Anyone have experiences with Audio Induction Loops? • Hacker News Board

Re: Anyone have experiences with Audio Induction Loops?

#41

Post by dmi » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 6:34 PM UTC

sh4rkb0y wrote: post #21

dmi wrote: post #5

Hearing aids are at a frustrating crossroads at the moment, IMO. In my experience, a lot of the recent hearing aids don't seem to support induction loops. It often seems to be a choice between that or Bluetooth... and Auracast isn't ready yet. I've had Phonak bilateral hearing aids for 5 years, and Starkey unilateral for ~5 years before that. None of those have supported induction loops.

At the same time, those that have hearing aids often complain that T-coils aren't properly set up or turned on, even in public building where they are required to (at least in Norway). "Yes, we have T-coils, but the person responsible for it isn't here right now, and no one here knows how to use it." So, still quite a few limited factors to their actual usefulness in society unfortunately.

Yes, it's amazing how often hearing assistance systems are either unusable (due to bad sound, e.g. hiss or distortion or volume issues) or just flat-out don't work here in the UK.

Re: Anyone have experiences with Audio Induction Loops?

#42

Post by rjmunro » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 7:03 PM UTC

sh4rkb0y wrote: post #21

dmi wrote: post #5

Hearing aids are at a frustrating crossroads at the moment, IMO. In my experience, a lot of the recent hearing aids don't seem to support induction loops. It often seems to be a choice between that or Bluetooth... and Auracast isn't ready yet. I've had Phonak bilateral hearing aids for 5 years, and Starkey unilateral for ~5 years before that. None of those have supported induction loops.

At the same time, those that have hearing aids often complain that T-coils aren't properly set up or turned on, even in public building where they are required to (at least in Norway). "Yes, we have T-coils, but the person responsible for it isn't here right now, and no one here knows how to use it." So, still quite a few limited factors to their actual usefulness in society unfortunately.

> ... those that have hearing aids often complain ...

When I do sound at church, I always wish they would complain more. I assumed it was working, but one day found that the power cable for the loop system was not connected. I plugged it back in, and spoke to a hearing aid user about it and they said it hadn't been working for weeks. Why they (or all the other hearing aid users) hadn't mentioned it before I don't know...

Re: Anyone have experiences with Audio Induction Loops?

#43

Post by Luc » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 7:14 PM UTC

blueflow wrote: post #34

Luc wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not embedded, just dropped into your ear canal. I bought it maybe 15 years ago on eBay, so it's nothing new.

Dare to tell what you used it for? Or would you risk loosing some degree or something if you speak about it?

Wow the kids with my new found gift of telepathy. Plugged it into an iPhone mini-jack.

It was meant to be part of a roulette wheel prediction computer that never came to full fruition.

Re: Anyone have experiences with Audio Induction Loops?

#44

Post by Luc » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 7:16 PM UTC

superxpro12 wrote: post #29

Luc wrote: post #14

You can use a 9V battery powered amplifier with a loop around your neck to make a tiny permanent magnet placed in your ear canal vibrate against your ear drum. It doesn't generate hi-fi sound, but speech is remarkably clear. Great for magic tricks. Or cheating at exams I suppose.

I think the copper ring around your neck a.la Will Smith in Wild Wild West may clue in the test proctor to some suspicious activities

It was very thin, sewed into a 'wife beater' undershirt. You wouldn't notice it even if you're looking at it. In fact I'm pretty sure it was sold for the purpose of cheating on exams.

Re: Anyone have experiences with Audio Induction Loops?

#45

Post by blueflow » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 7:43 PM UTC

Luc wrote: post #43

blueflow wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dare to tell what you used it for? Or would you risk loosing some degree or something if you speak about it?

Wow the kids with my new found gift of telepathy. Plugged it into an iPhone mini-jack. It was meant to be part of a roulette wheel prediction computer that never came to full fruition.

Okay this is legit hilarious.

Re: Anyone have experiences with Audio Induction Loops?

#46

Post by ErroneousBosh » Thu, Jan 08, 2026, 10:25 PM UTC

dmi wrote: post #40

ErroneousBosh wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the lecture theatre and classrooms at work, we've gone over to IR transmitters and a neckworn loop, which is apparently better for everyone. You can also just use it with IR headphones, which suits certain flavours of neurospicy.

Not a bad option for a lecture theatre, but it's worth noting that IR is line-of-sight and can be easily interrupted by people moving or the receiver twisting as you shift position. Multiple emitters can help with some of this, but there are still challenges.

I'll try and get a pic of the setup next time I'm down there. There are these kind of pyramid domes in the ceiling with emitters.

Re: Anyone have experiences with Audio Induction Loops?

#47

Post by simne » Fri, Jan 09, 2026, 7:15 PM UTC

anamexis wrote: post #18

simne wrote: post #13

Amateurs in USSR 50 years ago made wireless and powerless headphones, which use wire lay on perimeter of room to transfer sound and power. In headphones there is tiny coil. It really work and very reliable, but result coil (size of room) have very large reactive resistance, so it is nearly impossible to transfer even high frequencies, only low (bass) and medium, so it workable for speech but music is heavily distorte…

Could you use multiple coils for different bands?

You could transfer different bands via different coils on different frequencies, but unfortunately, capacity of information channel is limited by frequency. Because of this, radio using high frequency waves as carrier (radio or light, or even some sort of invisible rays), not coil, and have hassle with some sort of modulation of waves.

This mean, you could not transfer more information than half of maximum frequency.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon%E2%80%93Hartley_theore...

Very good channels with very high signal to noise ratio, could handle more bits than Shannon limit (on engineers slang "channel is ringing", such example is fiber channel).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon%E2%80%93Hartley_theore...

Most modern research also consider some digital techniques of sound (information) compressing, like use LLM as (de)compressor (google llm compression algorithms).