What do people really care about when it comes to hearing aids?
Once upon a time, the simplest answer to this question would be, “To hear better.” The amazing thing about hearing aid technology is that it truly has grown by leaps and bounds over the last few decades.
And while helping people hear their very best should always be the goal of hearing aids, there are so many more features, benefits, and accessories available, that “to hear better” has become a given.
More recently, a leading consumer organization surveyed nearly 18,000 of their members in order to get greater insight about their experiences with hearing aids. That survey gave the world a great deal of insight into what people want out of their hearing aids.
It’s great information for us as providers, and equally important information for you, if you’re someone who is considering hearing aids for yourself, a loved one, or are looking to upgrade to more advanced technology.
People want hearing aids with rechargeable batteries
This one doesn’t surprise us at all! There are few things more frustrating for a hearing aid wearer than to lose power in the middle of an important conversation, event, or moment.
While there are many tips and tricks for ensuring you get the most out of your traditional battery powered devices, there are more and more rechargeable hearing aid options available.
Our patients who wear this type of rechargeable device love having the peace of mind in knowing that they can simply remove their devices before bed, place them in their charger, and wake up to fully powered technology!
People want hearing aids with smartphone compatibility
The degree to which smartphones have integrated with just about every aspect of our lives, including our health, is truly amazing, and hearing aids are no exception!
Smartphone compatible hearing aids mean you not only have hearing-enhancing technology to help you better understand things like speech in noisy environments, but you also have a way to stream audio, like your favorite music, podcasts, calls, and more, directly to your hearing aids.
These devices will also typically have different smartphone apps where you can fine tune your listening experience, or even have the devices automatically adjust to different environments that you’ve saved via your phone’s location settings. Amazing!
People want hearing aids that help them control their tinnitus
If you’re someone who suffers from tinnitus, then you don’t need to tell us how difficult the experience can be.
Tinnitus, with its pulsing, buzzing, and hissing sounds, its tendency to flair up when you’re stressed, and all the anxiety it can cause, finally has a viable way to be treated: hearing aids.
That’s right, many of today’s hearing aids contain what are called maskers. Masking is a technique that uses white noise frequencies to match the frequencies of your tinnitus.
This essentially cancels out the sounds causing you distress and discomfort, so you can focus on the world around you vs. the world of noise happening inside of you.
Colorado Ear Care specializes in tinnitus treatment. We offer a variety of different hearing aids that can be used to treat tinnitus, as well as counseling techniques designed to help you more successfully cope with its ongoing effects.
People want hearing aids that automatically adjust
Sure, when it comes to certain fine tuning adjustments, many people enjoy using tools like smartphone apps to make their hearing experience the best it can be.
But many people prefer that the hearing aids themselves be intelligent enough to detect changes in the level of noise so that they automatically adjust when moving from environment to environment.
This makes sense, because having to take the time to manually adjust your hearing aids can feel burdensome, and can take you out of the moment that you’re trying to experience. What’s more, for some people, having to constantly adjust their hearing draws more attention to their hearing aids than they feel comfortable with.
Luckily for all of us, there are so many hearing aid options that will automatically adjust to the the level of noise they’re encountering, so that when you’re wearing them, you can just be in the moment while having the best listening experience possible!
People want hearing aids that help them hear what they want
PSAP style devices — the kind you’d get off the shelf from a drug store — are an example of very basic technology. They are designed to only do one thing: Increase the volume.
This is bad for the wearer for two reasons: One, it isn’t sophisticated enough to increase the volume on just the sounds they want to hear. They can only turn up the volume on everything they encounter.
Secondly, just turning up the volume vs. being able to program a device in accordance with your audiogram means you could very well be doing more damage to your hearing by wearing this type of device.
This is what makes a properly fit hearing aid so special! They are sophisticated enough to be able to distinguish between background noise and speech, and will adjust accordingly so that when you wear a properly fit hearing device, you’ll be able to hear voices loud and clear while the noise gets pushed to the background.
Of course, there’s a whole lot more that people care about when it comes to a great experience with hearing aids, and we’d love to show you more!
Contact us today for your appointment!