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Ask HN: Hearing aid wearers, what's hot?

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Re: Ask HN: Hearing aid wearers, what's hot?

#101

Post by monerozcash »

Semaphor wrote: post #74
exceptione wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Re: Ask HN: Hearing aid wearers, what's hot?

#102

Post by icoder »

retrac wrote: post #5

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…

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?

Re: Ask HN: Hearing aid wearers, what's hot?

#103

Post by [deleted] »

pugworthy wrote: post #23
dhosek wrote: post #17

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 b…

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 tec…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: Hearing aid wearers, what's hot?

#104

Post by Semaphor »

monerozcash wrote: post #101
Semaphor wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 :/

Re: Ask HN: Hearing aid wearers, what's hot?

#105

Post by cheschire »

dhosek wrote: post #17

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 b…

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.

Re: Ask HN: Hearing aid wearers, what's hot?

#106

Post by stevenjgarner »

EionRobb wrote: post #45
stevenjgarner wrote: post #31

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 y…

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.

Re: Ask HN: Hearing aid wearers, what's hot?

#107

Post by Sammi »

Semaphor wrote: post #18

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 lo…

Bose used to make these noise cancelling earphones called the Hearphones that could focus on the speech of person in front of you and they were amazing:

https://support.bose.com/s/product/hearphones-conversationen...

I absolute loved them, but unfortunately lost them, and they are irreplaceable.

Re: Ask HN: Hearing aid wearers, what's hot?

#108

Post by mschuster91 »

Doohickey-d wrote: post #53
fouc wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 think the Macbook does some more advanced beamforming stuff to filter out sound coming from other directions.

It does, and that also gave the Asahi Linux team some serious headache when trying to get the microphones working on the ARM MacBooks - the team involved in that had to delve deep into DSP black magic to get usable sound working out of the three microphones [1].

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43461701

Re: Ask HN: Hearing aid wearers, what's hot?

#109

Post by nickf »

dmcc7897 wrote: post #100
nickf wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

That's interesting - thank you! Can I ask where you saw the (limited) information? Hearingtracker forum seems devoid of info on the Zeal and accessories (likely due to the limited fitting range) - but I'd be curious if Oticon are planning a smaller, lower-capacity charger!

Re: Ask HN: Hearing aid wearers, what's hot?

#110

Post by qart »

JSR_FDED wrote: post #42

What about bone conduction headphones (like Shokz) typically used for swimming and running?

I have had my hearing tested at an audiologist. My hearing curves are identical with air conduction and bone conduction. There are very few cases where bone conduction might be better, like when something is obstructing air conduction. But with most people, bone conduction headphones will not help. I have been a regular user of Shokz for around 4 years now. They have other advantages (and disadvantages).
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