Revolutionary New Oticon Opn Hearing Aids
Posted on Jul 3, 2016 12:14am PDT
New Oticon Open Hearing Aids

The new Oticon Opn ™ has been released to the Australian market late
June 2016. It packages a group of new technologies that purport to translate
into “30 % better speech understanding in background noise, 20 %
reduced listening effort and 20% improvement in recall of conversations
owing to reduced cognitive load or processing load on our brain.
The system represents a shift away from the approach of using adaptive
directional microphones that can create a narrower beam of focus in higher
levels of background noise. Oticon’s marketing claim that this narrow
directionality (microphone beamforming) what they term “tunnel directionality”
limits the users experience by not preserving the diverse, dynamic and
unpredictable nature of the listening environment. Other manufacturers
that promote the benefits of beam forming microphone technology claim
that the narrow directionality of beam forming directional microphones
only automatically activates upon detecting higher levels of competing
background noise to enable the listener to focus on the speaker they are
directly facing limiting input of invasive noise from the sides and from the rear.
By better preserving the full sound picture Oticon aim to reduce listening
effort and improve ability to switch attention readily by preserve the
full sound picture and hear what’s desired. This adheres to Oticon’s
Brain Hearing approach that aim to develop hearing aids that support the
way our brains “Orient, Recognise Separate and Focus on sounds.”
Oticon Open features the latest micro processing chip platform called the
Velox ™ developed in house in Denmark by Oticon. The new platform
is purportedly 50x faster then the previous Inium Sense ™ microchip
platform found in the Alta 2 range and is now capable of 1.2 billion operations
per second. It is now the new industry leader in terms of having the fastest
digital processing chip set. Noise filtering and microphone adaptive directionality
can occur seamlessly over a relatively high number of 64 digital processing
channels. The new Velox ™ chipset also has a new analogue to digital
converter (A2D) that increases it dynamic range from 92dB to 108 dB giving
the benefit of better sound quality and less distortion in listening environments
with higher levels of background noise. Oticon call this ClearDynamics ™.
Another industry first is that the new Oticon Opn features TwinLink™
wireless systems, which is two dedicated wireless systems on separate
frequencies. One to create a broadband link between the hearing aids so
they are coordinated in all their real time functioning. (Binaural processing)
and the other to enable the connection with blue tooth enabled devices
such as mobile phones and tablets with reliable 2.4GHz streaming. Oticon
Opn directly connects with Bluetooth devices such as iphone, ipad and
ipod and is also compatible with Android mobile devices with the use of
a microphone lapel clip. This negates the need for a neck worn device.
There is also a new remote control 3.0 which is very useful for people
with dexterity issues. There is also a new T.V. adapter. These new hearing
aid accessories are not backwards compatible due to the new operating
frequencies.
The new Oticon On App allows for direct remote control of the hearing aids
from both Apple OS and Android devices and Oticon Opn also enables the
world’s first internet connecting hearing aids. Using your phone
with the hearing aids you can access the “If Then This That platform
IFTTT” (www.ifttt.com) which connects different services and products.
For example if your IFTTT enabled doorbell rings you also receive a wireless
notification via your Opn hearing aids that the doorbell is sounding.
These revolutionary new hearing aids represent a great forward step for
all people with hearing loss. Even people with mild hearing loss can benefit
from the improved speech clarity, noise reduction and reduced listening
effort. This combined with direct wireless connectivity to smart phones,
tablets and other internet enabled devices Open’s up a huge dimension
of capability.
For more information or a to book a free trial of these great new hearing
aids please don’t hesitate to contact your hearing care professional
at Harmony Hearing & Audiology.
Best regards
Andrew Mackendrick (Audiologist)