have a brother that's been wearing them long, has been wearing hearing aids for longer than I have, and he highly recommended the Oticon. So, I researched it and found that I wanted to try them and about three months ago I purchased a pair of the Oticon model, a real one. And I find that they're very sharp and my hearing has improved considerably. I can't hear anything with my hearing aids out of my ears at all unless somebody's standing up next to me and I don't have any problem with the new Oticons. And even with my TV, I have the adapter, which I haven't used I've got good speakers and get good sound out of that. I have found problems with the pairing of the Oticon. I use my cell phone and I also use my iPad in conjunction with videos, YouTube videos and I've found that pairing is somewhat of a problem. I have the Oticon app and actually just this morning I removed the app I was having problems pairing and it paired up okay. I'm sure that Oticon, I believe, is surely working on that problem and also my audiologist can help me with it I'm sure too. So, like I said, I don't think I don't feel like you can go wrong with them. It just, they're just great hearing aids and people that zip down there are good people that work with too, as far as purchasing of them. And so that's my input I really like them. Thank you.

Hi, my name is Arnold. I'm a retired physician assistant and I'm a retired faculty member from the Keck School of Medicine. I was an assistant professor of clinical emergency medicine and also the founding president of the Society of Emergency Medicine, PAs. I've been retired since 2009 and I guess my favorite word in the past year or so is been 'what?' And so, I decided that it was time to go have my hearing checked and see about hearing aids. So back in January, I went to a local audiologist and was introduced to the Oticon More hearing aid and I wound up getting a Oticon More 3 and after about a month or so decided that, you know, this is a lot of money and just like test driving a new car, it might be worthwhile to check out a couple of different brands. And so, I spoke with the audiologist and told her what I intended to do and went to a large warehouse store that sells hearing aids and tried out one of theirs. It turned out to be a Philips hearing aid, and I tried that out for probably about 5 or 6 weeks and actually went down to Florida to visit my family and my grandchildren for a couple of weeks back in April. And I found out that with the whole family together and the noise of the family and also with the wind noise with the 20 mile an hour plus winds down in Boca Raton, Florida, that maybe this was not the hearing aid for me. And so, I decided I would check out ZipHearing, and I wound up with the Oticon Real 1 and went through the American Hearing and Balance in Long Beach, California. I have been very happy with them since I got them. Wind noise is like zero or I guess it sounds like wind. And I've been in several noisy environments and been able to hear the person who I am speaking with next to me in spite of being in the noisy environment and it hooks up quite well with Bluetooth. I enjoy walking every day, usually 5 to 6 miles a day, and listening to music. The audio quality, quite frankly, is not what one would hope for, say with actual high quality stuff. But I guess that is the downside of trying to get the audio through the hearing aids. But in spite of that, I still use it on a regular basis every day for listening to music. And I put these in at 530 in the morning. When I wake up, I take them out at 10:00 at night. When I go to bed, I have no problems with them running out of charge, they are rechargeable, and I just stick them in a charger and put them back in in the morning when I get up. They have been a real pleasure to wear. I don't even know that they're there. And you know, I'm not going to go ahead and take it out and show you the hearing aid, because I think by now you probably know what a hearing aid looks like. I don't have people coming up to me and saying, hey, you're wearing hearing aids. Nobody notices it. Of course, with my beard camouflage, I don't think anybody would notice anything anyway. Anyway, the bottom line is I'm very happy with these and I highly recommend going through ZipHearing and that is all I have to say. Have a great day. Thanks. Bye.

Hi, my name is Steve. I am 73 years old. I have had Oticon real one hearing aids through Zip hearing for about three months. I got the hearing aids because I have moderate hearing loss. Minimal, the lower frequencies moderate for most of the hearing range and severe in the upper frequencies. I have noticed that I can hear my grandchildren talk much more easily. I hear noises like clicking on the turn signal of a car that I did not hear before. And I can talk to my friends on bike rides and play golf and do other social activities which I could not before. Here is a hearing aid. You can see how small it is. It goes on easily. It took me 4 or 5 efforts to be able to put it on, and now that I have worn it for 2 or 3 months, I hardly know it is here. The only difficulty I have is wearing glasses, either reading glasses or sunglasses on top. So, I have been wearing glasses with straight bows, which minimizes the contact of the glasses on the hearing aid. And that is fine, I do not have any problem with that. I did a lot of research online. I went to three different audiologists to discuss hearing aids and get audiology reports and so I was pretty confident by the time that I ordered the hearing aids that they were the best choice for me. The Otticon real has a special noise canceling feature, which I thought would be important both in social situations, restaurants, parties and also riding my bicycle. This is the first hearing aid that I have had, so I do not have anything to compare it to, but I have been quite pleased with it. And the main advice that I would give someone is to do a lot of research. I read a lot of reviews, I read technical articles regarding how hearing aids work, and I talked, as I said, to three different audiologists who gave me different perspectives on what I needed and what their recommendations would be. Thank you. Here you can see the hearing aid in the side of my head, around my ear, which is hardly noticeable. Thank you.