Ask HN: Hearing aid wearers, what's hot?
One of my Phonak Audeo 90’s (RIC) died the other day after 5 years and I’m shopping for new. What’s your go to hearing aid currently if you’ve upgraded recently or have been thinking of doing so?
Moderate loss, have worn them for many years, enjoy listening to music and nature, but also need help in meetings and noisy environments.
Not worried about cost and wanting to get one more good deal out of work insurance before I retire.
Here's a crazy idea. I personally prefer the fidelity of an active ambient in-ear monitor (IEM), as used by musicians on stage over the best hearing aids. Once a year, I do a monthly trial with the latest hearing aid models and IMO the fidelity (especially low-end) and the comfort just is not there compared with the best active ambient IEMs. The difference between hearing aids and IEMs is blurring, but they are not yet fully interchangeable.
Standard IEMs isolate you from the world, which is the opposite of what a hearing aid does. However, a specific category called "Active Ambient" IEMs bridges this gap. These are IEMs with embedded high-fidelity microphones on the outer shell. They pick up the sound of the room (bandmates, crowd, conductor), amplify it, and blend it with your monitor mix. The accompanying bodypack or app often includes a multi-band EQ and Limiter. You can boost specific frequencies where you have hearing loss (e.g., boosting highs to hear cymbals or speech clearly) and set a volume ceiling to protect your remaining hearing. I have no ownership/sponsorship in the product, but I personally LOVE the ASI Audio 3DME (powered by Sensaphonics), which is the industry standard for this. [1] It allows you to use an app to shape the ambient sound to your hearing needs.
The Pros: It provides hearing protection + monitoring + hearing enhancement in one device.
The Cons (Why they aren't daily hearing aids):
1) Form Factor: You are tethered to a belt pack. You likely won't wear a wired bodypack to a grocery store or dinner party.
2) Social Barrier: Wearing full-shell custom IEMs creates a "do not disturb" look that discourages conversation in social settings. This can be more socially alienating than a comparatively inconspicuous hearing aid.
3) Battery Life: IEM systems typically last 6–8 hours, whereas hearing aid batteries can last days or weeks.
[1] https://www.sensaphonics.com/products/3dme-custom-tour-gen2-...
They only get a couple hours better life even with a belt pack to fit more battery?
Does that setup work ok outside in windy environments? A lot of the 'active' audio systems I've found really focus on the wind noise while hearing aids will try to filter that out
You definitely have a point there. The 3DME uses small MEMS microphones embedded in the faceplate of the earphone and has no physical windscreen or noise suppression like digital hearing aids and consumer buds which use aggressive software algorithms to detect wind and instantly cut the low frequencies to stop the rumble.
As a workaround, some artists performing outside wear a thin, acoustically transparent beanie or headband over the ears effectively acting as a pop-filter/windscreen. This breaks the wind before it hits the mic while still letting mid-to-high frequency sound (speech/music) pass through. Not exactly a hearing aid alternative.
I have worn hearing aids since childhood in the '90s. Moderate sloping to profound loss. Been through all the tech since the equalized analog era.
For a while now, like the last 15 to 20 years, since hearing aids went DSP, I had not been much impressed by each new generation. At the risk of sounding like a bit of an advertisement, that changed this year.
I have the new Oticon Intent. RIC style aid. They have some of the best spatial awareness I've experienced. They're capable of quite a lot of directionality - accelerometer and three microphones in each. I had to have the intensity of the directionality turned down a bit. It was startling me when I turned my head and I wasn't hearing things behind me enough. But that's at the expense of less signal due to more environmental noise.
The machine-learning based noise reduction is an improvement over the previous generations, too.
They have a music mode. It drops all the speech remapping and noise reduction and just makes it feel loud. It's some sort of perceptual algorithm: in my case as I turn up the volume it gets more and more treble, because only at the loudest volumes would I hear those high frequencies. All while being power limited at 95 dB SPL so I know I'm not blowing my ears. I used to wear over-the-ear headphones for that but I now prefer the hearing aids. It's nice to not worry about if it's too loud.
My mom has hearing aids, I only get all the technical info through her, so it's a bit blurry, but she complained about very unpleasant scratchy noises, for instance when my dad was watching videos on his iPad (for himself) elsewhere in the room. Settings were changed but now she has a harder time understanding us. We don't have to scream but if we don't speak 'clearly', she misses a lot, especially when we are with a larger group (say 10 people at a dinner). She says she has some friends that she understands very clearly, in contrast to others (admittedly, me and one of my sisters are not the best examples of how to speak crystal clear).
Perhaps this is just the limit of her hearing capacity. Or do you think she should not settle for this and push for something better?
Thank you so much for commenting.
As a parent with a child with mild-to-moderate hearing loss it is heartening to know that the hearing aid technology is progressing, and progressing well!
He's been using a pair of Phonak Skys since infancy, and while they can be tuned by the audiologist I sometimes wonder what it'll be like if and when he gets his next pair.
This feels to me more like the kind of Augmented Reality (AR) that will make it to mass market adoption than what the market has offered to date. Granted, audio-only, but that's where all our wearable tech seems to start (likely because of the energy physics involved with how our tech currently generates artificial perceptual signals).
I'll tell you what is NOT hot!
I have Phonak Audeos paired over bluetooth with my iPhone. A few years prior, I used to have Oticon, also paired with my iPhone.
With the Oticon, if I made a cellphone call, the iPhone would use the default iPhone microphone while the audio would stream to my hearing aids. It was good that way because in a noisy environment I could hold the iphone right up to my mouth and the other party would be able to hear what I was saying.
With the newer Phonaks, I was very disappointed to find that the new hearing aids would only use the microphone input that is built into the hearing aids themselves, and not the iPhone mic input. I discovered this when I realised that talking directly into iPhone mic did not make it any easier for the other party to hear me.
I complained to my Audiologist who explained that yes, the new hearing aids were copying the behaviour of Apple AirPods, which also have the mic input on the earpod itself, and that there was no way at all to configure the Phonaks to use the iPhone mic input instead.
Why is this a problem you might ask? Because my hearing aids are Behind The Ear (BTE) and thus the mic input on the hearing aid is a good 4 inches away from my face and thus my voice cannot possibly sound as clear as when I could speak directly into an iPhone mic.
When I next replace my hearing aids, I shall look for aids that do not mimic this crappy AirPods behaviour...
You can change the mic during calls now on iOS.
During a call, swipe down for the control centre. You’ll see an option at the very top to adjust the audio options. Mic input is just there.
An elaboration on how complicated call handling can be with hearing aids (and how I wanted AirPods-like behavior): I assisted someone with purchasing hearing aids a year ago, and we first had a pair of Philips and returned them within a few months because they only worked with iPhone for supporting phone calls with the microphone on the hearing aids themselves, for Android it didnt work. Even the next generation Philips 9050 that supported Auracast didnt support this.
We ended up with Phonaks rebranded as Sennheisers. The audio quality during calls may not be as clear as a separate mic (what i believe you refer to as oticon), but from a user experience its nice to not have to fish out your phone to answer a call or wonder why you can hear the other person but they cant hear you.
Note that my complaint here is specific to Android support.
Seems a bit sad/ironic that it sounds like the solution in OP's case would be to switch to Android for that exact behavior that your side didn't want. (And that switching to iPhone would bring that "feature" in)
I personally use iPhone and I do prefer to leave phone in pocket for my phone call. But it does seems like a massive oversight to not make this configurable.
I trialed hearing aids a little while ago and ended up not committing, because the sound quality was bad, wheezy and tinny, and gave me headaches. Particularly bad in noisy environments, which is where I'd most need the help. Also the app sucked, Bluetooth pairing broke all the time and the controls were just confusing.
They were Phonaks.
I guess I'm glad to hear that it's not intrinsically a hearing aid thing, and I may find a better experience with other brands.
The tinniness is something your brain adjusts to and prices in, and if your hearing aid is properly set up, it is very likely that to start with it will sound tinny if your hearing is deficient with high frequencies. It is boosting those frequencies to make up for your lack in hearing. You probably need a good 2-6 months to adjust.
Mine were exactly like this to start with and over time the effect goes away such that you don't notice. I'd recommend if you do actually have hearing problems, sticking with it for quality of life improvements.
Yea, my Phonak + iPhone experience was not great. I stopped using any integration with them after a while and now just use AirPods for all my calls, music, etc. I have open domes and can pull off wearing both, but do take the HAs out now and then when I just want to focus and let the noise cancellation do its thing.
iOS 26 finally enabled custom mic selection!
Settings > Sound & Haptics > Input > change from "Automatic: ..." to "iPhone Microphone"
Which sadly does not work very reliably. At least on my end the selection changes back to default every few days. I reported this issue over the Apple Feedback app already…
Yes, that’s my experience too. I have to choose during each call by opening the control centre and choosing the audio settings option for the ongoing call.
This does seem to let me enable voice isolation though, which seems to work very well.
I have the same problem, but I always assumed it was Apple's fault. I don't know why the HAs/Airpods have the final say.
I don't think there's a way around it on the iphone, but I was able to cobble a fix for my macbook at least. It uses Shortery to run a Shortcut whenever my HA connects. The Shortcut runs a shell script that uses https://github.com/deweller/switchaudio-osx/ to determine the built-in mic and switch back to it immediately:
BUILTIN_MIC_ID=$(switch-audio --list-input | jq 'map(select(.name == "MacBook Pro Microphone")) | .[0].id') switch-audio --set-input="$BUILTIN_MIC_ID"
Nice.
And AirPodsSanity (& SoundAnchor) offer polished options here. Maybe using that same script underneath!
Interesting, wouldn't the MBP microphone be even further away than the HA's microphone?
It's also my experience that people who use the Airpods audio in meetings = poor sound, whereas when they switch to the Macbook, it's much better.
I think the Macbook does some more advanced beamforming stuff to filter out sound coming from other directions.
I’ll chime in with a sidebar: Anyone got any experience using hearing aids for the "hearing in noise" issue (aka. King-Kopetzky syndrome or lack of cocktail party effect [0], part of a whole bunch of things also called adhd for ears). Essentially I have filtering issues, as soon as multiple people talk, I can’t really understand anyone anymore, unless they very directly speak into my ears so they are significantly louder than other noises.
It’s a brain thing, my hearing itself is above average for my age (40), so I’m not sure what exactly can be done, but there was an article many years ago about someone (Bose?) working on aids for that issue, no idea what came of it. I guess all modern hearing aids have some focus mode.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_processing_disorder
edit: In case there’s an airpod suggestion, I’ll also need to know if that feature works on Android, it’s not crippling enough to make me use an iPhone.
I'm completely lost in noise. The benefits for this kind of thing is part of why my audiologist pushed for hearing aids with directional microphones. And they do help. But it's not a fix. I'm still mostly lost in noise.
People rely on the (usually very large) dynamic range of hearing to be able to understand in those situations. In people with typical hearing the brain filters out the sounds too loud or too quiet to be what they are trying to listen to. But hearing aids act as compressors reducing the dynamic range.
The second part is why I wonder if there’s anything targeted at the problem instead of badly solving it as a side effect.
Hearing in noise is both what most people want from hearing aids and what they are least equipped to provide.
The traditional solution is an FM system where you give the person speaking a microphone linked to your hearing aids. There are dedicated ones like Phonak Roger. You could probably also use your phone as a microphone if it's bluetooth connected to your headphones or hearing aids.
That’s more a solution for far more extreme cases, including actual hearing loss. This would be far more involved than me lining up my ears with their mouth ;)
Have a look at librepods [1], which was lately on HN.
___
1. https://github.com/kavishdevar/librepods
That seems to enable airpods, but I have no idea if airpods are in any way applicable to the issue.
Airpods might be totally applicable here:
>When your AirPods Pro are connected to your device, you can use Conversation Boost to focus on the person talking in front of you. This makes it easier to hear in a face-to-face conversation.
https://support.apple.com/guide/airpods/use-and-customize-tr...
librepods appears to support this feature
Ohh, that is interesting. I’ll research this, thank you.
Hah, this made me find the subreddit /r/AudiProcDisorder where people discuss those and others for exactly that reason.
edit: Damn, tool requires root because of a bug :/
I have the same problem (took 35 years to find out), and hearing aids with directional microphones might work. I don’t say they will, but it is worth to try it.
I have moderate-to-profound hearing loss and have worn hearing aids since I was 4. I currently have Oticon Opn1’s and have had Oticons since 2017 (and got new ones in 2022) and they are fabulous. I find the sound quality in noisy environments much better than any other aid I’ve had - much better perception of voices in restaurants, for example. I rarely have to fiddle with the volume control and in fact do not even use any other settings than the main program - I find that whatever the core program is doing tends to be basically what I want.
I also very much appreciate that they can natively connect to iPhones (this is also essentially the main reason I have an iPhone). This makes phone calls and music and podcasts very easy. (Whereas up until 2017, I used to dread phone calls.)
I actually tried Phonaks briefly in 2022 and hated them. Lots of controls to fiddle with (some with oddly unintuitive names), but that meant I was constantly trying to adjust it and was rarely able to just exist in the moment. I found them markedly worse in noisy environments - I basically couldn’t have a conversation in a restaurant.
This matches my experience, too. Although I’ve opted for ITC or ITE as much as possible in recent years.
I have the Widex SmartRIC 220, and would buy them again. They are comfortable, have musical audio quality (Widex works with musicians), very low latency (reducing comb filter effect), and in general look and feel very professional.
As for technology, they use bluetooth low energy to connect to the smart phone, which works really well, with the caveat that the range is quite low and if it is in the pocket and you are moving around, media sound will often disrupt or desync intermittently. On the plus side, they last well over a day even with media use (WIdex says they last 37 hours without bluetooth use and that checks out). The case provides charge for about a week, and has wireless and usb-c charging.
They are quite pricey, but there are several options (110, 220, 330, 440), and the 220 were more than enough for me. The app has several modes, including directional focus mode, and you can define your own. I sometimes use a different mode for listening to concert music, that disables most filters such as volume protection.
I am wearing them for 9 months now, and there was no situation (concerts, traveling, work, sports, etc) were they gave me any issues whatsoever.
I just replaced my Jabras (from Costco) whose microphones stopped working. I tried Phonaks and found that the use of Bluetooth to connect to my iPhone was painfully flakey (there were certain locations in my neighborhood that every time I walked in front of a particular house, I would lose audio). I ended up returning them and the only MfI hearing aids the audiologist I went to (I was limited by what was in-network by my insurance and while the old insurance covered equally in-network and out, my new insurance covered 0% out of network so I was going to be looking at double the price to go to Costco). I ended up with Resound which are essentially the same as the Jabras.
The one thing that I find absolutely essential is using ear molds instead of domes. My cousin hated ear molds and gave up on them, but I definitely prefer them.
Incidentally, I would recommend the HA/hearing loss subreddits (r/HearingAids and r/hardofhearing) over HN for this discussion. The HA group can get a little rigid, but I really like the community at HoH.
Losing audio in front of a certain house may be related to devices I’ve noticed my own neighbors beginning to use, which are those high pitched audio emitters that ward off voles etc. We don’t have that issue in our neighborhood and especially in front yards so I suspect it’s to keep dogs from pausing in their yard.
In any case it’s a periodic high pitched burst. I wonder if that was what caused your issue with the phonaks. Seems like it would be a rather common issue in suburbs that should be considered in hearing aid design.
Yea I gave up on the phone integration with mine. Whenever I’d get a call or some audio thing was going to happen, my HA mics would go silent and second or so later the audio would come in. So answering a call i would often miss the callers initial words. Or driving instructions would be “…in 1000 feet” with the “turn left” or “turn right” part missing.
I do participate in the Reddit subs but am interested in the technologists view of HAs I might get here. They are fascinating, necessary devices for myself.
Weird - in an incredibly similar situation and my RICs are overdue an upgrade (Oticon Opn 3). I've been keeping an eye on developments for some time, and I've been looking for something ideally CIC, though I do like the RIC Opns. However, nothing has had the feature set I wanted - bluetooth, auracast, Apple MFI and being CIC.
Oticon just announced/released their 'Zeal' product - a non-custom CIC, with seemingly all the bells and whistles, including bluetooth. Planning to try them soon.
I have tried a few aids before (Starkey and some older Phonak) and I do really like the Oticon 'sound'. They work for me, but of course YMMV. I think many aid manufacturers (many of them the same company - WDH!) do 60 day trials. Worth a shot.
My only dislike is the new fad, particularly of Oticon, of stopping disposable batteries and only going rechargeable. Disposable zinc-air cells have great life (I'd get a week on the Opns at least, with a few hours streaming per day). I travel for work a lot, so carrying a couple of tiny 312's in my wallet or keychain was perfect. The Zeal look to have what Oticon think is a 'compact' charger - but it ain't small. My kingdom for a charger the size of the AirPods Pro case...
I’m trialling the Oticon Zeal right now.
I also travel a lot with work. So far, the estimate of 20 hours battery seems genuine - but you’re right, the charger is not small. What I didn’t know though, is that the charger holds three full charges worth of capacity. Meaning it doesn’t need to be plugged in for three nights in a row.
Due to my level of loss (80db), I need the custom mold option. This seems to be primarily to reduce feedback. I’m swapping between the custom mold and the standard tip to see which is best for my use case.
So far though, I’m impressed.
I've got moderate to severe SSHL and use an Oticon intent 1 miniRite. For my use it's been very good - long last battery, relatively robust. It also has excellent bluetooth connectivity, so I often use it to stream audiobooks in tedious meetings.
In terms of hearing quality, for me, it's been solid, with the caveat that it took a while to get the fitting right. I think my audiologist was a bit old school, and was sticking to settings he'd known to be good in the past rather than fitting for what the aid is capable of. I've recently had its prescription type updated to the native Oticon one, and it's been a revelation in terms of clarity.
My hearing loss is relatively recent (About four years now) so I will caveat this that I've only used Oticons, so can't really compare to anything else.
Thank you for the new acronym. Sudden sensorineural (“inner ear”) hearing loss (SSHL), commonly known as sudden deafness, is an unexplained, rapid loss of hearing either all at once or over a few days. SSHL happens because there is something wrong with the sensory organs of the inner ear. Sudden deafness frequently affects only one ear. https://www.nidcd.nih.gov/health/sudden-deafness To save some people time if they were wondering.
I wrote about losing my left ear completely to SSHL 6 years ago.
https://stonecharioteer.com/writing/2019/the-sound-of-music/
https://stonecharioteer.com/writing/2020/ear-one/
This is very unrelated but I worry about posts like these.
HN is a great place to get genuine thoughtful discussions compared to a big portion of the rest of the internet. Reddit used to be the place for finding genuine experiences for products with subreddits like buyitforlife (or more specific) but now these and other subreddits are filled with bots and marketeers promoting what they sell and hammering their competition in the same thread.
Some bots are already here but I fear when the marketeers come.
If you spot one flag it and mail hn@ycombinator.com , Dan & Tom usually act pretty quickly on confirmed shills. But don't comment in the threads to accuse someone of being a shill, that's explicitly against the guidelines, and that's because it isn't rare for people to simply get it wrong, besides it would pollute the threads.
I’ve worn hearing aids since I was a few years old, and I’m currently trialling the Oticon Zeal ones.
I tried the Starkey ITC ones a couple of weeks ago, but found the performance in noisy environments to be sub-par.
The Oticon Zeals seem good so far, but it has only been a few days. One thing they seem very strong at is the Bluetooth connectivity.
Thanks to recent iOS changes, I can use the mic in the Oticons or the iPhone for calls - and I’m tempted to try a DJI mic on my lapel as the mic. Although, so far during testing it seems that the Oticon mic might actually be good for phone calls.
How are you finding the Zeal's charger? As I said in another comment - I'm baffled Oticon can't make a charging case the size of the AirPods Pro or similar. The Zeal charger doesn't seem exactly...pocketable!
Actually, it looks as though they’re going to be releasing a smart charger which is slimmer and only contains one full charges worth of capacity. I can’t find much information on it just yet though.
In terms of capacity, it’s excellent.
In terms of size - I don’t know what they were thinking. I’m considering doing a 3D scan of the charger shape and trying to make my own. I’m sure every customer will compare it to the AirPod case. It’s small enough to throw in my laptop bag, but I won’t be keeping it in my jeans pocket anytime soon.
There's something I think must be possible and wonder if it would be useful: using noise cancelling earphones to mimic someone else's hearing loss. The idea is if you live with someone with hearing loss, you could enter the frequencies they can't hear, and cancel only those. Then you could spend a day with these in to try to get a more direct understanding of which noises they can hear and which they can't.
Pending that, there are a number of videos on YouTube that show simulated hearing loss, e.g. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewOpW-4XFqM
As most later hearing loss starts from the high frequencies, like mine, it is enough to put a good amount of cotton whool in your ears. No kidding, this should simulate it pretty well.
Whilst I have no idea how well this would work, I would definitely appreciate something like this.
Rather than noise cancelling headphones, I’d be happy with an audio recording that has my loss applied to it. Anything to demonstrate what it’s like would help awareness and understanding.
It makes no sense at all. You have measurable frequency range. But you have no idea how particular brain weights the specific frequencies in the range. Some people can live comfortable life hearing only 200 Hz to 6000 Hz from birth. The other people freak out hearing 8000 Hz coil whine sound. It’s not an universal thing.
Cancelling aperiodic noise requires time travel to work, doesn’t it? So you could feel what it feels like to be that person on an airplane bare-headed, or next to a fan, or perhaps even beside a river, but beyond that I don’t think the technology is there.
just the fact you instinctively thought of the use case to understand and empathize with this disability better, is very cool of you
One of my friends has the latest Apple Airpods. He has had various (expensive) hearing aids over the years but these are much better for him (and cheaper). For the first time he can actually hear everything going on
these won’t work for me, as i have 80-100db loss.
I'll tell you what's not hot: cochlear implants. I wore hearing aids since the late '80s. I wear CIs as of about 5 years ago, and while my hearing is much better and stable than it used to be, I've found that UX for CIs is pretty bad.
For one, unless you use Med-El's Rondo processeor, you're going to have a thin cable connecting your processor to the coil. Taking off your CIs and putting them back on (as one does every day) is going to put stress on the cable. Sometimes the cable frays and you find that out with sound cutting in and out. There's nothing you can do until the manufacturer sends you a replacement cable in exchange for your frayed one. If you want a backup, be ready to shell out $250 for each cable.
Another UX issue is that processors depend on gravity to stay on your ears. Since there's no earmold to anchor to, processors can easily be jostled off and left hanging precariously. Wearing hearing aids, I never had to worry that my hearing devices would fall off if I rode my bike on a bumpy road. Also with cochlear implants, high-intensity interval training requires some kind of hat or bandana to make sure that the processors don't fly out.
Battery life is another disappointment. Rechargeable batteries don't last a full day. If I put them in at 6:30a, they'll last until about 4:30p. With disposable zinc air batteries, I can squeeze out about a day and a half, but then I'm having to dispose batteries. And while I can track processor battery levels with the rechargeable batteries on my phone, disposable batteries are opaque to the app.
One new thing that would be useful in terms of UX would be an configurable indicator, e.g., a blinking LED, signaling that audio streaming is occurring. It's awkward to find oneself in a conversation that already started and having to excuse oneself to turn off the stream.
Don't get me wrong, I'm glad I have my cochlear implants, but they're way behind hearing aids in terms of UX.
What model do you have?
My daughter has the Cochlear N8 and the rechargeable battery lasts 20 hours
> Sometimes the cable frays and you find that out with sound cutting in and out
Is there any way you can know about this, e.g. from the app? I'm asking because my daughter is 1 and if this was happening she'd currently have no way of communicating that to us
Have you tried the non-over-the-ear cochlear devices? The kind that have everything built into the part that sticks magnetically to your implant — I don’t know what the term is; I don’t use them myself.
I know somebody who really dislikes the over-the-ear type devices and swears by the all-in-one kind.
She seems to get a full day of battery out of hers, but I don’t know what kind they are and I imagine usage patterns make a big difference.
that's the Med-El's Rondo processor they referenced (there's also the Cochlear Kansu), so presumably they know of them and have tried them
For what it's worth in the UK the NHS no longer provides the off the ear models (at least for children) as they say they have too many problems with them
I know one person at work with CIs and yea, I imagine it's a challenge.
UX for a lot of assistive technology is iffy at best. Repeating some of the comments others have made, I'd love it if Apple would make a full on hearing aid that "just worked". Or someone would do a good AI integration that could notify you of things you probably should focus on - like someone trying to get your attention, or emergency vehicle sirens, etc.
Marketing too. But it's nice to see some vendors starting to actually make their devices visible and fun. HAs are a bit like glasses ages ago, when it was kind of this shame thing to get teased about when you were 8 years old. Selling them as "discrete" and with colors designed to match your skin or your hair is just continuing that perception of them being something you should hide.
Following... My audiologist had the big talk with me last week and I guess I'm due to take care of my hearing...
A long time ago, I interviewed at a company called Earlens. They had a really interesting solution that used mineral oil to stick some kind of tiny speaker directly to your eardrum. The processor then beams the sound to the speaker. I think the first generation used a laser, but they've since switched to inductive coupling: https://earlens.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/LBL00153vJ.ar...
One of the engineers I had lunch with actually used their own product and he seemed to like it. I get the impression it's a more premium tier kind of thing that may not be covered by insurance, though.
Bit a side question since OP mentioned company's name: anyone from Europe with Phonak devices with recently replaced earmold? I wonder if you got a soft silicone or something that appears to be some firm 3D printed material.
Mother uses hearing aids since end of 90s and most of the time it was in-the-ear but recently due to increased hearing loss she had to pick a new behind-the-ear device - still with button battery tho.
Using Advance72 (made by Sonova) has BlueTooth which makes using a phone a breeze. The Hearing Remote app allows me to override the audiologist configured settings for volume, listening modes and equalizer.
IMHO rechargeable models are not worth the extra cost. With a typical 5 year replacement cycle the batteries will no longer hold the early levels of charge. 312 batteries are cheap and easy to carry spares.
Widex Moment 440. They’re expensive but really good.
My only concern with custom hearing aid is getting eczema in my inner canal, I'm at lost of how to overcome this issue for years.
Because custom ones fit so snugly? Why do non-custom fit ones not give you eczema?
Has anyone tried AirPods Pro as hearing aides? I remember Apple talking big game about getting them certified or something
I tried them and I have moderate to severe hearing loss.
Interestingly, they work well for the realtime audio adjustments for music - but sadly not well enough for external speech.
I will keep trying them with every new software and hardware release though!
Someone I know does in fact use the m for that. I am not sure how serious they are about to though, it's their first hearing aid.
I'm not a hearing aid wearer, but I came across https://www.envoymedical.com/ during investment research activities. They seem to have the leading candidate for a fully implantable device. FDA Breakthrough Device designation. I'm interested in the reaction of any hearing aid wearers to what they are developing.
As a 40-something without any noticeable hearing loss, I’d actually be very interested in having Bluetooth ‘earbud’ implants.
By and large, implantable devices are for more extreme hearing losses or unusual conditions, and I would expect very few people who get by with a HA to switch to an implantable before it's necessary.
Especially since the hardware is not upgradeable without another surgery, assuming it's upgradeable at all.
If you have HAs and wait, 1) the implant tech may get better, or 2) medical science may be able to regenerate inner ear hair cells. For #2 in particular, cochlear implants may prevent that from even being an option, since iiuc, they damage the cochlea.
Would like something like the Apple ones, without Apple or an app at all. Anyone make such a thing that works with Linux?
https://github.com/kavishdevar/librepods
I’m sorry I can’t answer your question but on a related note I wonder if anyone has used AirPods Pro 3 as hearing aids either as their first pair or replaced their traditional ones with AirPods? I’m considering getting a pair for a family member who has been reluctant to wear traditional ones but I think would be willing to do AirPods.
I did and it is amazing for someone with just mild 40s hearing issues. Took a bit of effort and updates to run the hearing test for AirPods Pro 3. Turns out I connected over Bluetooth when I should’ve paired them the Apple/iOS way.
The live listening mode is very good. I can hear my kid trying to quietly walk past 10pm :) There are a lot of features however you cannot selectively choose to lower / raise certain frequencies. I wish it had an equalizer I could use.
The ANC is fantastic, sometimes I even forget fans around me are on. Only issue is that when I use live listen mode and everything is super clear, people still treat me like I’m using full noise cancellation.
Thank you!
I got my father-in-law to try AirPods Pro 2 last year. He’s needed hearing aids for about a decade, but wouldn’t get them, I think for vanity reasons. I’m at the in-laws for thanksgiving and he’s wearing the AirPods now.
From the other side, it’s night and day. We can have conversations. He can hear my kids. The TV volume is set to reasonable levels.
Sample size of one, but it’s been a tremendous improvement. A lot of places are closing out the second gens right now for $140. I’d give it a go. It’s a pretty low price of entry for something that could literally be life changing.
I would absolutely love for Apple to make proper hearing aids or license their chipset to a HA maker. Before I became completely dependent on HAs I had a set of Beats headphones with the Apple wireless chipset in it and the ease of switching between devices with it was amazing. With my current HAs I essentially only can use it for sound with my phone.
This seems like such an easy win for them, hopefully they see the value
I did the same with my mom. Big improvement for her. She’s also subsequently gotten ‘real’ hearing aids and finds them much more fiddly to use than her AirPods Pro. She’s 83, FWIW.
Yes I’d love HAs as easy to use as AirPods. AirPods with the HA form factor would have some real advantages, even for those not hard of hearing.
I don’t ever hide my hearing aids but the discrete nature of them is great.
Thank you! My family member is in a similar boat. I guess I found my christmas present for him.
We also did this for my mom, but keep in mind this is a bit of a crutch that may keep them even more from getting a real hearing aid. My mom later had to go to the hospital, and because of battery life and other problems we regretted not pushing for a real hearing aid earlier. This caused real problems in the hospital.
Adam Savage made a video about them. If I remember correctly, they won’t be replacing his primary hearing aids, but would be a serviceable backup. Note that I could be misremembering, as I watched the video 9 months ago.
https://youtu.be/uykq5aJCwBw
In your situation they could be a low stakes way to get someone to try a hearing aid and sell them on the idea, while still being a useful thing to have around even if they do upgrade to something more purpose built.
Thanks! I wonder if he was able to try the Airpods pro 3 as well.
I have severe hearing loss in my right ear and no to mild hearing loss in the left. AirPods Pro 2 make it so that I feel like I can hear in stereo while streaming without resorting to setting the balance 90% right and jacking the volume. In that respect I love them. However, they are designed only for moderate loss so they will not amplify the right ear sufficiently to hear well in that ear unless the left ear is uncomfortably loud.
For me, I need a real hearing aid to hear a person that is at my right shoulder.
If both ears are about the same, I think the hearing aid volume (separate slider from general volume) could be adjusted to get past the “designed for moderate loss” limitation.
I have the latest AirPods, and I do use them quite a bit for calls and noise cancellation when using power tools and such.
But irrespective of any capability to act as hearing aids from the acoustic perspective, I don’t think they are the same.
For me hearing aids are glasses for my ears. Like glasses they need to be “put them on/in and forget about it”. If AirPods would not fall out of my ears when I walk or put on a hat or pull on/off a sweater, I might consider them.
I wake up in the morning, grab them from the nightstand and put them in. And they stay there all day until I go to bed. Only come out if I’m taking a shower or in a loud environment.
One thing to consider though, hearing aids are rated as medical devices. That means they have to fulfill a lot of requirements in terms of durability and reliability. They need to work if it is -/+50 deg C outside and still after you accidentally showered with them. Just as examples..
My 84 year old mom uses AirPods Pro 2 as an aid for moderate hearing loss and has been satisfied. As others have noted, the difference is night and day; I went from having to yell just to be occasionally understood to being able to have a normal conversation.
My understanding is they are pretty good hearing aids, but they don't have the battery life that purpose-built aids do (4-5 hours vs 18-24) so they're not optimal for full-time use. This is fine for her use case, since she only uses them when she wants to talk to someone, but could be an issue for someone who wants to wear them all day, every day.
What about bone conduction headphones (like Shokz) typically used for swimming and running?
My anecdata for that is that they're all universally a bit rubbish. They're good for maintaining situational awareness but bad at musical quality or for communication in high ambient noise (like a loud room or restaurant).
I wear the new(ish) Starkey AI Genesis. Jump ahead in terms of battery life and water resistance. Great overall. Use a CROS in one ear.
Not sure why this is directed at deaf people only,
adjective 1. having a high degree of heat or a high temperature.
Hope that helps!
Ouch. Sorry, does it help if I say I'm a big Leslie Nielsen fan? :P
Surely you know jokes on here don't always lead to upvotes!
Yes, but don't call me Shirley.