A technological
revolution

The open sound paradigm in Oticon Opn Play™ is a major improvement compared to both directional and omni directional technologies. The groundbreaking innovation takes paediatric hearing care to a new level and gives children the best conditions possible to learn, thrive and truly make sense of the world.

From traditional technology to revolutionary open sound

With the groundbreaking innovation, OpenSound Navigator, Oticon Opn Play lets children enjoy a full, balanced soundscape with 360° access to sound.

  • Omni directional technology overloads young minds

    Traditional omni directional technology gives children with hearing loss access to all sounds whether relevant or not. But the brain must then work far harder to understand conversation in noise. This overloads the children and can make it more difficult for them to learn in noisy environments.

  • Directional technology restricts opportunities to learn

    On the other hand, traditional directional technology focuses on the speaker directly in front of the child while closing down other sounds. This stresses the brain and since children don’t always orient themselves to the speaker*, sounds of interest from behind or to the sides of the child will be attenuated.

    * Ricketts, T. A., & Galster, J. (2008).

  • Now, the groundbreaking OpenSound Navigator takes it to the next level


    The open sound paradigm experienced with Oticon Opn Play is powered by Oticon’s Velox S platform and takes paediatric hearing care to a new level. Velox S offers outstanding speed and resolution, enabling Oticon Opn Play to quickly and precisely analyse the soundscape, and follow and differentiate between sound sources.

    This way, Oticon Opn Play gives children the support they need to choose which sounds to pay attention to. It also takes a giant step forward in improving speech understanding in complex listening environments and in supporting incidental learning by allowing access to multiple speakers.

Proven to improve speech understanding with less effort

A study has tested whether OpenSound Navigator improves children’s speech recognition in noise and allows access to multiple speakers – compared to omni directional technology.

Improved speech understanding when facing away from the talker

A speech recognition test in noise was used to see whether children would receive comparable benefit with OpenSound Navigator when the listener faced the speaker directly or faced away from the speaker.

When compared with omni directional mode, test results showed that OpenSound Navigator offered an average of 4 dB (up to 30%) improvement in speech recognition in both test situations.

Access to multiple speakers supporting incidental learning

The same study examined whether OpenSound Navigator preserves competing speech coming from different directions behind the listener. Expectedly, OpenSound Navigator and omni directional mode resulted in comparable speech recognition performance.

This shows that OpenSound Navigator preserves competing speech, allowing access to multiple talkers and thereby supporting incidental learning for children.

Download whitepaper about this study

Better speech understanding with less listening effort

Another study showed that OpenSound Navigator improves speech understanding with less effort compared to omni directional technology

The test simulated two listening environments, complex and simple, comparing OpenSound Navigator and omni directional mode. Great results showed that OpenSound Navigator improved speech understanding across listening conditions by up to 5 dB SNR.

Subjectively, the children perceived significant less effort while listening to speech in noise with OpenSound Navigator activated.

Download whitepaper about this study

See how OpenSound Navigator was tested

Specialists at Boys Town National Research Hospital examined the benefits of Oticon’s groundbreaking technology.

 

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OpenSound Navigator gives 360° access to sound

The groundbreaking innovation lets children enjoy a full, balanced soundscape across simple and complex listening environments. While constantly optimizing learning opportunities.

OpenSound Navigator works so fast and precisely that it can attenuate unwanted noise – even between words in an open soundscape. At ultra-fast speed, it continually rebalances the soundscape while still providing constant access to all relevant sounds and speech.

This way, Oticon Opn Play makes it easier for the brain to decide which sound to pay attention to, and to switch attention when needed. This is of course a great help to any child, whether in school, on the playground or in traffic.

Learn more about OpenSound Navigator

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  • Raising a child with hearing loss

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  • Support for parents

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