WARNING DISCONTINUED Newer Oticon Models Available
| 2020 Update: The Nera hearing aids have now been discontinued. View latest Oticon hearing aids here
| Update: The Oticon Nera hearing aids, along with the others made with the Inium chip are now considered "old technology".
The Nera2 Pro is the advanced level hearing aid in Oticon's range and improves the past Nera model using their new Inium Sense processing platform. These wireless hearing aids have many features and programs to help you to hear better in a variety of different situations. These include:
The more bands a hearing aid has, the clearer the sound will be as each band is used to process sounds in the different frequency channels. It also means that your hearing aid can be programmed precisely to your level of hearing.
This program helps to reduce the amount of non-speech background noise you hear, making it easier to hear conversation in busy places.
For better speech clarity when you are outside, this program reduces the effect of wind noise on your hearing.
This program removes the sound of feedback before it becomes a problem, without distorting the other sounds around you.
This technology from Oticon manages the synchronisation processes and wireless communication between your hearing aids. IT ensures that both hearing aids are always on the same programs and settings through binaural synchronisation. If you change the volume or setting on one hearing aid, the other will change automatically.
Binaural processing ensures that sound processing and compression happen together, giving you greater spatial awareness and helping you work out sound direction.
The telephone program streams the sound of a phone call to both hearing aids at the same time so that you can hear the caller clearly, with fewer distractions in the room.
FreeFocus Advanced gives you four direction settings for your microphones. This means that you can hear speech with greater clarity even if you cannot face the person who is speaking. It also helps to reduce the effect of background noise.
This program gives you three listening profiles which can be tailored to your needs for different situations.
In quiet environments, people naturally speak more quietly, this can make it even more difficult to hear the softer speech sounds at the higher frequencies. This program enhances these speech sounds and amplifies them to make speech understanding easier. This program can adapt to your environment so that a sudden increase in noise doesn’t become uncomfortable.
This program helps to relieve the symptoms of tinnitus by playing soothing sounds. Using the Sound App from the Apple store along with the ConnectLine Streamer Pro, you can also choose which tinnitus settings you prefer. There are also two relaxation programs to help with the stress of living with tinnitus.
These hearing aids are able to remember your favourite settings and apply them, so you don’t need to fiddle with your settings too often.
Helping you to get used to your new hearing aids, this program gradually increases the volume over time, so that your hearing is always at a comfortable level for you. These hearing aids are fully compatible with Oticon’s ConnectLine range of accessories.
These hearing aids, like the Nera 2, are available in a range of colour options and fittings making it easy to choose the best one to suit you. Fittings include:
Note: The ITC, ITE, RITE and BTE fittings have a telecoil, and the RITE, miniBTE and BTE have a volume control.
Paul Harrison is an audiology expert at Hearing Aid UK, with over 20 years of audiology experience and a member of the British Society of Hearing Aid Audiologists Council (BSHAA) between 2015 - 2020.
Do not spend hundreds of pounds without getting a second opinion from us.
If you are looking at this page then it is likely that an audiologist has suggested that you purchase this particular hearing aid, so is this the best model for you?
In general, any audiologist will always be recommending to you the model that best suits your needs. Here is a useful check list to make sure that is the case.
If in doubt, feel free to give us a call. That's what we're here for.
If you have a significant hearing loss in both ears, you should be wearing two hearing aids. Here are the audiological reasons why:
Localisation. The brain decodes information from both ears and compares and contrasts them. By analysing the miniscule time delays as well as the difference in loudness of each sound reaching the ears, the person is able to accurately locate a sound source. Simply put, if you have better hearing on one side than the other, you can't accurately tell what direction sounds are coming from.
Less amplification required. A phenomena known as “binaural summation” means that the hearing aids can be set at a lower and more natural volume setting than than if you wore only one hearing aid.
Head shadow effect. High frequencies, the part of your hearing that gives clarity and meaning to speech sounds, cannot bend around your head. Only low frequencies can. Therefore if someone is talking on your unaided side you are likely to hear that they are speaking, but be unable to tell what they have said.
Noise reduction. The brain has it’s own built in noise reduction which is only really effective when it is receiving information from both ears. If only one ear is aided, even with the best hearing aid in the world, it will be difficult for you to hear in background noise as your brain is trying to retain all of the sounds (including background noise) rather than filtering it out.
Sound quality. We are designed to hear in stereo. Only hearing from one side sounds a lot less natural to us.
For most people, the main benefit of a rechargeable hearing aid is simple convenience. We are used to plugging in our phones and other devices overnight for them to charge up.
For anybody with poor dexterity or issues with their fingers, having a rechargeable aid makes a huge difference as normal hearing aid batteries are quite small and some people find them fiddly to change.
One downside is that if you forget to charge your hearing aid, then it is a problem that can't be instantly fixed. For most a 30 minute charge will get you at least two or three hours of hearing, but if you are the type of person who is likely to forget to plug them in regularly then you're probably better off with standard batteries.
Rechargeable aids are also a little bit bigger and are only available in behind the ear models.
Finally, just like with a mobile phone, the amount of charge you get on day one is not going to be the same as you get a few years down the line. Be sure to ask what the policy is with the manufacturer warranty when it comes to replacing the battery.
For most people, the answer is yes. But it's never that simple.
The majority of hearing problems affect the high frequencies a lot more than the low ones. Therefore open fitting hearing aids sound a lot more natural and ones that block your ears up can make your own voice sound like you are talking with your head in a bucket. Therefore in-ear aids tend to be less natural.
However the true answer is we can't tell until we have had a look in your ears to assess the size of your ear canal, and until we have tested your hearing to see which frequencies are being affected.
People with wider ear canals tend to have more flexibility, also there are open fitting modular CIC hearing aids now that do not block your ears.
There is also the age old rule to consider, that a hearing aid will not help you if it's sat in the drawer gathering dust. If the only hearing aid you would be happy wearing is one that people can't see, then that's what you should get.
Most people can adapt to any type of hearing aid, as long as they know what to expect. Have an honest conversation with your audiologist as to what your needs are.
Generally speaking, six or more. Unless it's none at all.
The number of channels a hearing aid has is often a simplistic way an audiologist will use to explain why one hearing aid is better than another, but channels are complex and it is really not that straightforward.
Hearing aids amplify sounds of different frequencies by different amounts. Most people have lost more high frequencies than low and therefore need more amplification in the high frequencies. The range of sounds you hear are split into frequency bands or channels and the hearing aids are set to provide the right amount of hearing at each frequency level.
Less than six channels and this cannot be done with much accuracy, so six is the magic number. However, a six channel aid is typically very basic with few other features and is suitable only for hearing a single speaker in a quiet room. The number of channels is not what you should be looking at, it's more the rest of the technology that comes with them.
As a final note, different manufacturers have different approaches. One method is not necessarily better than any other. For example some manufacturers have as many as 64 channels in their top aids. Most tend to have between 17 and 20. One manufacturer has no channels at all.
Hearing aids are easily lost, misplaced or damaged and typically are one of the most expensive personal possessions an individual can own. We offer hearing aid warranty cover for £80 per year per aid. Find out more here
All our audiologists use the very latest technology and provide the full range of tests to accurately measure your hearing for free. Find out about what we offer all our customers here
Hearing Aid UK offers all their customers free home visiting services and home visits for hearing aids - Including hearing tests, fittings, maintenance, check-ups and much more in the comfort of your own home and at your convenience. Find out more information here
Here, at Hearing Aid UK, we are dedicated to offering low hearing aid prices. We achieve this by having no head office and low marketing costs. Our hearing aid prices are amongst the lowest you will find anywhere in the world.
When we refer to a product as 'Latest Launch', we mean it is the latest to be released on the market.
When we refer to a product as 'New', we mean that the product is the newest hearing aid model on the market.
When we refer to a product as 'Superseded', we mean that there is a newer range available which replaces and improves on this product.
When we refer to a product as an 'Older Model', we mean that it is has been superseded by at least two more recent hearing aid ranges.