- In this video, I'm talkin' about the new
Oticon Open ConnectClip, comin' up.
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Hi, guys, Cliff Olson, Doctor of Audiology
and founder of Applied Hearing Solutions in Anthem, Arizona,
and on this channel, I cover a bunch
of hearing-related information
to help make you a better informed consumer.
So if you're into that,
consider hitting the subscribe button.
It is finally here after over a year of waiting.
We now have a way to stream audio
directly from a phone that is not an iPhone
directly into an Oticon Open hearing aid.
And not only that, but we also have
a remote microphone for the Oticon Open.
And if you've seen my other video,
I am a huge fan of the Oticon Open hearing aid,
and a lot of people out there actually are,
but the two flaws that it did have,
and the things that I really didn't
like about the hearing aid is that
you couldn't stream phone calls and music
and podcasts and everything like that
directly from an Android phone.
Well, with the ConnectClip, now you can,
and a ConnectClip is also a remote microphone.
So when you go into a noisy environment,
if you happen to need a little bit of help, you can use
the remote microphone feature of the ConnectClip.
All right, obviously, I'm a little excited,
so let's kind of tame that down a little bit
and actually check out the ConnectClip.
All right, so, at first glance,
you'll notice that the device is pretty small.
I would say it's about an inch by two inches
and then maybe 3/4 of an inch thick,
including the clip that it has on it.
So it's a nice, small device.
It's pretty light weight, doesn't have
a whole lot of weight to it.
It has a multi function button on the side.
It has a plus button which is for volume or program changes,
and it has a minus button for,
again, volume and a mute feature.
It also has a directional microphone.
What I mean by directional is it picks up
the sound in the direction that you point that strip, okay.
So it's important to note that.
It also has a plug in the bottom of it.
Pretty standard, you could use a lot of different
charging cords that are pretty common
in the electronics world to charge this as well.
It also has that nifty clip,
which you would use to clip on to an article of clothing
or the lanyard that it comes with.
That clip also rotates 360 degrees,
so when you clip it on to a piece of clothing,
you can make sure that you are
directing that microphone towards
the person's mouth that is wearing it.
So the estimated battery life
on this guy right here is 16 hours.
Assuming a 16-hour daily use,
you would use it two hours for streaming,
two hours for talking on the phone,
and then you would still have 12 hours
worth of standby time, which is where
it's basically in your pocket or clipped on your shirt,
but you're not really using it at the time.
You do need it to be on for you
to receive phone calls through it,
so it has to be powered on,
but that is what this standby mode is for.
Now, if you don't stream a whole lot of music
and phone calls, it'll actually last
you about 36 hours in that standby mode.
All right, enough with that,
let's start getting into the things
that I really like about the Oticon ConnectClip.
Number one is it lets you stream
audio directly from your phone,
and you don't have to have an iPhone,
like I mentioned before.
It can be an iPhone, which you wouldn't necessarily use it.
It wouldn't have a whole lot of functionality
for you if you have an iPhone,
but if you have an Android phone,
or if you have a non-smart phone,
you can still Bluetooth it with that non-smart phone
and stream audio and phone calls
directly from that phone as well.
It's really nice.
I mean, if you're at the gym working out,
all you have to do is kind of sit this down,
you know, by your water bottle or your bag,
and I was able to get a pretty good distance
away from it and still be able to stream
music directly to the hearing aids.
And so it's just a really nice feature
to be able to have while you're working out,
while you're, you know, at home relaxing,
whatever the case may be.
I'm just super excited now that
you can stream the audio from a phone other than an iPhone.
All right, reason number two is that
you can use it as a remote microphone.
It actually serves those two functions
all in the same device.
So when you have this just on yourself
and you have it in standby mode,
if you receive a phone call,
you can answer the phone call just like normal,
it will stream it into both ears.
But you can also use it as that remote microphone
and take it, flip it to remote microphone mode
by holding down the multi function button,
clip it on the shirt of the person that you want to hear
and make sure that you angle that
microphone strip towards their mouth.
And that will pick up their voice.
It will send that voice directly into your hearing aids,
and so, if you're in a noisy environment,
you don't have to worry about all that background noise
mixing in with their speech signal
because their voice only has to travel
a few inches in order for this microphone to pick it up
and then send it into your ears.
So using a remote microphone is
the absolute best way to improve
your ability to understand speech and noise.
So if that is something that is important to you
or something that you struggle with,
using a remote microphone will have
a dramatic improvement in your speech understanding
when you're in background noise.
The third feature is that you can
use it as a remote control,
and you can even use it with your Oticon ON app.
So if you want to change your volume
and programs on the app, you can still do so.
But if you also want to change it
on the ConnectClip, you can do that as well.
So let's just say you had your phone in your pocket,
you didn't want to pull it out,
you had this guy clipped on your shirt.
You could hit the plus button to increase the volume,
the minus volume to decrease the volume.
If you wanted to change programs,
you could hold down the plus button
to cycle through the different programs
you have in your hearing aids.
You can hold and press down the minus button,
and that will actually mute your hearing aids
so you don't have to use that single button
that you have on either side of your hearing aids.
All right, so I've been using the ConnectClip
for about a day and a half, two days now,
and I really like it.
Obviously, I'm super excited about it.
However, there are some things that I don't like so much,
so let's go into those right now.
The first thing I don't like so much is the clip.
The clip is actually pretty weak.
I have tie clasps that keep my tie
in place when I'm working,
and I find those to be weak,
but even those are stronger than the clip that's on this.
Now, it does have some rubber grips on it,
which kind of helps it stay
on your shirt a little bit better,
but, at the end of the day, the spring that's on there
should be a lot stronger than what it is
if you want to make sure, you know,
if you're working out with it on
or something like that, which might not be recommended.
It really needs to have a little bit stronger of a clip.
The second thing I don't like so much
is that, when you're using it as a remote microphone,
you really can't have the person hold it.
When the person holds it,
it definitely creates a lot of static.
It's like the microphone's so sensitive
that it, if you rub the device,
it actually transmits that sound into the hearing aids,
and it sounds horrible, of course.
So I don't necessarily like that aspect of it.
It's kind of a double edged sword.
You want the microphone to be nice and sensitive
to pick up, you know, subtleties in speech
and to be able to transfer that to your hearing aids,
but you also kind of want to be able
to hold it in your hand if you don't
have a good spot to clip it on.
And the other thing that I'm not so hot on is that,
if you're getting a phone call,
and you answer your phone,
and you're streaming it into both of your ears,
you have to have this somewhere in the vicinity
of where your voice can be picked up by it.
So you can't just leave it in your pocket
or set it on a table across the room.
It has to be relatively close to you
so the person on the other end of the line
can actually hear what you're saying.
Now, I know you're probably thinking
I'm beating this little guy up too much,
but I actually really do love the ConnectClip.
It has a lot of different functionalities to it.
It gets rid of the problems that we had
with the Oticon Open hearing aids for over a year now.
And it really does serve a great purpose,
and I don't know how durable it is yet,
'cause I haven't had enough time
or hands on time to play with it,
but, you know, it's something that
can dramatically improve your experience
with your hearing devices even if you have an iPhone
and you're streaming directly from the iPhone already,
using it as a remote microphone can dramatically improve
your speech understanding and background noise.
And it is well worth the money that is spent on it.
I am guesstimating that most clinics
will be charging around $250,
and for the amount of functionality that it has,
it definitely makes it worth it.
That's it for this video.
If you have any questions,
leave them in the comments section below.
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go ahead and hit that subscribe button.
I'll see ya next time.
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