Clinic Fitting or $199 Over-the-Counter: What You Give Up and What You Gain

Hearing aids fitted through a New Zealand clinic are not cheap. A pair commonly costs around $4,800 by the time the tests, the moulds and the appointments are done.

Revival Hearing sells over-the-counter hearing aids instead. The One is $199. The Plus is $299 and adds Bluetooth. We are New Zealand owned and operated, and we hold our stock here.

This is our own guide to our own products, so here is the fair version. What you give up by buying this way, and what you get in return.

A clinic starts with an audiogram. An audiologist measures how you hear across a range of frequencies and builds a picture of your hearing in each ear.

We do not do that. Our devices come with preset listening modes rather than a profile built from your test results.

For a lot of people with mild to moderate hearing difficulty, presets are enough to make speech easier to follow. If your hearing loss is more than that, or if it is very different between ears, the test is worth having and we would rather you had it.

Clinic aids are often made to a mould of your ear, then adjusted over several follow-up visits until the fit and the sound are right.

Ours are not moulded to you. They come with ear tips in a few sizes and you pick the one that seals comfortably. Most people find a size that works. Some do not, and that is a real trade-off, not a detail.

There are also no follow-up appointments to fine tune the sound. What you change, you change yourself by switching modes.

The One is $199. The Plus is $299 and adds Bluetooth so you can take calls and listen to audio from your phone. Bluetooth is on The Plus only.

Set that against roughly $4,800 for a typical clinic fitting. That figure is not an old price of ours that we have crossed out. It is a different service, with the test, the moulds and the appointments included, and you are choosing whether to buy it.

Our prices are our normal prices. No sale, no countdown, no crossed-out number.

The clinic route means booking a test, waiting for it, going back for a fitting, then going back again for adjustments. That is time off work or away from home.

With us you order online and the parcel arrives. We are New Zealand owned and operated and our stock is held here, so it is posted from here with free tracked shipping. Days, not weeks.

If something is wrong, email revivalhearingnz@gmail.com and a real person answers. Your Consumer Guarantees Act rights apply, the same as with any New Zealand retailer.

Both models are rechargeable and come with a charging case. There are no tiny batteries to prise out with a fingernail and no packets of them to keep buying.

They arrive ready to wear. No appointment, no hearing test, no app required to get going. Put them in, choose a listening mode and carry on.

A basic sound amplifier turns everything up at once. The voice you want, plus the fridge, the traffic and the clatter of the cafe. In a busy room that makes things harder, not easier.

Our devices are built to lift speech and reduce background noise, with modes for quiet rooms, busy places and outdoors where wind is the problem.

We say reduce, not cancel. The noise is still there. It just sits further back, so the person in front of you is easier to follow.

Every order comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee and a 12-month warranty. Wear them at home, at the table and out with friends. If they are not right for you, email us inside 30 days and send them back for a refund.

The honest limit is this. These are over-the-counter hearing aids for mild to moderate hearing difficulty. If your hearing has dropped suddenly, if one ear is much worse than the other, or if you have pain, discharge or ringing in your ears, book in with your GP or a qualified audiologist. Some of what we described giving up is worth paying for, and only a professional can tell you if that is your situation.

Published by Revival Hearing. This is our own guide to our own products, not an independent review. Revival Hearing devices are over-the-counter hearing aids intended to help with mild to moderate hearing difficulty. They are not a substitute for professional medical advice. If you have concerns about your hearing, please see your GP or a qualified audiologist.