Buying Guide: Oticon Hearing Aids
Author: Liam Hickson, Victorian Hearing Audiologist
As an audiologist with over 15 years of experience, I’ve been fascinated by hearing aid technology. I was first exposed to hearing aids over 20 years ago as a teenager, working my first school holiday job in the mailroom and earpiece laboratory at Widex Hearing Aids. I remember seeing the posters on the office walls for these incredibly powerful and intricate devices and thinking to myself, “Wow. I want to do this for real someday.” It’s grown into a lifelong passion, and I honestly love what I do.
Hearing aids are a huge topic: even for me. Whether you’re looking to buy your first pair of hearing aids or to upgrade an older set you’ve had for a while, it’s always difficult to choose from all of the different hearing aids on offer. There’s a huge variety to choose from, and each hearing aid manufacturer tends to update their catalogue every couple of years. This makes the world of hearing aids particularly difficult to navigate.
If you’ve walked into an independent hearing clinic like Victorian Hearing, you’ll have the option to choose from a variety of hearing aid brands, and there’s a high chance that some of the posters and pamphlets on display in the waiting room have “Oticon” written on them.
Who is Oticon?
Oticon was founded in Denmark in 1904 by Hans Demant, whose wife Camilla was hearing impaired. They began importing Acousticon-brand hearing aids from the United Kingdom, which evolved to producing hearing aid components in-house, and finally manufacturing their own hearing aids in the 1940s. From rudimentary beginnings, Oticon hearing aids has grown to one of the most trusted brands in the world, synonymous with user-friendly technology.
What Makes Oticon Hearing Aids Different?
In my experience, Oticon hearing aids are a great place to start if you’re new to hearing aids. I’ve had clients who’ve never worn hearing aids before say that Oticon hearing aids provide easy listening and a natural sound quality. They have a smooth sound that is not too sharp but still makes voices clearer and more intelligible than before.
As for performance in background noise, I’ve had clients who were able to sit in a busy room with multiple conversations happening at once and switch their attention between them, depending on what they wanted to listen to – something they said wasn’t possible before. This is because Oticon’s technology focuses on something they call “Brain Hearing,” which presents sounds to the ear in a way that makes it easy for the human brain to process.
Oticon hearing aids use a combination of sophisticated microphones and some clever AI processing (they call it a Deep Neural Network, or DNN) to make speech in noise clearer. It helps the hearing aid to prioritise incoming sounds from all directions, balancing them in a way that your brain has a better chance to able to switch its focus between sounds in a room. This results in a clear sound from any direction, opening up the world to your attention and focus again.
What’s the Latest Hearing Aid from Oticon?
Oticon has released their fifth generation of hearing aid using this open sound processing. The first was Opn, then Opn S, More, Real and finally Oticon Intent. Oticon Intent hearing aids sit behind the ear (called a Receiver-in-the-Ear style, or RITE) and have built-in motion sensors to help the hearing aid decide what to listen to based on the movements of your head.
Oticon Intent hearing aids come in four technology levels, with Intent 1 being the fully-featured version. Intent 2, 3, and 4 hearing aids lose some of the magic noise reduction accomplished by the microphones and DNN computer chip. Only Intent 1 and 2 have motion sensors in them, so you’d want to consider these two options if that feature sounds intriguing to you.
There’s also an entire line of in-the-ear designed to be custom made to fit in your ear, called Oticon Own SI.
Arrange your Oticon Intent Trial
If Oticon hearing aids sound like an interesting option for your first or next pair of hearing aids, it’s best to chat to an audiologist about your specific needs. Contact the experienced team at Victorian Hearing to arrange an Oticon hearing aid trial.