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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?

#131

Post by mapt »

thfuran wrote: post #46
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…

They only get a couple hours better life even with a belt pack to fit more battery?

A belt pack can fit a battery literally ~1000x as large as a hearing aid battery.

Is there a little computer doing DAW work inside the earpiece?

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

#132

Post by foundart »

Sammi wrote: post #107
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.

These were great and I am always on the lookout for something similar, but no luck so far.

I also liked that there was a neckband - easy to take the buds out when not needed and leave them hanging, and of course more power in a larger battery.

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

#133

Post by oflebbe »

az226 wrote: post #55

Widex Moment 440. They’re expensive but really good.

I had the chance to test Moment while my Widex Evoke 440 had been in repair. They are indeed a lot better as the Evoke, sounding wise, while having only mild hearing loss. But they are still only MFI (can only connect to an iphone) and since I am migrating away from Apples ecosystem this will be a blocker.

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

#134

Post by Semaphor »

dts-five wrote: post #117
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…

I posted this standalone, but replying to you since you specifically asked about HAs in noisy environments. The newest HAs have AI that helps in noisy environments. The ones I have are the Phonak Audéo Sphere Infinio I90s. I've worn HAs for 40 years. It's truly unbelievable in noisy environments. I know it's easy to think it's all marketing garbage, but some great demos on YT of the technology. I keep them in AI mode…

Sadly I can’t afford high end HAs. And from what I’ve read, you don’t really get HA prescriptions for stuff like APD with no hearing loss.

But it’s cool that this stuff is now integrated, hopefully those advancements will eventually trickle down further, from what I’ve now read, the AirPod Pro feature is a bit of that trickle.

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

#135

Post by pugworthy »

Thegn wrote: post #126
SkipperCat wrote: post #124

Has anyone had and experience using hearing aids to deal with tinnitus? I've got some small hearing loss in the high frequencies and I'm looking at getting fitted for hearing aids to help boost those frequencies. The hope is to train my brain to stop replacing the deficit of sound with the monotone tinnitus noise. I've tried some OTC hearing aids (Sony & Sennheiser) but its been hit or miss. I'm going to try whatever…

I have mild tinnitus, and I don’t really notice it at all when my hearing aids are in. (Phillips, got them at Costco) Sadly, it’s a lot more noticeable once I take them out. I am still waiting for that electrostimulation therapy I read about a few years ago to pan out.

Same. When in I don’t notice it much but do when not wearing them.

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

#136

Post by mapt »

adinisom wrote: post #69
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…

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 sounds awkward.

The tech for isolating a speaker at conversational distances exists. You use half a dozen microphone transducers (minimum; Crappy microphone transducers are cheap and quality is expensive, so just use a bunch of them), and through a combination of phase and intensity they decode relative location, and amplify that phase expectation while suppressing everything that isn't phased like that. Sound is slow, and readily susceptible to real-time triangulation. The math/processing is much easier if the parallaxes are fixed (eg the microphones are arranged in a line array on the top band of a rigid pair of smart glasses), but with a little latency it's not prohibitive for a deformable array to solve for its own relative position as well.

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

#137

Post by embedding-shape »

tlar wrote: post #127

I'm not going to give a direct recommendation on the hearing aids themselves as my personal options have been pretty limited due to profound hearing loss. I can say, however, that hearing aids are not the only thing that helps - especially with meetings/noisy environments. I [recently wrote an article][0] going over my journey, but the recent technology that significantly improved my life has been live captions in gl…

> Specifically, the ones from [Captify][1].

Looks and seems great, always felt like a no-brainer use case for the smart glasses. But considering the kind of hardware they most likely are using, how is the captioning actually happening? I'm really scared of getting hardware that is 100% cloud dependent, as eventually the company gets bought or shut down, and then you end up having to repeat the process of figuring out what to buy next, and sometimes that just one or two years in the future.

They are not making it clear how the captioning is happening, but since they don't claim it'll continue working even if the company disappears/shuts down, one can be safe to assume it's a cloud product, meaning it won't actually be a good fit for most people out there with a limited amount of money to spend on things like these.

Edit: I realize now this product is not at all for people like me, "Boost caption accuracy up to 98%" and "More accurate translations" are locked behind a $15/month subscription, kind of disgusting how they hide making the product work as it should behind a subscription.

I just want some simple glasses that can caption what people are saying without ripping me off, I guess we're too late into capitalism for that to actually be made for consumer.

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

#139

Post by tlar »

embedding-shape wrote: post #137
tlar wrote: post #127

I'm not going to give a direct recommendation on the hearing aids themselves as my personal options have been pretty limited due to profound hearing loss. I can say, however, that hearing aids are not the only thing that helps - especially with meetings/noisy environments. I [recently wrote an article][0] going over my journey, but the recent technology that significantly improved my life has been live captions in gl…

> Specifically, the ones from [Captify][1]. Looks and seems great, always felt like a no-brainer use case for the smart glasses. But considering the kind of hardware they most likely are using, how is the captioning actually happening? I'm really scared of getting hardware that is 100% cloud dependent, as eventually the company gets bought or shut down, and then you end up having to repeat the process of figuring out…

They can do local transcription without internet but you do need their app, so the glasses would be useless if the company died, yes.

That said, the paid subscription has some useful features, but I personally don't care about multi-languages translation. The rest of the conversational improvements seem to help but I don't think they're necessary... although I don't know what they mean with "Boost caption accuracy". Maybe using more expensive models?

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