Oticon OPN S1

Oticon OPN S1 mini RITE Hearing Aid review

Oticon OPN S hearing aid is an updated version of the extremely popular Oticon OPN1 hearing aid, with improved performance, and added more features. When the original OPN hearing aid was released in 2016, it was extremely popular due to its ability to provide exceptionally better hearing in background noise.

The OPN S utilizes Oticon’s New Velox S chip which is designed to improve upon their previous Velox chip by providing an additional 15% better speech understanding in noise, 10% reduced listening effort, and 10% better memory recall compared to the original OPN hearing aid.

OpenSound Navigator in Oticon OPN S provides a 360° sound experience. Most hearing aids manage the noisy environments by focusing on one speaker – typically the one in front of the user. Now, with the technology in Oticon Opn S users would have access to the relevant sounds (including speech) around them, and puts them in charge of which sounds they want to focus on. The result of this breakthrough technology is that users can understand speech more clearly, with less effort. This improves the outcomes even in challenging listening situations such as family dinners in noisy situations.

The new Oticon OPN S comes in 3 different performance levels. The OPN-S 1 which is the premium level, followed by the OPN-S 2, and OPN-S 3. They also have several different models including the MiniRITE, MiniRITE T (telecoil version), MiniRITE R (rechargeable version), & the BTE Power Plus.

My favourite option amongst the OPN S range is the rechargeable version (MiniRITE R). OPN S R has a super fast charging lithium technology that only takes 3 hours for a full charge with an expected 20 hours of battery life. If you do run out of battery, it only takes 30 minutes to add an additional 6 hours of battery life.

In terms of management, I have found OPNs R a very good option as clients don’t need to change batteries nor need to turn the aids on or off (when the aids are placed in the charger they are turned off automatically and when they are removed from the charger they start working straight away).

With its OpenSound Optimizer, OPNs has improved Feedback Control significantly. This feature provides an additional 6 dB of gain before allowing feedback (whistling). OPNs does this by introducing a breaker signal to disrupt the traditional feedback pathway.

The OpenSound Booster is the most aggressive form of noise reduction inside of Oticon’s OpenSound Navigator. It gives the users extra support from the OpenSound Navigator, regardless of their predefined setting. Whenever they feel they need an extra boost of help, they simply activate the OpenSound Booster, available in the Oticon ON App. This is designed to improve how well you can understand speech that is directly in front of the user.

The fact that OPNs’ are made specifically for iPhones limits the connectivity flexibility/benefits for Android device users. Another limitation with OPNs is that not all styles have the rechargeable option.

Since the introduction of the new OPNs, I have had exceptional outcomes with both new and experienced hearing aid users.

Review by Dr Moh Dadafarin, Clinical Audiologist, Melbourne, Australia  Jan 2020