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The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription

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Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription

#271

Post by mnemotronic »

jrace wrote: post #236
slownews45 wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And you are CERTAIN that the iphone could not a) conduct a hearing test b) do a hearing based EQ on incoming sound? c) do sound profiles (ie, optimize for speech?) Realize that calling already may use some of this - using microphones to pick out speech from background noise etc. For folks who have hearing issues you could have one device that would cover your movie watching, your phone calls, and hearing enhancement.…

They would need a properly calibrated set of headphones/microphones and environment to conduct a proper hearing test.

It could not. A hearing test requires an environment with exceptional isolation Don't be so picky. Or don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good enough.

Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription

#272

Post by GaylordTuring »

falcolas wrote: post #228
jjk166 wrote: post #188

> Prescription device means a device that, because of its potential for harm, the method of its use or the collateral measures necessary to its use, is not safe except under the supervision of a practitioner licensed in this state to direct the use of such device and for which "adequate directions for use" cannot be prepared How were these ever prescription devices to begin with?

Improperly tuned, they will damage your hearing - a permanent effect.

How? Because you simply amplify the sound too much?

Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription

#273

Post by MandieD »

treeman79 wrote: post #27
kristofferR wrote: post #7

Contact lenses next? It's amazingly stupid that I, as a tourist, who knows exactly what types of contacts I need, may need to get a US prescription for contacts.

I ordered an optometry kit from Amazon as my prescription changes by the hour most days. Was very interesting to play around and helped me isolate the 2 prescriptions that my eyes drift back and forth from. Something that eye doctors had given up on trying to help me.

OMG. You may end up having changed my life - it had never occurred to me that a) this was a thing I could just up and buy, and b) it really isn’t that expensive.

No more worrying that I’m about to stick myself with the wrong prescription because the optician (yes, that’s who measures you for glasses in Germany) or I lost patience trying to find the boundary between spherical and cylindrical correction, or doing this at the wrong time of day, all for less than a pair of glasses costs.

Any brand recommendations?

Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription

#274

Post by spicybright »

EastOfTruth wrote: post #198
dmurray wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've long thought the problem with hearing aids is the calibration process. People (often old, confused, and less tech-familiar) try them on and spend half an hour answering questions about "does that sound better?" What if, instead, the calibration process worked constantly? Give the user a button to press when they don't hear something well, and another when they do. Let them have this for a month, let them try it…

> What if, instead, the calibration process worked constantly? Give the user a button to press when they don't hear something well, and another when they do. On TVs, they call those buttons volume buttons, it is revolutionary.

Definitely not the same, hearing aids do a lot more signal processing than just amplifying sound.

Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription

#275

Post by joe5150 »

asciimov wrote: post #180
KennyBlanken wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Evaluating someone's eye for glasses can be done entirely by machine as can manufacturing the glasses themselves. I do not understand why we still force people to spend 5-10 minutes sitting in a chair in a dark room going "better....no...worse...better..."

The machines can't gauge for personal preference. Many people don't like their vision right at 20/20. I personally like mine closer to 20/15.

This I think has a lot to do with individual experiences with optometrists. I went to probably half a dozen optometrists since adolescence before I happened to end up with one who actually made it clear there's a degree of subjectivity with an eyeglass prescription.

Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription

#276

Post by bluGill »

radicaldreamer wrote: post #172
tristor wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bigger issue is that a prescription alone is not enough to order new glasses, you also need pupillary distance measurements in order to ensure the lenses are ground correctly. Many many optometrists will not provide these, only the legally obligated prescription. While for most people who have minimum prescriptions you can use a phone app or similar to get a rough PD, for anyone with serious prescriptions even mi…

I asked about 3 times for a PD measurement at my last exam and they distracted me and failed to put it on the prescription or measure it... didn't realize this was probably intentional

Last time I got glasses I bought from them, and asked about swim goggles - which they don't carry. They then happily wrote my PD on a paper for me to use when buying swim goggles - or anything else. (too bad I lost the paper since...)

Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription

#278

Post by luckydata »

tshaddox wrote: post #26
kristofferR wrote: post #7

Contact lenses next? It's amazingly stupid that I, as a tourist, who knows exactly what types of contacts I need, may need to get a US prescription for contacts.

Is this really a problem in practice? I've always had a valid prescription when I buy glasses, but at the glasses store I just flash them the prescription on my phone for a few seconds. It's a PDF on official looking letterhead, but I don't think there's any verification. I suppose it's probably not the best idea to fake an eyeglass prescription, but it certainly seems like it would be very easy to do.

In California I couldn't buy anything without a US prescription when I immigrated, everyone refused it.

Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription

#279

Post by bsder »

gpt5 wrote: post #244

We are seeing a long term consolidation between hearing devices and headphones. On the headphones side, we are getting smaller, truly-wireless headphones with some ambient sound features (such as noise cancellation, and iOS hearing features). New trends like AR would just accelerate the change due to the need to solve all day worn audio devices. On the hearing aids side, almost every hearing aid today acts as an alwa…

I know people complain about price, but custom in-ear monitors for musicians are on the same scale of price as hearing aids. Good in-ear monitors like good earphones are expensive.

I suspect, like the earphone market, this is going to become a marketing-driven race to the bottom that swamps any genuine technical improvement.

Re: The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription

#280

Post by jjk166 »

falcolas wrote: post #228
jjk166 wrote: post #188

> Prescription device means a device that, because of its potential for harm, the method of its use or the collateral measures necessary to its use, is not safe except under the supervision of a practitioner licensed in this state to direct the use of such device and for which "adequate directions for use" cannot be prepared How were these ever prescription devices to begin with?

Improperly tuned, they will damage your hearing - a permanent effect.

That doesn't make them unsafe. Plenty of devices can damage your hearing but are still perfectly safe to operate.

I fail to see how adequate directions for use could not be prepared.

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