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Ask Slashdot: Hearing Aids That Directly Connect To Smart Phones?
mtcups writes "I am a musician/IT guy whose hearing has suffered from VERY LOUD guitar players, (yes I do use earplugs now, but too late), and am faced with the outrageously priced hearing aids $4.5K+/pair and was appalled at their lack of integration with smart phones. It seems obvious to me that I should be able to control the hearing aids via a smart phone interface so I can shape the profile for different environments, and also control features like 'hearing loops' and Bluetooth connections. I have done some research, but my guess is that the hearing aid companies want proprietary systems and don't want a smartphone interface since they would loose control and it would allow for competition for cheaper & better programs. I am not convinced that a combination of good ear-buds, good microphone(s), and a smartphone interface couldn't totally replace these overpriced solutions."
They're expensive because the cartel that makes them got them classified as medical devices decades ago. There are all kinds of legal and regulatory hoops you have to jump thru before you can call something a "hearing aid".
You can buy a bluetooth earpiece for $20-$80 that has the exact same parts - condenser mic, speaker element, battery, and opamp/EQ circuit - and has vastly more functionality, including the bluetooth radio system and spiffy LED indicator lights.
Hearing aids are configured with an equalization curve tailored the the wearer's specific hearing loss, but it's not like there are a million different kinds of loss. It's mostly "top down" according to age and environment. Only newborns can hear 20khz. We lose a few thousand before we hit puberty and pretty much everyone loses everything above 12k by their 30's. (by "lose" I mean response is down a considerable number of decibels from our factory abilities). Impact-type noise from construction, artillery, or rock bands can punch holes in what's left, especially in the voice frequencies, but it's not like it's DNA-complicated or something. A simple hearing test can identify your remaining response curve in a few minutes and it isn't going to be that much different from the guy on the next bulldozer on the left or the guitar player on the other side of the stage.
There's no reason an ear doctor or audiologist couldn't give you a "prescription" response curve when you go in for a hearing test that you could load into a device that costs two figures (three if you want it to be super tiny) yourself with an app of some kind. The 4-5-figure price tags are simple price gouging by a "medical" cartel.
Nothing worthwhile ever happens before noon
I guess the vast majority of people in need of a hearing aid is old enough to have spent the most time of their life without mobile phones at all, let alone smartphones, and are thus not very interested in smartphones in general, or in smartphone-controlled hearing aids specifically. Add to that the security implications of such an interface (imagine someone hacking your smartphone and then disabling your hearing aid in a critical moment so you can't hear something specific — more importantly for the hearing aid producer, you might sue them afterwards), and probably complex procedures of getting them approved (I'm pretty sure hearing aids count as medical devices), there's likely not much motivation for the producers to offer it.
Apple has already made iPhones compatible with hearing aids and appears to be looking to refine it with "made for iPhone" aids.
If it's just a racket, why not buy the cheap hearing aids you see advertised all over the place? Less than $200 each.
I'll tell you why: because they're crap. They uniformly amplify the entire sound spectrum, which means that sounds in the range of your hearing that are not impaired, driving you crazy with feedback and overamplification. Real hearing aids selectively amplify the frequencies you need. Mine (which I only paid $2k for) don't actually make sound like they're amplifying sound, more like restoring missing texture.
Mine not only contain sophisticated DSP hardware, they have small radios so they can talk to each other and work together. If you think you can build something like that for less than $1K a unit (which also has to cover the cost of fitting and programming) then go for it.
I'm deaf in one ear, but I get by in life without a hearing aid. I recently started using AfterShokz headphones for my running, and was pleasantly surprised that I could hear stereo sound again through these headphones. I also started using an Android app at work called AroundSound which stops your music when someone starts talking to you and replays the last thing that was said through your headphones. So by combining these two, it's allowed me to hear the beginning of conversations better, when normally I would have to ask someone to repeat what they said before I could turn around and actively listen. It's not an all day solution, but I find it's helped me a bit in my day-to-day work life.
At the last Chaos Communication Congress, Helga Velroyen discussed this and other topics around hearing aid evolution. You can find her talk at ftp://ftp.ccc.de/congress/2011/mp4-h264-HQ/28c3-4669-en-bionic_ears_h264.mp4 and a corresponding blog project at http://blog.hackandhear.com/ . While I do not have to rely on hearing aids and thus have not looked very deeply into her activities, I get the impression that she is one of the most knowledgeable persons regarding this topic in the European hacker scene.
I use Phonak hearing aids, they have an external Bluetooth gateway called iCom which is an small box with an induction loop you have to wear as a necklace. The sound quality is very good when using the phone and both hearing aids are in usage when using the Bluetooth link. This is a big plus in my case since my capability to decipher the spoken language increase significantly when using both ears vs any single ear.
As mentioned, the reason the external box is required (in fact it is almost a battery only) is the required power would drain your hearing aids batteries very quickly if you have to power the Bluetooth chip.
However, with the new BT v4 low-power for medical devices, it is likely this will change in the few next years as the manufacturer will incorporate the new BT chip and convert to the new standard.
The necklace type gateways are better than nothing, however the design could have been much better. In the case the Phonak device, the material the wire was covered with harden with the time and eventually the wire simply break by lack of flexibility at the junction with the plug. I had to replace it at least once a year and the replacement cannot be done by the customer, that means you have to send the box to the company and be deprived of it for about a week. This should have been made field replaceable. At least the audioprothesist could have done the replacement without delay.
Achille Talon
Hop!
These are toys, not real hearing aids. They just amplify the sound, it's like what I got 30 years ago. Even some of these are what my mother got 60 years ago and never really used because of the bad quality of the sound. I'm sorry, be this isn't serious stuff. Also, none of these are having BT except one model which is just a regular headset/earpiece, nothing to do with hearing aids again.
Here, in my country, the government is dealing directly with manufacturers to get the best price they can for hearing aids since they are provided for free to people with an audiologist/ORL prescription. They ensure to have medium quality devices that will last at least 6 years. The manufacturers are required to guarantee and do the repairs for the whole duration of the contract. There is two styles of hearing aids available: the analog hearing aids and the digital sound processor hearing aids. They are not the top of line products, but they are good products. The pricing is around 700-1000$/pair of hearing aids. Considering they will last six years and they quality is much more better than these toys, I think the pricing is competitive.
For the Bluetooth gateway, I had to pay 400$ for it. This is exagerated given the price of the BT chips. The hearing aids themselves are coupled with the gateway via an induction loop and a radioMF signal, so the hearing aids themselves have nothing special, the coupling with BT is all handled by the gateway.
Achille Talon
Hop!