DreamStation 2 vs ResMed?

[Dog Slobber]

Thanks Dog Slobber,

As my old records for my Phillips systems all contained the reports so with them I guess Oscar found complete events to load so I have not seen that behavior in Oscar.

SO if I understand you, Oscar and Resmed will show all the events as the happen, and I take it they will then become a perment part of the reports?

OK Good to know.

Now about the other details, I have a full copy of the ResMed and Phillips Clinician Manuals and found a lot that is not there that is in the Phillips.

Rich

Once OSCAR sees an event flag for the first time, it will then start permanently reporting it. This is how OSCAR behaves, it's not an OSCAR *and* RedMed thing. I believe it's a hack from SleepyHead to prevent devices from displaying empty flag lines, that they can't possibly experience. 

The same behaviour exists for Respironics, which is why you don't see a BND (Breathing not Detected) field, your device hasn't flagged one yet.

[SarcasticDave94]

For me, since I'm still currently on ASV, I'll not go the Respironics machine route. My RT had confirmed that if I'm used to the way ResMed feels on ASV, that same feel will carry over to what appears to be my next device a ResMed Astral 150.

This was decided before the Respironics recall. Now with this recall in record, no way I'll get Respironics ever.

[racprops]

Thanks again Dog Slobber,

OK that removes that negative mark.

Now the "run a way" cycles, and the odd pressure things...

Rich

[racprops]

Revised:

My review of a ResMed Air Curve 10 ASV VS a Phillps Dreamstation BiPAPAutosv.

I have been a long time user of Phillips Sleep Apnea machines.

Due to the recall because of problems with sound control foam millions of Phillips sleep machines users have been scared by these reports and recall and looked to the other major machine maker ResMed.

I too was very upset over this and ordered a ResMed ASV machine. Then I learned ResMed has some foam within their systems. They claim it is not the same but I feel I want NO Foam of any kind in my sleep machines. Old saying: Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.

So I called to cancel my order.

But they were unable to stop the delivery so it came Saturday. UPS did the standard drop and run delivery and I was unable to catch the driver as he was long gone by the time I found it on my door step.

This is a “refurbished” used machine. That means they clean it, replace the water tank, hose, and filter with new parts. It came with a 10 free trial, return it by 10 days for a full refund. And a 6 month warranty.

Also as the payment has gone through plus it is Saturday so I decided to go ahead and try the machine. So the seller failed to do two things he said he would do, stop the delivery and recall it and to issue a refund.

Second I started the humidifier at setting one. There is 8 setting VS 5 on Dreamstation.

It used NO Water. On my second sleep cycle I turned it up to 4, still very little water use.

Apon waking I felt the water tank and it was still COLD. I feared this heating plate might be burned out, But it will warm on the prewarming, so the heating plate seems to work.

As this is my only use of a ResMed machine I do not know if this normal, seems not, but these machines do claim to specially control their humidifiers so that could be part the problem, and the seller failed to provide the special hose for part of the feature.

Third try at the highest setting barely warm. All my Phillips machines ran hotter.

Next is a problem how it works. After a couple of nights I switched back to the Dreamstation ASV last night and felt another feature I really like with Phillips: breathing reaction time.

This IS a feature of Phillips where there is an adjustment for how fast the machine reacts to your breathing, as you switch from inhaling to exhaling.

I use a setting of T1, this cause the reaction time to be so fast it feels like my own breathing, it is not notable when it follows my own breathing, I cannot feel it as it changes in an instant.

There are times when I cannot tell if I am choosing to inhale or exhale myself or if the machine is in control, but if I think it is controlling me I just hold my breath and it IS me.

The ResMed does not have this adjustment and is not as fast; it takes a split second to switch from input to output, I was having to push a little to get it to switch. There is a slight delay in this change that at first I did not like.

I also noticed that even set to below my Dreamstation settings of exhale at 12 running 10 and my inhale it 18, the low in the ResMed seems to be higher as I feel more pressure than my Dreamstation in action.

Last test night, it does as I thought, does not drop exhale pressure all the way, I feel slightly suffocated as there is resistance to my exhaling even at 10 setting.

And the high does not seem as strong.

Plus as madding the breathing rate is a curve, it starts low and then rises to full pressure.

Lastly I ran into the runaway cycle…it started going up in volume and pressure. I had to reset it.

All of this was so bad I could not stand it so I cut tonight’s test short and went back on the Dreamstation.

There are a lot less settings. I may very well have had some problems in the past due to a lack of full knowledge of each setting and its interaction with other settings on my Phillips.

On the other hand I can make finer settings tuning the Phillips machine.

All in all I prefer the Phillips Dreamstation I over the ResMed Aid Curve 10.

[racprops]

I figured I best explain why I feel I can still use a Dreamstation: I took the foam out.

And why I am not jumping whole hearty on to ResMed: they have some kind of foam in theirs.

[Ratchick]

Other ResMed Bilevel machines do have Ti settings but not the ASV. I guess because it's only meant to prompt a breath when you aren't breathing, and AFAIK even on the DS ASV, you can only set the Ti if you've also manually set the BPM too, right? If you use the auto settings, then it doesn't work. If you need those settings then you really need a VAuto S/T or T, I think... I'm sure someone can correct me if I'm wrong.

The humidifier issues, I wonder if perhaps yours isn't working (or the Philips just gets hotter). Honestly, I've never felt my Resmed get hot. Even immediately after all-night use, it's at best lukewarm. But it's definitely working.

Also, I have no idea about the runaway cycles. That's definitely not usual.

I would imagine it can take a while to adjust to a new type of machine after using the previous one long term.

I have no idea why yours is so loud. It's rated at around the same as the Airsense 10 APAP (which makes sense as the only real difference between the different machines is primarily the algorithm it uses, rather than the hardware). Maybe yours, coming refurbished, is noisier because of its age?

But I'm a little concerned that most of what you're saying doesn't sound typical just from my usage.

[racprops]

OK I am taking a second look at the ResMed Air Curve 10 ASV machine as the company I ordered from seems to be MIA.

They have not sent the return label I have requested three times, and are not responding to my many emails. Either they are buried under all the customers’ demanding replacements units for the Phillips machines they sold them or feel it is not worth the cost of getting this machine back then replacing the fan and the heating plate and/or mother board to fix the non-working humidifier….or are going bankrupt to handle all the loses.

I found a utube video of the new Phillips Dreamstation II, and I fear it is a cheaper version and dislike many of its features including the encoded data and I get the idea there may be no way to change your own settings and only your DME will be able to do so.

SO if that is all true a Dreamstation II IS totally off my future buying plans.

So I am deep thinking what I will do.

So many unknowns: will Phillips even supply parts like fans, housings, and motherboards ETC.for the Dreamstation I or cut all supplies to close them down fully? They are making big thing about they are only meant to last 5 years…one way to help enforce that is to cut repair parts at 5 years stopping repairs on older units. Just in case, I am already making plans to buy a number of used machines to use for spare parts IF I will remain a Phillips user.

And that is getting much less likely, so I felt I needed to take a second look at the ResMed AC10ASV.

The two main problems I have with it is down to one, once I was informed the lack of display read outs on Oscar was how the reports are built up by having something to report, not by displaying all that CAN BE reported, so I trust the reports will be populated as they come alone so that objection is down.

So I slept with it again, and found I can get use to its milder way of supplying me air. And once I stopped fighting it or finding fault I did not mind its slower build up to full power.

It did do the uncalled for buildup in pressure as I was drawing longer and deeper breaths…but settled down fairly fast.

I only used it for 4 hours and 40 minutes when I did my normal middle of the night wake up.

But as I tried to fall back to sleep and lessened to the wining fan motor I became concerned as to how many hours it would take to wear out a ResMed fan (I have never worn out a Phillips fan with up to 5K hours) and if so how well was the foam inside the fan doing and could it be going bad as well and then could not sleep with it any more. I switched back to my foam free Phillips DS I machine.

But there is no way I am paying $1300.00 for a broken unit, and as I have seen their level of service at least at this current time I am not willing to wait and see if they will be able to repair it and get it back to me in any normal time. Plus considering how very poorly they performed with its sale and delivery I don’t much trust they will do all that a good job making any repairs.

So next week I will contact my bank about the lack of a refund.

Then if it goes back that is OK. If they don’t care and I end up keeping it that too is OK, then to the repair shop with it as it is well worth $500.00 to rebuild. Not $1300.00 PLUS another $500.00, I can BUY a brand new one for that.

Either way new or used/rebuilt I will personally remove any foam from within its fan.


Rich

[Ratchick]

How many blower hours are on this unit under About in the clinical menu (as opposed to user hours)? If the ASV is the same as the other Resmeds, then it's usually over 20K hours before it gives an automatic warning that it's reached the end of the expected run life (and even then, it still runs for most people long beyond that). Did the store not tell you the number of hours on it before you bought it?

[racprops]

How many blower hours are on this unit under About in the clinical menu (as opposed to user hours)?  If the ASV is the same as the other Resmeds, then it's usually over 20K hours before it gives an automatic warning that it's reached the end of the expected run life (and even then, it still runs for most people long beyond that). Did the store not tell you the number of hours on it before you bought it?

Thanks for responding.

Well it only shows Run Hrs @ 2617 which in my case would mean /7.5 = 348.9 days, not even a year.

20K figures out at /7.5 / 365= 7.3059 Years.

With my Phillips I seen 4000 on most machines. And no fan failures.

As the ONLY working part is the fan, I would think a replacement new fan would give at least another 5 Years.

Phillips allow resetting the fan hours, does ResMed??

I have been told that a new fan needs to be calibrated...I now think that is BS there seems to be no controls and from what I have learned from the repair manual for Phillips it all seems plug and play.

Is that how it is with ResMed??

I can pop in and out of my Phillips in under 10 Minutes, which means I could swap in a new mother board and fan with in that time, add 10 minutes to get a fan and MB from stock.

Then I understand they hook it up to a test station and make sure it is running with in specs. Correct?

Rich

[Dog Slobber]

Phillips allow resetting the fan hours, does ResMed??

No.

I have been told that a new fan needs to be calibrated...I now think that is BS there seems to be no controls and from what I have learned from the repair manual for Phillips it all seems plug and play.

No, calibration is needed on modern ResMeds.

I *understand*, but can't confirm that all Air10s have the same hardware, the only difference between the ASVs, VAutos, AutoSets,... is the firmware. Consider buying a cheap an inexpensive but quiet Elite or CPAP on Craig's List and swapping in the motor.