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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

#431

Post by degrews »

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.

What? Doesn't 20/20, 20/15 etc. refer to visual acuity (how much detail you can see from a certain distance)? Are there people who prefer anything but the highest possible visual acuity?

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

#432

Post by jrace »

jjk166 wrote: post #359
falcolas wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know when something is too loud without measuring it? If your answer is "ringing ears", you've already incurred at least some hearing damage. Do you have the tools to measure how loud your headphones are? I don't. And so I keep them as low as I can. Is there a limiter in amplifying headphones to keep them from going above a certain threshold (like 80Db)?

Why would you be trying to find the point at which it is too loud? The goal is to amplify things to the point that you can hear them clearly, not to go beyond that. Also hearing aids have manual volume control which a licensed professional has no influence over, so that doesn't really make sense as a justification for limiting availability. It's certainly possible to apply volume limiting to headphones, though again…

When you have hearing loss you also have decreased loudness threshold levels, which will be freq specific. It is important that you do not exceed these levels, both for comfort and for speech understanding.

hearing loss is far more than just "make it louder".

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

#433

Post by wrycoder »

8ytecoder wrote: post #399
wrycoder wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My AirPod Pros with transparency mode enabled and set to max volume and treble don’t provide as much gain as my MDHearingAid pair ($400), and the external sound quality isn’t as good. Apple has a real opportunity here, and they are slow in seizing it. I suspect some kind of an arrangement with the hearing aid manufacturers regarding iPhone-ready hearing aids. The name of the game here is to allow people to dial in th…

Have you tried the new accessibility options in the latest firmware? You can now feed in an audiogram as well as enable conversation boost via that

Yes, I’ve done that. I’m hoping that 15.1 next week will make some improvements.

Apple could have such a great product here, if they would just add gain comparable to the currently available hearing assist devices, and then add compression, equalization, and clipping of loud noises.

Simple amplification isn’t enough.

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

#434

Post by zucked »

some_random wrote: post #430
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…

>This trend would make hearing aids not just target hearing impaired people, but also individual with normal hearing. For example, features such as protecting your ears against a sudden loud noise, silencing a loud restaurant so you can have a quiet conversation or improving the audio of a soft speaker could be useful for everyone. Amusingly this already exists, there are a bunch of ear muffs (and some in ear equival…

Having just experienced a pair of these, it was incredible. I don't have extensive hearing loss beyond what being a teenager listening to music too loud will do for you, but the way these headphones relayed "normal" sounds while rejecting "loud" sounds was one of those - "why aren't these more popular?" moments. It felt truly superhero-esque.

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

#435

Post by 3pt14159 »

zucked wrote: post #434
some_random wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This trend would make hearing aids not just target hearing impaired people, but also individual with normal hearing. For example, features such as protecting your ears against a sudden loud noise, silencing a loud restaurant so you can have a quiet conversation or improving the audio of a soft speaker could be useful for everyone. Amusingly this already exists, there are a bunch of ear muffs (and some in ear equival…

Having just experienced a pair of these, it was incredible. I don't have extensive hearing loss beyond what being a teenager listening to music too loud will do for you, but the way these headphones relayed "normal" sounds while rejecting "loud" sounds was one of those - "why aren't these more popular?" moments. It felt truly superhero-esque.

I echo these sentiments. It's a truly surreal experience if you're comfortable with firearms.

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

#436

Post by etherealG »

bookofjoe wrote: post #425
babyshake wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

When I'm outside running on sidewalks along city streets, music via AirPods Pro with Noise Cancellation turned on sounds a bit better BUT I prefer to keep this feature turned off in favor of being able to hear ambient cars etc.

I’ve spent hours trying to find a review of transparent mode on AirPods or any other similar transparency modes with regards to reducing wind noise amplification while still allowing sounds of cars etc. through. I’m looking for a good solution to listening to music while riding a bike that’s safe but better sound quality than bone conduction. Sadly I can’t find any objective measurement of these combinations of noise cancellation and pass through. I can’t even find a review that mentions if this is how pass through is meant to work vs just passing along all sounds. If the latter then wind noise pass through sounds like a good way to completely ruin your hearing. I guess these days all we can find is marketing and reviews that amount to puff pieces with rare exceptions.

Would you be willing to give a personal experience? Have you tried transparent mode in windy conditions?

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

#437

Post by lupire »

jrace wrote: post #164
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?

My opinion: do those things have to cost thousands of dollars? --yes and no, costs could come down, but in the lifetime of a hearing aid it could be replaced 3 times or more at no charge to the user. What are the primary cost components? The primary components are: Microphone {cheap to produce} Receiver (speaker) {cheap to produce} Processing Chip {expensive to R&D, cheap to produce} Are the people doing these jobs h…

Replacement should be an insurance offer like the rest of electronics.

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

#438

Post by lupire »

gramie wrote: post #346
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?

One of the costs built into hearing aids is the lavish perks that the suppliers give to the audiologists. My partner got a trip for two to the Caribbean every year, to 5-star resorts, for selling a certain number of their hearing aids. There were about 60 people in our group, probably costing well over $5,000 each.

What's that divided by # of hearing aids sold?

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

#439

Post by MisterTea »

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.

> Just balance and lower the volume for concerts.

Or just buy a decent set of earplugs that dont require charging, bluetooth or $200.

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

#440

Post by onemoresoop »

bradknowles wrote: post #368
coupdejarnac wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not to mention lost productivity. I wonder what the dollar amount for my lost productivity over my lifetime due to poor sleep would be. Probably very high.

My CPAP totally changed my life. I had no idea how horrible my sleep had been before. I refuse to sleep a single night without it.

Did you experience Aerophagia and any weight gain when you got on the CPAP? I hear a lot of people have this issue..
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