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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

#371

Post by dsizzle »

falcolas wrote: post #336
dsizzle wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your vision could change faster than however often you need your cornea examined or whatever. Or someone may not be able to afford a doctor's visit but know they need glasses (ignoring the question of whether it's right for people to not be able to afford an eye doctor's visit). Extending your logic to other areas would end up with absurdities like needing a doctor to measure your waist size before you can buy clothe…

The impact of an improper prescription - headaches, eyestrain, creating lazy eyes - are far worse than buying pants which are too big.

You're just as likely to get the wrong prescription with an optometrist -- they're relying on your self-report after all -- except it's harder to correct, because you need to go and make another doctor appointment to have it corrected (vs using the machine again).

Also, if someone feels they would get better vision correction working with a trained professional, I'm fine with that. I only object to _requiring_ a doctor's prescription to get glasses.

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

#372

Post by t_serpico »

skellera wrote: post #363
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 was just thinking about this with the announcement of the new AirPods. Apple could really take the concert earplug market while getting great natural marketing (people wearing AirPods at concerts). Just balance and lower the volume for concerts.

Great point. They're primed for this.

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

#373

Post by grp000 »

bradknowles wrote: post #360
ansgri wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These seem to exist for quite some time, like https://www.etymotic.com/product/gun-sport-pro/

I want something a bit more selective. Like, capable of completely blocking out the sound of my wife snoring. I’m sure that I’m not the only one in this boat, but I may be one of the rare males complaining about their wife snoring.

That sounds like a really interesting problem. You'd need microphones good enough, small enough, and cheap enough to hear the signal, Signals processing/machine learning software robust enough to pick up a user-selected pattern and in a reasonable latency, and then a processor small enough and power efficient enough to process it all while again also being economical enough, and then have it last 8 hours.

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

#374

Post by babyshake »

t_serpico wrote: post #372
skellera wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was just thinking about this with the announcement of the new AirPods. Apple could really take the concert earplug market while getting great natural marketing (people wearing AirPods at concerts). Just balance and lower the volume for concerts.

Great point. They're primed for this.

I'd think that even if turned off, Airpods and similar devices act as decent earplugs in a pinch.

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

#375

Post by t-writescode »

skellera wrote: post #363
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 was just thinking about this with the announcement of the new AirPods. Apple could really take the concert earplug market while getting great natural marketing (people wearing AirPods at concerts). Just balance and lower the volume for concerts.

Are we confident that Airpods Pros (or similar) would be effective noise isolation to reduce tinnitus?

This is especially in question, to me, with the numerous reports of people getting tinnitus while wearing the airpods with noise cancellation on.

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

#376

Post by TaylorAlexander »

jleyank wrote: post #339
TaylorAlexander wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess one question is: do those things have to cost thousands of dollars? What are the primary cost components? Are the people doing these jobs highly paid? Are they highly paid because of high costs of college tuition? Would free college help lower their costs?

2+ microphones, signal processing chip, audiophile+ miniature speaker, multi-octave equalizer, intercommunication between ears/dynamic adjustment, multiple profile, remote mic, bluetooth to phone. I think the top-end in-ear musician speakers are comparable, certainly in terms of sound quality. Maybe better as they have (far) more speakers/frequency response as their users are far more critical. They're not magical bu…

How does the actual hardware compare to a $180 pair of AirPods? I wonder if basically Apple and Samsung should be making these instead of smaller medical device companies.

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

#377

Post by kumarvvr »

I don't get what prescription is required for a hearing aid?

Are there different types? Like with equalizers or volume controls?

Why can't a person, who is hard of hearing, go to a store, pick one and start using it? Granted, let FDA approve them and mandate using only FDA approved ones.

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

#378

Post by rjzzleep »

bsder wrote: post #279
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.

Actually CIEM balanced armature drivers were originally made for hearing aids. They're conceptually very similar, but most of the market is consolidated to 2 main manufacturers Knowles and Sonion(+ some niche manufacturers).

If anything the Chinese are disrupting this market, in price, volume and choice. Just like they're doing with cheap lenses such as omnivision.

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

#379

Post by unkeptbarista »

FPGAhacker wrote: post #354
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…

There are actually a good reasons not to do this. A very large part of your hearing is brain training...your brain learning how to interpret the new stimulus it is getting. You need to give your brain time to adapt to new stimulus before evaluating whether you are hearing better or not. If you are constantly fiddling with your hearing aids, you never get the benefit of training. This may not apply if your hearing los…

I've been wearing hearing aids for almost 8 years. The brain training process is real and I'm glad the audiologist explained it.

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

#380

Post by softveda »

JCM9 wrote: post #55

There are a number of healthcare areas in the US that have been protected by regulation, but it’s increasingly unclear if this is good for patients, consumers, or public health at large. The increasing sentiment seems to be probably not. Vision care is another area I’d expect to see more changes and disruption coming down the pipeline. Vision care is very important and advanced cases require special skills, but it’s…

In Australia you need to go to an Optometrist who is not a doctor, they can't prescribe medicines. There are few independent Optoms most are employed by spectacles chains nowadays. They also do retinal scan, check for glaucoma etc. No one pays for Optoms. The government pays for one free eye checkup every 2 years (used to be 1 year). The glasses and frames you have to pay. Ophthalmologists are specialists for eye diseases and needs to be referred by either GP or Optom and costs an arm and a leg. My last visit was $400+
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