Audicus

I didn’t listen to music with the Claras as the sound was tinny and thin. With the Omnis built in Bluetooth, I listen to everything including music, audiobooks, podcasts and TV all in excellent listening quality. Conversations are also much better with the Omnis. Ease of use is so much better as well: using the Omnis and cleaning them is simple and quick and changing domes, ear guards is much less often for me. The Bluetooth connectivity is seamless, automatically turning on with phone calls, and listening to audio with your phone. With the Claras I had a remote I had to clip to my collar and it is no longer required with Omnis as the technology is built directly into the hearing aid.

The Omnis are fully rechargeable and the charging case is excellent. I use Bluetooth throughout the day and have never come close to running out of power. All in all, I am so pleased with my new hearing aides, I can’t wait to put them on in the morning and I hate to take them off at night. The improvements in hearing technology are remarkable in only 4+ years. Wish I had upgraded earlier!

Aside from that, everybody else would tell me that if I needed any adjustments, all I have to do is drive down to one of their specialists. But I live in a mountain top in North Carolina and any specialist is more than 25 miles from me. With Audicus, any updates and changes to the programs in my hearing aids are sent to me via the Audicus app. I simply download them and there's no need to visit anybody's office. Since I got these hearing aids, they've contacted me no less than six times and that's been about three weeks. That might seem like a lot, but that tells me they're very concerned. They also warned me there was going to be a break-in period and I didn't have any of that. It was like these hearing aids were made for me and I love them. It's good to brag on those guys at Audicus, too. I really like the service.

They can also do updates directly through your phone to your hearing aid so you don't have to send them back in anymore. I've done one of those already. They initially sent me settings. But I had a little bit of some feedback every once in a while. We talked about it with the consultant and within 48 hours, they had arranged for that update to hit. It shows an alert on your phone. You hit a button, it opens up the app, puts it on your hearing aids, and it's all done. The convenience is great there. It also allows you to change programs if you want rather than fiddling with buttons on the hearing aids. They work, but it's a lot of extra work. These are also rechargeable. It's the first set of those that I've ever had and they have their own little outfits that you put them in every night and they charge up conveniently. Then, you just pull them out in the morning and they automatically turn on.

Over the years, I've had three different consultants. Every one of them is so well-trained. They listen. It's so hard to find companies that listen to their customers and make suggestions based on what they think which meets what the customer said. They ask a lot of questions to make sure they're getting it right. They'll always give you the time to think. I refer my friends to Audicus all the time.

I can hear better now and I'm able to listen to music. But people say that whenever I talk to them on the phone through my hearing aids, they can't quite hear me. That's when I'm using the Bluetooth feature, which isn’t a big deal to me because I can switch over to the speaker and they could hear me fine then. So, my biggest thing is, I could hear what people are saying. That's what I got it for. There's a girl up there who is a representative for Audicus and she calls about once a week or once every two weeks to check on the Bluetooth. The quality of the hearing aids is sometimes too good because I get what my wife is saying, that sometimes I had to cut it down.

I started getting into the hearing aid business and calling around, and it's not unusual to have complicity. Apparently, what happens is that this particular audiology company paid Blue Cross maybe a million bucks to be the exclusive provider. Then, Blue Cross comes up with the $3,000 for the hearing aids and then, they soak a person for the other 3,500 bucks. Audicus is entirely different. It’s an interesting situation because apparently, the founder or the guy who put it together ran into the same situation I did. He went in and he thought it was a bunch of crap so, he created this system on the internet.

Audicus has an audiologist and they do everything by telephone and the price for quality hearing aids was 2,400 bucks. I like their style of doing business. These hearing aids worked though there are some adjustments that can be done. They do the adjustments through the internet and through the iPhone app. So they're tech savvy and have good follow up. I was very impressed with the marketing guy because he wasn't a salesman. He listened and tried to understand what the situation was plus he seemed to know something about what was going on with regard to hearing loss.

I was having trouble hearing women who had higher pitch voices and also children. So, I had difficulty hearing my grandkids, because they have a higher pitched voice. I don't have any problem with a man as well as driving along and hearing stuff in the road. So these things have to be tailored to the person's individual hearing profile that is determined by hearing tests. And you can see the lines for normal hearing, my hearing, and where I’m deficient. So Audicus is good about educating people.

I thought buying the battery packs for $59 was a scam. They give you a little piece of plastic that goes on the back of the charger. That was phony. It made me feel that I got scammed for $3,000. But I hear better. I am happy. The biggest thing I'm happy about is I'm not talking loud because I've embarrassed myself on more than one occasion talking very loud and I didn't realize I was talking loud. But having the hearing aids on has eliminated that.

I'm not completely satisfied but I'm not totally disappointed. They are there when you call them. That is good. But the girl that I had called about getting the battery charger knew what was going on. She said it's a new product but it's not. She sent me a video the next day and it just clips on the bottom. She could have just said that. But, she didn't know about it. But she's a good person.

I also found out that I could get it for $100 cheaper. I was confused that there was a $200 difference in price between the battery and the chargeable. I didn't know that. Because I had seen them advertised for two different prices. But they never explained that to me. But I got that back when I complained. The delivery was also very quick. I had to charge them and I tried them and in the beginning, I could hear better.