Our Hearing Aid & Hearing Healthcare Articles

RemoteCare works a bit like FaceTime in that you can video-call with your provider, but also, they can alter your hearing aids and then send the updates directly to your ears over the app.

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I’ve been happily wearing a pair of Oticon More for about four years now. Just recently I noticed that the rechargeable battery in the right ear wasn’t holding its charge for as long as it used to. Previously, I could charge the aids overnight and wear them for a whole day with no worries about battery power.

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I've been wearing a pair of Oticon OPN 2 hearing aids during that time and its a sign of how great they've been that I haven't really had to think about them or to worry about hearing loss.

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Sonova has finally released products suitable for the OTC hearing aid market in the US with the release of two Senheisser products. The Senheisser All Day Clear and All Day Slim represent the culmination of both their ongoing experimentation with direct to consumer models and the overarching brand strategy for the acquisition of Senheisser. They are interesting products and it should be interesting to see how the buying public react.

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It must be EUHA time again, every manufacturer is announcing the launch of new products. Phonak, not to be outdone has announced the launch of a new hearing aid platform they are calling Lumity. Rechargeable models only, I wonder how the buying public will react to that?

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ReSound announced the launch of a new hearing aid platform they are calling Omnia on the 16th of August. The platform will initially be available in Receiver In Canal devices and the rollout will begin on the 25th of August in the US and Canada. Here is what we know.

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I have been missing in action more or less for the last nine months, I want to tell you why. I also want to right an injustice served by me and finally share some learnings handed down to me.

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It irritates me greatly when I hear that someone in my profession is taking the piss out of consumers, it really irks me. A friend of mine wrote a cautionary tale on his website recently that drove it home that slightly shady practices are still a feature in some parts of our business. So let me tell you about the man that was recommended a £4,000 fix for a £4 hearing aid problem.

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ReSound announces the launch of a new hearing aid model, a hearing aid that will hide in plain sight. Their new rechargeable custom hearing devices look very like wireless earbuds and fit well into that new and growing segment. It should be interesting to see how this segment pans out over the next few years and just how welcoming the marketplace will be.

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I got a hold of a pair of Jabra Enhance Plus earphone hearing aids quite a while ago. Because of a series of events in my personal life they never got reviewed, which was a shame, because they aren't bad at all. So, I am finally fixing that.

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Slim-RICs were first introduced by Signia with their Styletto model. The audiological world was divided, some liked it and some hated it. Obviously Phonak considered the model type as a winner because they have just introduced their own type of Slim RIC for the Paradise platform

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One of the more fascinating devices recently introduced by Phonak is the new Audeo Paradise Fit. The devices will work with a special receiver with a heart rate sensor embedded in it. Not only will it help you hear better but it will also help you track your activity and heart rate.

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Phonak announced the introduction of three new models to the Paradise range. While they had already discussed their new waterproof rechargeable device, the new Fit and Slim models were kept secret up to now. The models represent a step towards Phonak hearing aids being more holistic health devices, one of them also represents the first hearing aid with in-ear sensors for bio readings.

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I have been very quiet on here since December 21, and almost non-existent during February and March. Unfortunately, there are reasons for that which I will explain, I will also give a quick round-up of what has been happening while I have been gone.

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Had a nice chap from Iowa ask a question about the latest Bluetooth version, he had been doing some reading and he had seen several terms mentioned. There was BT 5.2, LE Audio and finally LC3, he was struggling to work out whether it was all the same thing. So spoiler alert, two of them are pretty much the same thing and one is something that works with it. So let's talk Bluetooth.

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Jabra has received 510K clearance from the FDA for their Enhance Plus earbuds. It means that the devices can now be sold as self-fit hearing aids in the US. The press release says that the devices will be sold in the offices of hearing care professionals for $799, which doesn't include any professional services. It is just another example of the expansion of hearing aid provision that we expect to see explode this year.

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Hands-free call capability for Apple products is beginning to expand across the hearing aid manufacturers. ReSound, Signia and Oticon have all made announcements in relation to the roll out of the feature to their latest hearing aids over the last few months.

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ReSound has announced the expansion of their One range with two rechargeable Behind The Ear hearing aids. The devices offer the One technology to people who prefer BTE styles over receiver in canal devices.

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Artificial Intelligence, we hear more about it every day and in the recent past, it has become a feature mentioned in association with the latest hearing aid technology. But what is it and what benefit could it bring for people with hearing loss? In this article, George Newton explores the technology and what it may mean for hearing aid wearers moving forward.

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As I said in the last article, 2022 will see a major change in the opportunities to purchase hearing aids in the US. I believe that there will be seven possible hearing aid purchase models available to consumers in the US. I also think that those models will spread globally over the next few years. Let's take a look at the possible models and the choices that consumers may have available to them.

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We can expect 2022 to be one of those years for hearing aids, a seminal year, one where evrything moving forward is different from what went before. While we expect the OTC regulations to be finally published, a couple of recent events are harbingers of the future. No matter what, you can expect the provision of hearing aids to change forever in the United States next year. The question is though, will it be a good or bad thing for consumers?

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Lively Hearing launched in 2019 offering online sales of ReSound hearing aids to the States. In an interesting move, GN has acquired the company and will now have direct access to the largest telehealth market in the world. I think we can expect some interesting moves from Lively Hearing as the OTC and DTC hearing aid market begins to grow once the regulations are in place.

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HelloGo is Sonova's new direct to consumer offering in the Australian market, sold online for $1599 a pair. The devices and the strategy are interesting and it is obvious that Sonova has put lessons learned from their Shift Hearing offering into action. While you can buy the aids online and fit them yourself, you can also avail of a Pro Service Package as an added extra priced at $250. This type of blended model makes a lot of sense, both for the customer and the company. Let's take a look at HelloGo

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Bluetooth hearing aids have been with us for many years now, and they are becoming ubiquitous. But not all Bluetooth hearing aids are the same; the different protocols provide different capabilities. The new Bluetooth 5.2 protocol will eventually make this article meaningless, but until then, this is what you need to know so you can decide what flavour of Bluetooth is right for you.

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The explantion of hearing aid features never fails to amuse me, more often than not deep gobbledy gook full of insider phrases. Anyway, I decided to have a go at translating the features available in the new Signia AX range into plain English, you can thank me later.

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Signia introduced the rechargeable custom hearing aid on the AX range at the beginning of November, they also introduced some other models including a new smaller Styletto, and a host of CROS styles. It is interesting to see that nearly all the models are rechargeable, with one lone Pure 312 powered by zinc-air batteries. Rechargeables are hugely popular in the marketplace, maybe we are seeing a drop in demand for traditionally powered hearing aids.

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Hands-free phone calls with hearing aids have been unique to Phonak and Unitron up to now. But ReSound has just announced the introduction of the feature for their ReSound One hearing aids connected to iPhones and iPads. It's an exciting development and it provides One users with a whole new level of convenience

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The ActiveVent is a fantastic idea, the concept makes total sense for people with good low-frequency hearing. It is an active feature during any sort of audio streaming and in very noisy situations. I have been wearing ActiveVents receivers for a couple of weeks now, first with instant fit tips, and then with custom made titanium tips. Here is what you need to know.

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I came across a really interesting company and website recently called Tuned Care. They offer remote sessions with registered hearing care professionals to answer questions and give advice. The site also offers a marketplace where consumers can purchase situational solutions for differing hearing issues. The key thing is that the consultation services are separated from the marketplace, so none of the hearing care professionals profit from the sales of the devices. So that is virtual hearing care sessions where the professional is not invested in the sale of a device. It is a fascinating premise and nearly the same in concept as Steve has discussed here on Know. The key to their success will be how you, the consumer, will react to it.

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After what seems like a very long time, Widex has introduced Android audio streaming for the Moment platform with the release of the 1.4 Moment App update. Knowing Widex as I do, they probably spent the longest time making sure it actually worked and offered stability, they can be quite pedantic like that.

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The explosion of non-traditional tech designed to help people hear better in the last year or so has fascinated me. It seems that more players are considering the wider needs of an underserved population who might want to hear better sometimes, without using hearing aids. Noopl is one such device, an iPhone peripheral that uses directional microphones and Chatable's AI to help people hear better in noisy situations. The device is fascinating, it can be used with either Airpods Pro, which will automatically steer the directional microphones or Made For iPhone hearing aids. I recently gave it a whirl, let's talk about my experiences.

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The guys at Hearing Health and Technology Matters asked us to contribute to a new podcast series they are running on the changing landscape of hearing technology. I have to say, both of us quite enjoyed the conversation and it helped us realise a couple of things about the service we offer on Know. Anyway, here is the podcast details, it is split into two videos on Youtube or, you can download an audio version.

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Rechargeable In The Ear hearing aids are a rare beast at the minute, up to recently, Starkey was the only manufacturer with the devices available. Funnily enough, Signia introduced them on the AX range, but didn't make a big deal about it. The Signia Insio C&G AX is a wireless rechargeable device that offers both Made For iPhone and Made For Android connectivity.

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Starkey announced the introduction of their latest platform of hearing aids they are calling Evolv AI on a virtual launch recently. The Evolv AI range will now include a Bluetooth CIC device and the renderings show it as a true CIC. While that in itself is exciting, they say that they have further refined their Edge mode and reduced the impact of noise with their latest strategies

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Oticon appears to be drip feeding the market with model types for the More range, they have now announced the introduction of a zinc-air powered mini-RITE-t device. That's a Receiver In The Ear hearing aid with a telecoil onboard powered by a 312 battery. They have also announced that they are introducing a new CROS device and a charger that provides mobile use and has a couple of charges onboard.

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Phonak has announced the introduction of a new hearing aid model, the Audeo Life. The new model is re-designed slightly with a new case, but the big news is that it is both waterproof and rechargeable. The Audeo Life will be available on the Paradise range and it is coming soon.

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There are so many hearing aid brands and hearing aid retailers across the world, but many of them are actually owned by some of the big hearing aid players. For instance, Connect Hearing in Canada and the US is owned by Sonova, the corporation that owns Phonak amongst other brands. Hidden Hearing in the UK is owned by Demant, the owner of the Oticon brand. Hearing Tracker, a website in the US has published a map of the industry with all the pertinent details for a couple of years now. They have just released a newly designed up to date version on their website and it will help you to understand who you are dealing with and if they are owned by a hearing aid manufacturer.

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Are you having problems hearing clearly in certain situations, maybe when you are in a noisy restaurant or in a meeting? Just occasional problems from time to time but they are irritating right? But you aren't ready for hearing aids, you don't see the benefit to investment ratio. Well, there is an ever growing list of products that offer you a possible solution, let's talk about the ever growing list of situational solutions and what they can offer you.

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I have been recently wearing the new Active Pro devices from Signia. The devices are an interesting departure from the form factor of traditional in the ear aids, designed to look more like wireless earbuds than hearing aids. I see one issue with them but I am not sure if the target market for the devices will care. While they are really decent hearing aids, they don't compare well to wireless earbuds, let me explain what I mean.

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I have said more than once that I can't understand why GN hasn't delivered a hearable up to now, it is probably the one company with the experience and product offerings to make it a no-brainer. They have the hearing aid legacy of ReSound and the huge audio legacy of Jabra, I always believed that they could leverage both to deliver a hearable type device that would be world-class. Anyway, they have finally done it, a collaboration between Jabra and the hearing aid division will see the release of the new Jabra Enhance Plus wireless earbuds later this year. They promise to be outstanding wireless earbuds with self-customised hearing enhancement for people with mild to moderate hearing loss, lets' talk Jabra Enhance Plus.

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I think many professionals and users will be happy. that finally after years of drought, Phonak has finally introduced a new CROS that will work with the Paradise platform. They have also introduced a new rather interesting receiver for the Paradise RIC platform. While a new receiver may seem like something that isn't usually celebrated, their new ActiveVent is a sea change intelligent vent receiver. Of course, as with any tech, it has some pros and cons.

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The Roger devices from Phonak are truly outstanding at what they do, if you have real problems with speech discrimination in noisy situations, they are a god send. Phonak has now introduced a new Roger device that blends the best of their Roger Pen and Roger Select in one device. Roger On will allow you to use it either as a pointing device or a desktop microphone depending on the situation you find your self in. Let's talk about Roger devices, why you might use them and what benefit you can expect.

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In the last article, Steve bravely discussed the mistakes he made when it came to addressing his hearing loss. It reminded me of a study that was sent to us by Clear Living in relation to the impact of hearingloss. The study involved 3,700 users and it discussed the impact that hearing loss had on the mental well being and lifestyles of those people. It is enlightening reading.

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I've been wearing hearing aids for 28+ years, it hasn't always been plain sailing. Look back, I've made some bad decisions about my hearing loss and they are common choices that people often make. I've done these, many other people are too, maybe you are as well.

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The new AX platform from Signia marks an interesting step forward in the strategy to deal with background noise. Using separate sound processors to handle different inputs appears to lead to a marked reduction in the effects of background noise. They have also brought their fantastic mobile charging case to the Charge & Go alongside a new charging and drying case. It will be interesting to see what both professionals and users will make of the new hearing aids.

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A recent study released in the US indicates that moderate or worse hearing loss is 40% higher in women with Osteoporosis than the general population. While the actual causation isn't well understood, it means that if you have osteoporosis, it is worth your time to get regular hearing tests.

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With the recent announcements from both Apple and Google, it appears that a slew of new abilities including hands-free calls will be coming to all hearing aids later this year. Unfortunately, and as usual, with the possible exception of the Oticon More, it will only be available for new hearing aids and new phones, here is what you need to know.

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The last two articles covered innovation and technology both inside and outside the traditional hearing aid industry. We looked at the different channels for the purchase of devices and the exciting technology coming to the fore in the augmented audio world. In this article I look at what the future of hearing aid buying will look like.

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In part one of this article I discussed the latest innovations and changes in the more traditional hearing aid world. In this article I would like to look at the advancements in augmented audio in consumer electronics and other offerings to help people correct hearing problems. I also want to take a look at what it could all mean for the future. In five to ten years, will hearing aids and the provision model we now know still exist? If it does, what will it look like and what other competing solutions and provision models will exist?

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There have been many interesting events recently pertaining to both hearing loss correction, hearing aids and indeed the provision of hearing devices. Recent entries into the hearing aid market possibly signal great change moving forward, more than that, the innovation and development around artificial intelligence could mean great change. Where does that leave both hearing aid users and the current traditional model of provision though? No crystal ball here, just intelligent what ifs.

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Lexie hearing has just announced a new partnership with Walgreens that will see Lexie Lumen hearing aids available in select Walgreens stores in the US. The partnership makes a lot of sense for both players, it means a wider audience for Lexie, and a pretty hassle free hearing aid offering for Walgreens. Here is what you need to know.

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Well the mystical unicorn that Bose hearing aids were have finally solidified and to be honest, I don't think they are nearly as exciting as many people thought they might be. Bose announced the introduction of their SoundControl hearing aids which will be self programming and offered direct to consumers. Here is what you need to know.

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Unitron announced the introduction of their new Blu hearing aid platform in April. The platform will be powered by the PRISM chipset from Sonova, the new chipset that powers the Paradise platform among others. Even though they are a stablemate of Phonak, Unitron has always walked their own path with features and strategies. The Blu should be no different.

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The entry of Sonova to the consumer electronics world with the purchase of the Sennheiser consumer division is just another step in the journey to normalise hearing technology and drive early adoption first started by trailblazers like NuHeara and Alango. I think it could also be a boon for hearing care professionals who are willing to grasp the opportunities and run with them. One way or the other, it is a good thing for consumers and fits within the wider drive for augmented audio.

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Costco US have been selling their Kirkland 10 hearing aid for a super-cheap price of $1399 for a few months now, Costco UK has now followed suit are selling the same for £1149. The Kirkland 10 is basically the Phonak Paradise under another name.

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Signia announced the launch of a new earpod style hearing aid device they are calling Active. The devices are a hybrid with fully functional, high-technology hearing aid features packed into a wireless earbuds style device. It is an interesting move designed to both tap into growing familiarisation with wireless earbuds and address stigma issues for some new hearing aid users. It will be interesting to see how it works out for them, other manufacturers have worked along similar if different lines, think Virto Black from Phonak or the rechargeable Edge custom from Starkey. I am not sure how successful these have been in relation to overcoming stigma, but Signia has pretty much gone the whole hog by adopting a completely new form factor. Here is what you need to know.

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The Naida from Phonak has a long legacy as one of the premium offerings for people with severe to profound hearing loss. It is only in recent years that it has been challenged by the ReSound Enzo and the Oticon Xceed. Phonak updated the Naida range with the new Paradise hearing aid technology in February 2021, here is what you need to know.

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Costco went with Sonova again for its new Kirkland Signature 10 hearing aids which makes sense considering how successful the Ks 9 was. Looking closely at the specs and feature set, the new Ks 10 is for all intent and purpose, a Paradise 90. Here is what you need to know.

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Study data shows hearing improvements in adults with acquired sensorineural hearing loss (SNHL) and the first-known linkage of pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics for a potential hearing restoration therapy.

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Hearing aids are the most scientifically validated tinnitus treatment. In this video, I will explain the seven most important tinnitus hearing aid features. It is important to know what kinds of hearing aid features lead to tinnitus relief.

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I have worn Lexie Lumen hearing aids for several weeks now and they are pretty good hearing aids. During my day to day experiences I have found them to work well and the sound quality offered to be more than acceptable. Would I change my ReSound Ones for them, no probably not, having said that, during the time I wore them, they didn't let me down once. The customer experience offered by Lexie through the app is outstanding, it will help new hearing aid users through their experience admirably well. Let's talk Lexie Lumen hearing aids

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I wear Phonak Paradise and I work in a noisy kitchen. I struggle to hear the timer beeping so I don't know when food is ready, my hearing aids are generally working well but it seems like the timer is actually quietier with them in. I spend a lot of time in the kitchen and this is where I need the hearing aids to work.

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Steve is interviewed by Ben Thompson from puretinnitus.com about his experiences living with hearing loss

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I decided a couple of weeks ago that I likedthe conceptual thinking around Lexie Hearing and their delivery model of Lexie Lumen hearing aids. I wanted to experience it first hand and they sent me a pair of hearing aids and set me up on their system. This is how it went and what my experience was like.

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ReSound has announced the launch of a new essential range of hearing aids they are calling Key. The range offers a full line-up of models including their outstanding rechargeable RIC across three technology levels. They say that it will offer wider access to their hearing aids no matter the budget available. It means ReSound has one of the broadest portfolios covering wide price points.

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I get to wear a lot of hearing aids in my role for Hearing Aid Know. I know some people are jealous of the fact, but to be honest, sometimes I feel like it is an imposition. I have to take my well worn daily hearing aids off to programme up a new set and then wear them for a couple of weeks. It's like taking off a well worn, comfortable pair of shoes to break in a new set. However, I was happy enough to give the Oticons a try. I like the Oticon stuff, it has been fascinating to see what they have been doing with directionality and how they believe it offers the best processing to activate the natural ability of the brain. Let's talk Oticon More

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We dream of innovative disruption that will ensure hearing care is affordable for everyone, it is what underpins Steve's Netflix article and the series of articles that followed. We have parameters though for that innovation that we feel will keep consumers safe. To be honest, Lexie Hearing is probably exactly what we had envisaged. Decent hearing aids that are self-fit, outstanding online support and processes that are designed to keep the consumer safe. Here is what you need to know.

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2020 was an interesting year for a whole lot of reasons, in the hearing aid space we saw the introduction of the Edge from Starkey, ReSound One, Widex Moment and Phonak Paradise hearing aids. We also saw a huge expansion in remote support for hearing aids and the willingness to use it. So what can we expect for 2021, what will be the best hearing aids available?

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Steve has written a couple of articles recently that focus on the possibility of self-fit hearing aids, one of the articles detailed the reasons why some people with hearing lossdon't wear hearing aids. The biggest reason was cost and that is what spurred him to explore a different way that we might access hearing aids. I would like to address a couple of things and I would like to dig deeper into those reasons and explore them.

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Hearing aids aren't any different to other great tech products out there. The latest MacBook Air is hugely impressive, smartphones are amazing technology and a huge leap from the old bricks that people used to carry around in the 1980s. High-end technology is all around us.

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The hearing aid industry needs a Netflix to come in and shake it up, to give people options about how they want to buy and use their hearing aids. If you look back to the earliest articles on Hearing Aid Know (going back 15 years now!) I was probably moaning about this back then, but change is slow...

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I was thinking recently about why some people take such a long time to get hearing aids when they need them. It struck me that actually, it's partially the fault of people like me, we haven't communicated the true value of hearing aids. We haven't communicated what I would call the overarching truth. We have tacitly gone along with the concept that hearing aids offer solutions to older people who have problems. In the main, that's correct, they are devices that provide a solution for problem areas with hearing. But there is a much greater truth, one that really only occurred to me the other night. Hearing aids aren't about getting old, they truly help you to stay young. Let me explain.

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Oticon has announced the introduction of a new hearing aid platform, and not to be outdone in the stupid naming category, they are calling it More. In fairness, I can see the evolution of that name in the marketing department. So what do we know about More hearing aids and when can we expect them to be launched?

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I am judging the seven wonders of sound competition in the UK this month, so get your entries in to have a chance to win some prizes.

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I came across an attractive remote microphone accessory recently that could be used by people with mild hearing loss and without hearing aids. It could also be used for children with attention difficulties in the education setting. The device was designed by Nuance Hearing who were collaborators with Starkey on their table microphone. Nuance has a strong background in microphone beamforming technology, among other audio-based manipulation, so I expected the devices to be pretty good. They were kind enough to send me a test device, and I was not disappointed, it was excellent.

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I came across an interesting little device from an Israeli company recently that is designed to help people without hearing aids to hear better in complex sound situations. The device is a directional microphone accessory that uses beamforming and some pretty cool automation to allow you to hear the people you want to, over the noise that you don't.

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Artificial Intelligence systems are becoming more widespread in hearing aid technology and a new start-up named Whisper Hearing is to launch their first devices driven by the technology. It's an interesting development for several reasons, one is that it is a system as opposed to simply a set of hearing aids and the second thing is that Whisper is a complete outsider, new to the industry.

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I have been wearing Audeo Paradise 90 Rechargeables on and off for a while now and they continuously delight me. There are some issues, in particular with the tap control that center round the wearing of masks. They are easily solvable though, here is what you need to know.

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Steve reviews the new ONE hearing aid from ReSound. This is the third year in a row I've reviewed GN's new hearing aid. I reviewed the ReSound LiNX 3D, then the ReSound LiNX Quattro, and now the ONE. To be honest, I think I'm becoming a bit of a ReSound fanboy.

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In general, for many years, ReSound hearing aids have been my daily wear items, the LiNX 3D and then the Quattro after them delivered what I wanted on a daily basis and they were the first set of hearing aids I reached for. Using the ReSound One over the last couple of weeks has affirmed that choice for me, they offer everything I am used to with excellent sound quality and even better localisation of sound. More than that, because of the shape and placement of the hearing aids they make it easier to take a mask off without flipping them across a car park. It isn't all plain sailing though and I have a complaint, but I always do. Here are my experiences of the devices

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An important number of the men and women who have served and serve the United States live with hearing loss, tinnitus or both. With more than 1.16M veterans receiving disability compensation for hearing loss, and nearly 1.79M for tinnitus, hearing problems are the most common service-connected disabilities among veterans.

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Covid-19 has disrupted many businesses and services and healthcare is one of them. We recently came across a hearing practice in South Carolina that is pulling out the stops to deliver outstanding hearing care to its existing and new clients.

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Recently I had a really interesting experience with someone with profound hearing loss. They wanted a Starkey in-the ear hearing aid as they had been wearing Starkey CICs for many years. Their hearing loss was in the profound range though, so I really thought to myself this probably isn't going to work out. I was wrong, and that isn't the only thing I learned.

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It takes people an average of seven years to deal with their hearing loss from the time they realise they have a problem, they are robbing themselves of the pure joy of living. The inaction means seven long years of frustration, irritation, embarrassment, why bother? The satisfaction of life is yours to grasp, just get on with it, you will be far happier.

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Matthew Pearson from Zone1 Hearing reviews the new ONE hearing aid from GN ReSound.

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You know, I don't think I will ever forget 2020, I don't think most of you reading this will either. While it has been a roller coaster of a year globally, it has actually been an interesting year in hearing aid technology as well. Some fascinating technology has been introduced this year that provides brand new strategies for hearing and fantastic new functionality.

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The last few articles from Steve have all been about his daily life with hearing loss, the common denominator across them all is that hearing loss awareness is pretty low across general society. I think that if you have hearing loss, you can help change that as you go about your daily life. The key to helping do so, is simple, tell people you have hearing loss and ask them to accommodate you. The more people you tell, the more people get educated.

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I was asked recently what are the best hearing aids by a consumer, that isn't a question I can answer, because it is the wrong question. There is no particular set of hearing aids that are the best, however, there might be a set of hearing aids that are the best for you. Let's talk about the best hearing aids.

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I met a guy this morning who gives lessons on living with hearing loss, at the same time as running at a pretty swift pace, and he doesn't even know he's doing it.

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The Marvel was perhaps one of the most successful hearing aids that Phonak has ever produced, so it was going to be hard to top it. However, it feels like Phonak has risen to the challenge. In my experience so far I have been exceptionally impressed with the balance of sound and features introduced with the Paradise. I also think that the amazing tap control system makes it a world-beater. Honestly, I think the Paradise may well outdo the Marvel, and I think that is saying something. Let's talk about day to day experiences with Phonak Paradise

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Phonak has announced the introduction of the Paradise range of hearing aids, damn stupid name for a fantastic hearing aid platform. Built on a completely new chipset, they have new features and outstanding hearable like abilities to offer. Let's talk about the Phonak Paradise.

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Resound announced this morning the introduction of the a new hearing aid platform. The hearing aids, which they call Resound One, will be the first ever RIC hearing aids with a microphone in the receiver. They say it will deliver the most natural sound cues possible and allow people with hearing loss to feel that they are literally getting their own hearing back and hearing the way nature intended.

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The connection between your Bluetooth hearing aids and your smartphone is fantastic, until it isn't. Yes, Bluetooth is a pain in the arse, but those issues are generally fixable, let's talk troubleshooting Bluetooth hearing aids.

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The advent of Bluetooth hearing aids has led to an explosion of accompanying smartphone apps to help control them. Some people really don't use them because they are a little afraid of them. They shouldn't be, they offer so much power and on-the-go customisation. Let's talk hearing aid apps.

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A teenager was the victim of verbal abuse after briefly lifting her mask so that her deafblind sister could read her lips. A passenger on a train to Southport confronted 16-year-old Saule Pakenaite as she tried to communicate with her sister, Karolina. Despite explaining that her sister has Ushers Syndrome, and is both visually impaired and hard of hearing, the woman refused to believe that the mask needed to be removed.

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The use of masks during this pandemic has made it more difficult for people with hearing loss to understand what is being said, even when they are wearing hearing aids. Signia has introduced a new mask mode for their hearing aids that gives a boost to clarity making it a simple exercise for Signia hearing aid wearers to adjust their hearing aids. But if you are not wearing Signia devices, what can you do to help you hear clearer?

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Many older people are a little afraid of their mobile phones, but with the rise of virtual voice assistants, using them has become as easy as speaking a command. As the connectivity of hearing aids increases and changes along with Bluetooth LE Audio, voice assistants could be your best friend as a hearing aid user.

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We are forever apologising for things that we aren't actually sorry about. And things we should be sorry about. Which obviously leads to the response that I'm sure we've all said many many times: "I'm sorry, I didn't hear that, can you repeat it?"

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In our increasingly digital, increasingly remote world, headsets are an essential tool for doing business. Unfortunately, not all headsets are equal. You must be willing to invest the right amount of money, and not just so you can come across loud and clear to clients and colleagues.

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I'm forty six years old, was diagnosed with a hearing loss when I was five and started wearing hearing aids full-time when I was nineteen. You would have think I would have learnt my lesson by now. What's more, you would think I would listen to my own advice. But no.

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I get to review a lot of hearing aids on Know and they generally are exceptionally good at what they do. The Widex Moment is no slouch, but the sound is different than anything I have ever tried before. They were the very first hearing aids I ever tried that I had to keep checking they were on, they really and quite astonishingly sound that natural.

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I had to go to our local pharmacy to pick up a repeat prescription. I knew it was going to probably be a difficult hearing situation as the ladies serving usually talk quite quietly, I guess because people are ordering their drugs and discussing treatments and they try not to broadcast to the whole shop that Bruce has a nasty rash where the sun don't shine.

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I have tested several NuHear devices over the last few years and each rendition is just that little bit better. The new IQbuds2 Max are no different, fantastic sound, really good noise cancelling and better than ever support for hearing loss in tough sound situations. Getting them out of the damned case is an exercise in gymnastics and swearing. Okay, maybe I exaggerate, but there was a lot of swearing! That is actually pretty much the only fault I found with them really. They provide really good support in varying sound situations for someone with a hearing loss and are at least as good, if not better than modern basic hearing aids and probably represent a lot of value for a little over 300 sterling. They are situational though, they are never going to be a replacement for hearing aids, however, for someone who wants simple situational help, they might just be the ideal thing.

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As reported by our friends at Hearing Tracker, Apple has introduced hearing aid like features to their Airpods Pro devices with the release of their latest IOS. I think it is a really interesting development and the beginning of a wider change to audio delivery in technology. I wouldn't be throwing my hearing aids away just yet but they could easily end up as a situational solution for people with mild or even moderate hearing loss. Let's take a look at this and some other recent developments that point the way forward for customised audio and help for people with hearing loss.

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I reached out to Costco about the firmware update for the KS 9 hearing aids and they came back to me. The new firmware update is being pushed out and it offers the same functionality as the Marvel 2.0 update including the Roger Direct functionality

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We spoke last year about the new Ks 9 hearing aids from Costco and how they were based on the Marvel technology. A couple of things have happened since then that passed us by I am afraid, the first is that the Ks 9 now has a telecoil option. That's great news for people with hearing loss as loop systems are ever growing in popularity in the US. The second is that there are rumours that the Ks 9 is getting a software upgrade that appears to be similar in nature to the Marvel 2.0 upgrade.

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I have followed the fortunes of the Chatable app for a while and have been quite impressed with the testimonials about it. I was in contact with the team recently to get the low down on how it works and what underlies the success the seem to be having. The app represents a whole new way of thinking about the problem of hearing speech in noise that is right on the cutting edge of neuroscience and artificial intelligence. Our opinion is, you need this app in your life, let's talk Chatable.

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A popular UK TV show will soon be showing an episode from the perspective of someone with hearing loss. The BBC show Eastenders will air a special episode that puts viewers in the shoes of someone experiencing hearing loss.

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Signia has moved forward with a brand new remote care system that offers everything from a hearing test, through hearing aids to aftercare virtually. Let's take a look at it and what it means for consumers moving forward.

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New guidance has been released for hearing care professionals in the UK and many of the clinics are beginning to re-open and offer services. In general, the services are being offered under new conditions and procedures. One example of a clinic working to keep them and their customers safe is Lanarkshire Hearing Centre. Here is what they are doing and why it matters to you.

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If you have Starkey Livio hearing aids and you need support but are afraid to leave the house, there is still an option for you. Starkey have now made remote care available across all Livio hearing aids, this is how it works

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Signia were one of the first to introduce live remote support with a video link and their remote support system is really comprehensive for Bluetooth Nx and X hearing aids. However, that doesn't mean that if you have older or non-Bluetooth Signia hearing aids you can't get support too. So if you have Signia hearing aids and you are on lockdown, there should be remote support for available. Here is how it works

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The Little Book of Hearing Aids 2020 is now available for purchase on the site in electronic form and on Amazon in both e-book and paperback. The book has been updated as usual and I have added some sections.

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The Widex remote care system offers the full possibilities of an in-poerson visit with your professional. If you are in a lock down situation, which most of us are, you should be able to access telecare for your Widex hearing aids. Here is how it works.

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If you have Phonak Marvel hearing aids and you need support but are afraid to leave the house, there is still an option for you. Phonak have been one of the frontrunners in tele-care in hearing aids and they introduced it with the Phonak Marvel, this is how it works

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GN ReSound has today announced the launch of a brand new telehealth solution in partnership with hearing care professionals. The solution will allow innovative at-home access to hearing aids and hearing care.

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Many hearing aid providers across the world are closed in response to restrictions in place around COVID-19 spread. However, while many have their doors closed, they are still assisting their patients. Here is what you need to know.

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Widex has changed its hearing aid model range with the introduction of the new Moment platform, gone are some of the old aids we are familiar with. At present, there will be a good Receiver In Canal model offering and In The Ear models. The Behind The Ear hearing aids are expected to follow in time.

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Widex is famous for innovation and its sound quality, they are also a very conservative company not known for outrageous claims. So when they recently started using words like paradigm shift and game-changer,many started to sit up and take notice. Well here comes the Moment, find out more about the range and the breakthrough here.

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These are rather unprecedented times and for older people, who are more likely to have hearing loss, they are worrying times. In an effort to help, we are going to detail the facts, the science and run down some of the troubleshooting activities you can take if your hearing aids play up.

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There have been many studys on hearing loss and cognitive decline, an interesting one recently identified brain changes from hearing loss that appeared to affect cognitive function. What was of real interest was that those changes appear to be reversible.

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As both a hearing aid user and a hearing healthcare professional I believe in tracking and measuring how the people I work with are doing. One of the tools I use is the COSI (Client Orientated Scale of Improvement). It is a simple document, but it delivers so much power, let's talk about what it is and how you should use it.

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Phonak has now released the Virto Black to market and the first devices are making their way to customers. As expected, they have also expanded the Virto Marvel range to include the typical devices you would expect including a Titanium and a CIC.

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MD Hearing Aids has been around for a while providing hearing aids that they sell online. They offer several different models from their website, but one particular model piqued my interest. The LifeEar Core is a self-programmable twin mic hearing aid, I thought I would take a look at it and see how it worked.

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The Quattro range is finally complete with the announcement of the introduction of three Behind The Ear hearing aids and a new mini Receiver In Canal device. That pretty much means that there is a Quattro powered hearing aid suitable for every body.

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Many people have been waiting for news of a new Enzo release, the wait ends today. Resound have announced the launch of a new Enzo platform using the Quatro technology. Here is what you need to know.

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HAB Hearing, Swindon Hearing, The Hearing Specialist, Edinburgh, Worcester and Stratford join the Now Wax network

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Starkey has announced that their Livio AI devices will provide direct audio streaming from the latest Samsung Galaxy phones. Starkey are the second hearing aid brand to offer true Made For Android functionality with their hearing aids.

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2020 has just started, but we can already see it shaping up to be an interesting year for custom hearing aids. With recent events in mind, I thought that I should look at what could be the biggest Bluetooth In The Ear hearing aids for 2020.

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If you are looking for ear wax removal in West Yorkshire, HAB hearing centre offers all forms of ear cleaning services including irrigation ear wax removal and microsuction ear wax removal in Keighley. They are handily close to Ilkley and Skipton. They are also handily close for ear wax removal to Ilkley, Skipton, Colne, Burnley, Otley and Bradford, less than half an hour away. Further afield, they are less than 3/4 of an hour travelling distance by car for ear wax removal services from Harrogate, Leeds and Halifax

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There have been many people waiting for custom rechargeable hearing aids and up to now, it looked like they were going to be technically difficult. Well Starkey thinks they have solved the problems, they have announced the introduction of the first-ever Bluetooth, lithium-ion powered rechargeable In The Ear hearing aid.

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The release of the new Phonak Naida Marvel has been welcomed by many people with severe to profound hearing loss. The Roger Direct system is really big news for these users as it makes life better and more convenient. For existing Phonak Roger Users there could well be some good news, if you have Roger X receivers, they may well be compatible with the Roger Direct system, it will just be a case of transferring them to the Marvel.

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I think that many people with severe to profound hearing loss have been waiting for Phonak to extend their Marvel platform to the Naida Range. From the end of February, they won't have to wait any longer.

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Remote hearing care has been around now for a while and nearly every hearing aid brand offers some sort of system. It hasn't really taken off though, there are signs that 2020 is the year it goes mainstream. Let's talk tele-audiology.

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The last couple of weeks has seen some really interesting technology introduced that will begin to change hearing aids and their function in 2020 and beyond. Some of it is inspirational as opposed to ready to go, some of it though could be in hearing aids within the year. Let's take a look at what's new and interesting.

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More and more hearing care professionals are undertaking QuickSIN speech in noise testing and that's a good thing for you. Let's talk about why speech in noise testing is a good predictor of how you will get on and really relevant to the hearing aids you choose.

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Hearing Aid Smartphone Apps gives users a lot of control over how they hear but there's problems with compatibility across devices and phone updates breaking everything. How can we make sure you app will work as long as you need it?

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Valencell introduced the world’s first calibration-free blood pressure (BP) sensor system for integration in hearables and wearables at CES 2020. It is just another example of how hearing aids and other hearables can be a central part of healthy living and a primary care model.

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Just before Christmas we received a communication from Feedspot that they had honoured us with a place in the top fifty blogs for people with hearing loss, we forgot to mention it. So, here we go.

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One of the largest Independent Hearing Care Providers in Australia has been purchased by Amplifon. It makes sense for Attune customers as Amplifon is a global leading Independent hearing care business.

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The introduction of the Virto Black has brought a lot of excitement within both the more traditional audience of users and professionals and the non-traditional audience of the wider consumer electronics world. Details on the Virto Black and indeed the wider Virto Marvel have started to firm up, here is what you need to know.

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Phonak unveils Virto Black at CES, a fully-connected hearing aid designed to look like a hearable. They are calling it stigma-busting, the Virto Black is the world’s first custom-made hearing aid that directly streams from both iOS®, Android™, or virtually any other Bluetooth®-enabled audio device.

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It appears that Widex has finally decided to add a lithium-ion rechargeable hearing aid to their offering with their new platform. Not sure what that means for the fuel cell product that we were expecting in 2019, but it's about time that they did something.

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I said recently that the Livio AI from Starkey pointed the way forward for hearing aid features, laid a roadmap if you will. While that is true,I think there is much more that will happen over the next year or two that will dramatically change hearing aids and their function. Let's talk the convergence of technology.

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Myself and Dave Kemp had a great conversation recently on his Future Ear podcast about the changes we expected in the hearing aid world. It is always interesting to do a bit of navel gazing and even more so when you do it with a smart guy like Dave.

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While many understand that noise at work can damage hearing, people don't necessarily understand that everyday noise they are exposed to can also cause problems. in this article Karen discusses how noise exposure can effect your hearing and just how loud everyday sounds can be.

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The world of Bluetooth hearing aids can be a confusing one, with MFI hearing aids, Made For Android hearing devices, Made For Any Phone from Sonova and finally Bluetooth compatible hearing aids. All of them are different, all of them offer different things, so what's the difference and how will it affect what you might buy? In this article, I try to make sense of the different protocols so that you understand what you are dealing with.

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The Direct To Consumer hearing aid market certainly seems like it is about to explode in the US. A new company called Novidan has launched a specially designed direct-to-consumer hearing aid in the US and they seem to be looking for retail partners. Let's take a look at them

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Sonova has launched a new direct to consumer, self fitting hearing aid range in Australia in conjunction with Blamey Saunders Hears. The new initiative represents the first time that a mainstream hearing aid brand has offered either a self fit hearing aid or a hearing aid direct to consumers.

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The people at Worcester Hearing Centre 30 years’ experience providing custom solutions for people’s hearing needs. As an Independent hearing aid centre they provide the very best hearing aids from the leading hearing aid brands combined with the highest level of service.

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Bernafon launched their new Leox range of hearing aids for people with severe to profound hearing loss in the UK today. The Leox range is two Made For iPhone hearing aid models over two levels of technology. This is what you need to know

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The Roger system from Phonak has been around for quite a while. Before the new Marvel was introduced, the system was a little cumbersome, that has all changed. The Marvel offers direct connection to Roger devices making them easy to use with less equipment to carry. My experience with the Roger Pen on a day to day basis has been nothing less than jaw-droppingly awesome.

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Unitron has announced the expansion of the Discover platform with two new hearing instruments, the Stride P R (BTE) and Moxi Jump R Receiver-In-Canal with telecoil. The hearing aids will be introduced globally soon.

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I saw a really neat trick that a forum user uses to remember the programmes on their hearing aids recently. I thought to myself, that's worth sharing, I also thought to myself that the hearing aid manufacturers are gobshites. Let's talk about hearing aid programmes, audible indicators and why one hearing aid brand is on the ball.

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There is a growing movement towards treating even mild hearing loss with hearing aids that is driven by our growing understanding of the effects of untreated hearing loss on wider health. Is it a good thing or a bad thing, and when should someone with mild hearing loss consider getting hearing aids?

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While Australian consumers have been able to buy hearing aids direct online from Blamey Saunders Hears for a long time, it appears that Sonova, the new owners have decided to expand and drive the model.

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A lot of people have been experiencing problems connecting their hearing aids to their iOS devices via bluetooth since they upgraded to Apple's iOS 13.1 update. Now that smartphones incorporate health monitoring Apps and connectivity options a bug like this can be much more serious than just a minor inconvenience for people.

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Right now sign language is used by a small percentage of the population, there are roughly 500,000 ASL users in the USA and around 150,000 BSL users in the UK. Compare that to the number of people who have some degree of hearing loss: 48 million in the US and 11 million in the UK. Probably not all of those have a loss bad enough to be affecting their daily lives, let's say there's 20 million in the USA and 5 million in the UK who have a problematic hearing loss.

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Every time Apple updates their operating system and their phones, hearing aid research departments break out in a sweat. For good reason though, it appears that every time they sort out connectivity issues, Apple comes along with a new update that breaks it. Apparently, IOS 13 and the iPhone 11 is no exception. It is causing issues with connectivity and specifically the apps that most hearing aid brands make available.

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I got my hands on a pair of Signia Pure 312 7 Xperience hearing aids and I have been wearing them for a couple of weeks. I like Signia hearing aids and I had a good experience with the Nx range, so I wanted to see how the Xperience would match up. I found them to be an interesting departure from the typical Signia experience, no pun intended.

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Research Project for Treatment of Single-Sided Deafness

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Was in a meeting yesterday where I quickly realised I wasn't going to be able to hear anything anyone was saying and I was in trouble from the get go

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Hearing loss is a pain in the ass, but you need to accept it and move on. Part of that is understanding the wider implications that your hearing loss might have. For instance, will you hear the smoke alarm at three in the morning if it goes off? There is some research out there that says up to 50% of people with hearing loss won't. That is a serious safety issue, let's talk hearing loss and safety at home.

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I was pleasantly surprised to spot some pictures of BSL finger spelling on a coffee tin in Tesco today. Even though it was decaf I had to buy it.

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Geoff sent me a link to the new Good Vibes app from Samsung the other day, I watched their promo video and it was just......heartwarming. Good Vibes is a smartphone app (available in their Galaxy Store) that converts morse code into text and vice versa - meaning someone who is deafblind can communicate with their non hearing-impaired friends and family.

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Amazon has taken a step into the ear space with the introduction of their new Echo Buds. They offer wireless connection, Bose noise reduction technology and will work with Alexa. It is just another example of the increasing disruption of ear level devices and opens some intriguing possibilities for the future of hearing aids and hearables.

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Well Made For Android has finally arrived, at least for people with LiNX Quattros and Google Pixel phones. What does it offer and how does it sound, here is a quick run down of my experiences with the system.

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Many hearing aid users probably haven't heard of voice first, even the ones who are actually using voice first devices. So what is it and why might it be relevant to the future of hearing aids? Let's talk.

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Signia has announced the introduction of their new Xperience hearing aids, the devices are their first ever to use onboard motion sensors to help people hear better. The devices should be available near you in the next couple of months.

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While most of the hearing aid manufacturers have gone with BTLE, one of the manufacturers has gone with Bluetooth Classic. They both have big pros and cons, but what are they and what do you need to consider when choosing.

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Oticon has introduced a new CROS/BiCROS device that is based on the Velox S platform. The device has TwinLink technology which means that it can support speech awareness from your bad side and wireless streaming at the same time.

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SignHealth, the UK-based charity offering Deaf people assistance with health issues, has launched a text-based support service for those suffering with mental health problems.

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Oticon is bringing the fascinating Opn technology to a whole new group with the introduction of the Xceed and Xceed Play. The devices include the most powerful hearing aid ever produced for people with severe to profound hearing loss

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The British goverment are working to introduce British Sign Language (BSL) as a second language option at GCSE level of examination. Lythe primary school in Yorkshire have taken the intiative and will be teaching their kids BSL in the coming year.

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So Made For Android is now a real working thing, and the lucky few with Pixel 3 phones and LiNX Quattros are doubtless loving it. The question on the lips of many is when will it make it to other phones, and when will it make it to other hearing aid brands?

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It seems that ReSound has a couple of things to celebrate, the announcement of the first Made For iPhone CIC, and now the announcement that Made For Android has finally arrived. Android 10 has begun to roll out to Pixel phones and it has the ASHA protocol on it, it means that if you have a Quattro and a Google Pixel 3, you will get direct streaming of audio and calls when you update your phone.

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Upgrades can be a tricky thing, sometimes, they go horribly wrong, Windows Vista anyone? Anyway, there appears to be widespread reports of problems with the Marvel 2.0 upgrade. Issues with connection between the app and the hearing aids and bad call quality and drop outs. There also appears to be a pretty easy fix, here is what you can do.

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We suspected they were going to do it, and it seems we were right. Just in time for EUHA, Resound has announced the introduction of their LiNX Quattro custom hearing aid line. The range consists of four styles and includes a Made For iPhone, direct connection CIC. That's a first of its kind.

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Modern hearing aids are better than they have ever been, but sometimes, for some people, in some situations, they still don't deliver. That's why assistive listening accessories are so important, remote mics and table mics can really help in those really challenging situations. While the Marvel can now use RogerDirect and all of the fantastic Roger products, sometimes a simple remote mic is sufficient. Meet the new PartnerMic from Phonak

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Phonak remote control apps have always been terrible, they never offered the consumer any real type of power over their hearing aids. With their latest upgrade to the myPhonak app, that has all changed. Let's have a look at the new app.

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The Bolero (BTE) Marvel hearing aids will soon be with us, at present, we are looking at just two models which will only help people with moderate to severe hearing loss. Here is what you need to know

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Ruth Kirkham suffered a Sudden Sensorineural Hearing Loss a few years ago, since then she has tried hearing aids to help balance her ability to hear. Her experience has not always been great, recently, she has been trying out the Opn 1 from Oticon, here is what she has to say.

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The Amazon Alexa has become a popular device for many across the world, interestingly, many older people have the devices or something like it. Amplify Hearing, a provider of hearing aids and hearing care in the UK decided that they would use its popularity to offer a hearing screening. They released the hearing screening app in July, here is what you need to know.

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Phonak has announced the release of Marvel 2.0, they say it will bring more connectivity, more choice and more hearing performance. The upgrade offers new Bluetooth connectivity opportunities as well as the RogerDirect capability. On top of that, there is a brand new app and finally, the Bolero hearing aid is released.

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The traditional model of buying hearing aids has been under pressure for many years. New business models and new players have shaken up the market, however, to now, the process really hasn't changed. It seems though, that the market is about to change dramatically as is the way you may purchase a hearing aid. Let's talk about the different pressures and business models we may see in the next five years.

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Induction loop technology is not nearly as prolific as it should be in the USA, however, the HLAA and grassroots activists are working to change that. As part of their efforts they have an outstanding toolkit of resources for anyone who is interested in driving the change.

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Wear & Hear have not rested on their laurels, they continue to introduce new products that are designed to attract people looking for an alternative to traditional hearing aids. Their latest, the BeHear Access will be introduced soon, it's an interesting device. The Access is similar in nature to the original products but they have added a telecoil function.

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We have spoken to many people on Know who have some problems hearing, but they don't feel the handicap is worth the expense of hearing aids. There are alternatives to hearing aids that may well help you hear better in some of the situations that you have a problem. They aren't hearing aids, they most definitely aren't a replacement for hearing aids, but nevertheless, they may well do the job.

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Hearing loss, a hidden injury for service men and women, as many as 300,000 ex-servicemen and women in the UK have hearing loss related to their service but there is help for them.

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We have released the Little Book of Hearing Aids for 2019, I have expaned the sections again introducing new sections on hearing loss and how to read the audiogram among others. Here is what you need to know.

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Adam Savage of Mythbusters and Tested fame recently spoke about how hearing aids had made a huge change to his life. He has had a conductive hearing problem since he was a child, but it is only in the last ten years that he decided to wear hearing aids. Here is his story

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Everyone loves the summer, but if you live in a humid climate, your hearing aids don't. There are some steps you can take to make sure they keep on keeping on. Drying them is the key.

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Tinnitus can be a debilitating issue for many, one tinnitus management solution that can help everyone learn to deal with their tinnitus is counselling with a qualified audiologist to reduce the impact on your mental and emotional health.

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Are my hearing aids broken? Is anyone else hearing that noise?

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We have had a couple of readers contact us about the new Kirkland 9.0 from Costco and how it compares to the Phonak Marvel 90. We did some digging around, talked to a few people we know, and found out a few things. Here is the best run-down we can give.

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Costco has now launched their new Kirkland 9.0 hearing aids and the rumours are confirmed, Sonova is the new manufacturer of the Kirkland range. The devices are a hybrid device using the Sword chip which means that they will connect to any Bluetooth enabled cell phone. While the underlying technology in the device is used in both the Discover from Unitron and the Marvel from Phonak, the device is neither. Here is what you need to know.

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Digital disruption has affected many industries and it has already been felt within the hearing aid business. Phonak has a vision for disruption of the current delivery model that will suit both consumer needs and the needs of the hearing healthcare profession. Let's take a deeper look at what that is.

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A strong rumour has surfaced that the new Kirkland 9.0 hearing aids from Costco will in fact be Phonak Marvel hearing devices in disguise. From what we are hearing though, it isn't quite as simple as that, it does appear that Sonova will be making the new Kirkland 9.0 under contract. However, for what I think may be the first time ever, the brand associated with the hearing aids will be Sonova, not Phonak or Unitron. Let's take a look at the rumours.

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It is increasingly clear that Diabetes and hearing loss are linked and we realised that we need to widen our focus as an advice website. In this article, Jennifer D'Souza discusses food that may help control diabetes.

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I read a fantastic in-depth article on The Hearing Journal recently that detailed the latest advances in hearing loss treatments. It appears we are moving closer to a drug treatment for hearing loss, it remains to be seen if we will get a cure.

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Direct-to-Consumer Hearing Solutions Leader iHEAR® Medical Expands Top-Rated Products to Drugstore Locations Nationwide. The expansion into additional drugstores includes the iHEARtest™, the only FDA-cleared home hearing screener, and the TReO™ Personal Sound Amplification Product (PSAP).

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The Lyric is a unique hearing aid, totally invisible, worn all day every day for months at a time and now it turns out it is a pretty outstanding device for the treatment of tinnitus. Let's talk about the latest study results pertaining to the Lyric and how well people with tinnitus do with the device.

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As hearing aids and the way they are provided is changing, one of the things that occurred to me recently was how attractive would upgradeable hearing aids be to consumers. Unitron has offered an upgradeable system for many years, they are the only hearing aid brand to do so. Let's explore upgradeable hearing aids and what the future may hold.

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GN ReSound's Smart 3D phone app has a remote assistance feature that lets you get changes/fixes to your hearing aid without having to leave your house to visit anyone. This is great for anybody who lives far from the audiologist practice, struggles with mobility or is too busy.

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Hearing aids still struggle with the wind, a mild breeze can sound like you are in the middle of a tornado. Having said that, modern hearing aids are much better at reducing wind noise than older ones but I still don't think it's a solved problem - wind noise is still a problem for me, especially in the walmer weather when I can't wear a hat or a hood.

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At the Sonova Global Media Day I toured the new Real Life Lab at Sonova HQ, I know I am a nerd, but it should excite everyone with a hearing loss. The new lab is set up like no other research facility I have seen before and I think it will lead to even greater innovation in hearing aids moving forward.

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In this article the folks at Earpiece Online explore the age old question, should you put anything smaller than your elbow in your ear?

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We understand clearly that untreated hearing loss is linked to other health and well-being problems. At their recent Global Media Day, Phonak spelled out the problems and the costs of untreated hearing loss.

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We attended the Phonak Global Media Day at their headquarters in Switzerland recently, amongst one of the things we got to discuss was the Phonak Marvel. The Marvel has been exceptionally successful, even more so than Phonak were planning for. That meant there has been a shortage of devices, but they say they are fixing that issue as we speak. They also released the details of a survey of consumers who are using Marvel and the results are impressive.

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In this article, Kian Northcote discusses his own struggle with hearing loss and why he found hearing aids were an outstanding solution. He also explains why they might be a fantastic solution for you

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Acknowledging that you may have a hearing loss is not easy. There is social stigma surrounding hearing loss, vanity associated with hearing aids and devices, and ageism to contend with from others and oneself. The only path to better hearing health, however, is by attending to your hearing loss straight away.

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Hope for tinnitus cure after research breakthrough at University of Arizona where treatment blocking protein cured tinnitus in rodents.

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Costco recently added the HearLink range from Philips to the their hearing aid offerings. They have been pretty aggresive with the pricing and they appear to be betting on the brand recognition. There has been a little bit of confusion about the Phillips hearing aids, with some thinking that they are the Oticon Opn in disguise. They aren't, although they use the same hardware, they don't use the same features. Let's talk about Costco and Philips HearLink

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Oticon medical has just announced the launch of their new Ponto 4 BAHA system which they say is the smallest Bone Anchored Hearing Aid ever. The Ponto 4 will use the new Velox S chip and the famous Opn Navigator, more than that it will offer direct connectivity to iPhones and internet connectivity. Let's take a look at the Ponto 4

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Review of Oticon OPN S rechargeable hearing aid

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A reader informed us recently that an audiologist had told them that modern hearing aids have real ear measurements built in so they wouldn't need to do probe microphone measurements. Yes, about that, that's complete and utter bullshit and here is why. Let's talk

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Apple Watch adds decibel monitoring feature so you can take care of your hearing before it's too late. Great health benefit from a smart watch.

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Hearing aids are designed primarily to deliver speech clarity, which means that the re-production of music can be problematic. In this article Tim Husband explores music and hearing aids, detailing the outcomes and the possible pitfalls.

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Hearing aid verification measures can be subjective such as the COSI or aphab questionnaires, or objective measures such as speech mapping or aided speech testing. They are important because they measure how well hearing aids are working for you, but it is important to understand the differences between them.

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Unfortunately for some people, hearing aids still have limitations in what they can help with, Phonak Roger systems may help over come those limitations. When hearing aids aren't enough, you need to follow other strategies, the Roger system is an excellent example of that.

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Many people aren’t comfortable in putting out personal health issues for public knowledge. They consider their hearing loss to be on a needs-to-know basis. This is understandable from a privacy point of view, but not all health issues should be kept under wraps.

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Bernafon has launched the Viron range in the UK, the range will be made up of four hearing aid models over three technology levels. The Viron range will also include their first ever lithium-ion powered rechargeable hearing aid. Here is what you need to know.

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Unitron as a hearing aid brand has always fascinated me, while they are perceived as a second brand, I have always respected them for their innovation and consumer focus. Last week I got to learn more about their new Flex Experience concept and why they think it is an ideal process to deliver to the needs of modern hearing aid consumers.

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I came across a really fascinating proof of concept study which detailed the detection of middle ear infections with Smartphone technology. The smartphone system outperformed a commercial acoustic reflectometry system in detecting middle ear fluid in 98 pediatric patient ears

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As long as I can remember I have been hearing that Boots Hearing Care would enter the Irish market, well it looks like 2019 is the year with their announcement of the opening of two hearing care outlets in Dublin.

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We are here at the Unitron Engage event in beautiful Amsterdam to learn more about their new devices and their new strategies

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We received an email today from a legal company in Arizona, representing one Charles Crawford of King Crawford LLC in Arizona. The letter asks us to take down our Nano articles as they contain several falsehoods and defamatory statements concerning our clients and their products. Interestingly, the only evidence they reference in relation to that is mention of the removal of automatically adjusting hearing aids. Let's talk about the letter.

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May looks like a pretty busy month for us, both Bernafon and Unitron are launching their new platforms to the market. Unitron has been heavily teasing something they are calling Discover. While Bernafon have being doing the same with something called Viron. Let's take a look at what we know.

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I read with horror recently that a prospective patient was told that hearing loops and hearing aid telecoils were obsolete technology now replaced by Bluetooth. It's simply not true, while telecoils are damned sure old technology, both them and loop systems are just as relevant today as ever. Even with the ever growing Bluetooth hearing aid market. Let's talk about why you should always consider a telecoil in your hearing aids.

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HHTM do a great article each month on hearing aid related patents that are filed in the US. In their latest article, a few things caught my eye, not least a system to check if a receiver is full of wax, the return of spectacle hearing aids and finally a new firmware system that will alow hearing aid functionality upgrades in the clinic. Let's talk about patents.

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We often hear consumers say that they wished their hearing aids could do this or that. Well we have begun to undertake surveys to get a clearer idea of consumer experience and needs. You can help to shape the future of hearing aids by answering some questions.

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Real Ear Measurements and live Speech Mapping are elements of hearing aid verification and validation. They are the best practice, gold standard in hearing aid fitting. Let's talk about what they are, how they are done and why you aren't getting the best service if a hearing care professional doesn't carry them out.

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Receiver In Canal hearing aids are exceptionally popular devices, they are versatile, easy to use and relatively easy to maintain. They come with standard instant tips mostly, but you should consider custom made tips, here are the reasons why.

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The Hearlink range has a full range of hearing aid models across five technology levels, learn about the models available here

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Philips have re-entered the hearing aid space with the launch of their new Hearlink hearing aid range. In collaboration with Demant, the hearing aids will now be available to order. Let's take a look at the range and talk about what could be happening moving forward.

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Following on from our question and answer on 'Is ear wax removal by micro-suction safe?' I wanted to do an article on the procedure and talk you through the pros and cons. I also want to discuss the possible problems and put them in context. Like any medical procedure, ear wax removal by micro-suction can have unintended side effects. Let's take a look at them in detail.

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I am surprised that in 2019 we are not further forward with self-fitting hearing aid options. I would have expected that by now we would be able to either go into a high-street electronics store or browse online and buy a proper hearing aid, take it home and be able to accurately tune it to our own individual hearing loss.

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People ask us all the time, what's the best rechargeable hearing aid? The problem is that it depends on what you want from them. In this article we discuss the latest rechargeable hearing aids and what they are best for.

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It's Deaf Awareness Week from the 6th to the 12th May 2019, here's what I want you to do during this time, this is your challenge....

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We are really happy that we have had a large influx of Now Wax Ear Wax Removal Specialists over the last month across the United Kingdom and Ireland. Specialists from South Tyneside, Kilmarnock in Scotland, Warrington, Chester, London, Kent, Newry in Northern Ireland and Dundalk and Dublin in the Republic of Ireland among others have joined the network. Let's meet them all.

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Sonova has made an interesting purchase in Australia, Blamey And Saunders the online hearing aid sale business has been wholly sold to Sonova. Blamey And Saunders have an interesting approach and have been selling their own brand hearing aids online and more recently through some physical shops.

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I recorded an interview with Achin Bhomik PHD, Cheif Technology Officer and Executive Vice President of Engineering at Starkey. We discussed AI, hearing aids and the opportunites for a wider feature set.

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Starkey launched their Livio AI in London on the 20th of March, the hearing aid breaks new ground on functionality. It offers live translation of 27 languages, health tracking and fall detection and there is more to come.

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For a lot of people, buying a new hearing aid is not as simple as "stick it in your ear and away you go", it takes time to get used to the new sounds that you are hearing.

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In this article I want to dig a little deeper into the new range of hearing aids from Oticon. So what can you expect from the Opn S, the models, the technology levels and when you may be able to try them out.

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Dr Cliff Olson undertook a comparison between the hearing device from Nano Hearing .com and a cheap amplifer that could be bought from Alibaba, he found that they were for all intent and purpose identical. In fact, they both displayed the same volume control issue which meant they were either at minimum volume or maximum volume, imagine that?

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Hearing Tracker broke a story on the new Bose hearing aids a couple of days ago, they look remarkably similar to their Hearphones. It looks like the new hearing aid will be similar to the Wear and Hear devices we have discussed already.

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In an interesting turn of events, Oticon has ensured that the lithium-ion battery pack on their new Opn S rechargeable hearing aids will be easily replaced in the clinic. That means that when the time comes to replace it, it can be done immediately without having to send it away.

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We are at the Oticon Drive event today and Oticon are launching the Open S to UK Independents. Really interesting hearing aids with some really interesting claims.

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Widex has stuck with the ZPower system for their rechargeable hearing aids, the new system should be more reliable and deliver less problems.

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The new Styletto Connect is a pretty interesting hearing aid, with the Nx platform inside, it was always going to be a good solid hearing aid. The addition of Bluetooth connectivity really makes it a really solid offering. These are my experiences of the hearing aids over the week I have worn them.

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Oticon has decided to go with a lithium-ion powered rechargeable hearing aid for the new Opn S platform. The specs look good and it means that finally Oticon has joined many of the other big brands to back lithium-ion as a power source.

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Got my hands on a pair of Signia Styletto Connect hearing aids today and my first impressions are really good. I liked the original Styletto but the lack of connectivity ensured it wasn't for me. The new devices are just as attractive as the old and the connectivity is outstanding, add rechargeability into the mix and Signia might have a world beater on it's hands.

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Widex and Sivantos have finally completed their merger and they are now jointly the third largest hearing aid behometh in the world. WS Audiology is born, but what will it mean as the business moves forward for consumers?

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Signia has announced the introduction of a new Bluetooth enabled Styletto, the original Styletto was impressive but the lack of Bluetooth connection hampered it a little. Well apparently that won't be a problem moving forward, it is bound to make the interesting little hearing aid more attractive to many new consumers.

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GN released their end of year investor report recently and they are doing very well thank you. Something caught my eye though, one of the slides talks about two AI strategies that they hope to introduce. One is for noise management, while the other is to enhance the fitting, let's take a look.

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The cost of untreated hearing loss in the EU is put at a rather frightening 185 Billion Euros, untreated disabling hearing loss is estimated to cost the UK 25.5 Billion sterling. Let's take a look at what the report has to say.

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Phonak has extended the Audeo Marvel range with two new model types, a 312 with a telecoil and a size 13 with a telecoil. It makes the Audeo Marvel range a really strong contender for pretty much everyone. The sooner the better that they introduce the RogerDirect though, the range suffers badly from the lack of access to assistive devices.

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According to a new report, a staggering 466 million people worldwide suffer from disabling hearing loss. That is a rather frightening number, and they go onto say that one in three people over the age of 65 have problems that make a real difference to their lives.

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Hearing dogs are trained to alert their owner to sounds around the home, such as alarms or doorbells, they do so much more than that though, let's talk about hearing dogs

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We are very happy to welcome Dr Cliff Olson and Applied Hearing Solutions to the Hearing Aid Know Network. Dr Olson's name has become synonymous with clear and honest hearing aid and hearing care advice on his Youtube channel. His outlook and ethos chimes with ours and we are happy to have him on the network. Truly, if you are looking for hearing aids in Phoenix, Arizona, well then this is the place to start.

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Signia has been dropping heavy hints about a launch of new products within the next few weeks. While teasing around the Styletto, they appear to be keeping it close to their chest.

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The Opn from Oticon has been a huge success and we still rate it as one of the top hearing aids available even though it has been around for years. Oticon has announced that the will be releasing abrand new Opn platform called the Opn S in March this year. They say that it is even better than the Opn and for the first time will introduce a lithium-ion powered rechargeable hearing aid type.

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The recent announcement of a subscription model got me thinking, never a good thing. Consumers want change in the hearing aid business model, but it strikes me that many don't know exactly what they want. I think some of the problem is knowledge, or the lack of it. I also think that some of the issue is the inability of professionals to communicate their worth, while it has all been compounded by professionals who don't do the job properly. Let's talk.

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How you buy hearing aids hasn't changed since the business model arrived, however, I think that is going to dramatically change over the coming years. In an interesting move, iHear has announced that they will soon launch a subscription based model for hearing aids. Let's look at what we know

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Interested in finding out if the LiNX Quattro is for you? Amplifon is offering a trial of the hearing aids at their hearing aid centres in the UK and Ireland. Simply book an appointment with them at your local hearing centre.

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Widex is fulfilling its promise for a smarter tomorrow, they are introducing their second generation of the real-time AI feature SoundSense Learn to improve and personalise sound 25% faster.

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Google is rolling out two new Android apps to help people with hearing loss. The first, Live Transcribe, gives persons with hearing loss live text-to-speech capabilities and the second, Sound Amplifier, amplifies the volume of incoming speech and music.

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HearX are an extremely innovative business from South Africa who are looking to change mobile audiology in some of the underserved areas of the globe. One of their interesting innovations is the HearScope, a video otoscope that works with a Smartphone. It has been around for a while, so we thought we would buy one and review it.

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I was invited onto Dave Kemp's show recently and we had a fascinating conversation about smart assistants in hearing aids and a few other things. Dave, like me, is fascinated with the voice first world and the use of smart assistants. We both think that this trend will just expand and that hearing aids are an ideal place for smart assistants to integrate.

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We recently got to speak to some people from GN Hearing about the Siri integration and the introduction of AI to their products. They let us know a bit more about what it means and how they see it develop in the future.

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Hearing devices with Bluetooth are proving very popular, so I decided to do an article on the five best Bluetooth hearing aid ranges available for 2019. They are in no particular order, because to do so wouldn't make sense because people'sindividual needs are different. This article will probably change as the year goes on, because we are expecting some new products to appear.

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If you are looking for earwax removal in Sheffield, Rotherham, Chesterfield, Dronfield, Worksop or Barnsley, well then Andy Green Hearingcare should be your first call. He is the new No Wax Ear Wax Removal Specialist in Sheffield.

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We came across another fake hearing aid review site connected to nanohearingaids.com called besthearingaidreviews.com during our second look at them last week. It is an old and tested ruse for conmen, support the con with a seemingly independent validation. Here is what they are up to

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The recent CES conference in Las Vegas was a hotbed of new innovation from hearing aid brands. Not to be outdone, Starkey made an announcement about a host of new features and capabilities they were launching as an upgrade to Livio AI hearing aids.

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Buying hearing aids online? Well then don't get ripped off by Nano Hearing Aids. We recently wrote an article about nanohearingaids.com who are basically ripping off American consumers. They haven't stopped, so we decided to update our advice for buying hearing aids online for 2019. Let's talk about what you need to consider when buying hearing aids online. We will cover who we think are good, we will explain why Nano is a rip off and we will discuss the Blamey and Saunders standard.

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A new year and already we have a host of new announcements relating to innovative tech from hearing aid brands. Innovation is not new in the hearing aid world, but there are some things that occur that change hearing aids forever. So what will be the real game changers in hearing aids in 2019? Let's take a look.

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The WIDEX EVOKE featuring WIDEX ENERGY CELL technology will debut at CES as the world’s first battery-free hearing aid. Finally the fuel cell powered hearing aids have arrived!

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Valencell and Sonion demo the first ever hearing aid Receiver in Canal with an embedded biometric sensor at CES in Las Vegas. It opens the way for hearing aids to jump beyond their use case towards integrated health technology.

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Gn announces an innovative new breakthrough technology which is employing GN’s artificial intelligence (AI) solutions in tandem with Apple's Siri virtual assistant. The announcement was made at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2019 in Las Vegas

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Nuheara announces the launch of two new products, the IQbuds MAX smart wireless earbuds and the new IQstream TV accessory, at this year's Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in LasVegas.

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Hundreds more adults and children will be eligible for cochlear implants on the NHS after NICE changes the guidelines for the definition of severe to profound hearing loss.

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We were asked a question recently about NHS provided Oticon Spirit Zest hearing aids, can they be used with Bluetooth for audio streaming? The answer is no but maybe yes, but we found a solution.

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Changes, changes, changes, a new website has been launched called Lively Hearing Aids with some pretty heavyweight Audiological backing in the US. The site offers hearing aids sold online with remote care back-up and services. Let's talk about www.listenlively.com

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The end of 2018 proved to be fascinating with the introduction of the LiNX Quattro and the Phonak Marvel. I think 2019 will be another interesting year with many of the brands introducing new stuff. Let's talk about the what the best hearing aids are for 2019 and what we might expect.

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Signia started it, now Resound, Oticon and Phonak are offering it. What do you need to know about remote hearing care and what are the differences between the systems?

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Hearing Tracker recently released an update from their site, it outlines the features of hearing aids that their viewers feel are important. It is interesting reading. In fairness, it really validates what we always knew. Probably one of the most importaant things is the ability to hear in noise.

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The Phonak Marvel has been pretty much a joy to wear, good quality sound, amazing connectivity and pretty solid battery life. There are things you need to consider though, let's talk about the Phonak Marvel.

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I have worn the new Phonak Marvel for a while now, the devices have been met with what seems like universal approval across the profession, but what are they like in the real world? So far, I have to say they are pretty impressive providing unique features and a prett excellent sound experience. In this, the first article in a series, I cover the my experience with streaming.

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The Which? 2018 survey of best hearing aid providers finds that independent hearing aid providers are rated top again. There were some interesting findings, let's take a look.

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In the latest Which survey you can find out how the NHS and private providers compare for individual aspects of service. There are some significant differences that might surprise you.

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Remember that time that you thought to yourself I can't wait to wear hearing aids? Nah, I didn't think so, but you know what, you might change your mind about that when it comes to the time. Hearing aids are changing, changing so much that even people without hearing loss may well be interested in wearing them.

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Oticon has introduced a new app called Kaizn, it is a personal assistant for their Opn hearing aid users. Powered by machine learning and artificial intelligence it will ensure that their hearing aids will further meet the needs and preferences of their users.

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Made For iPhone hearing aids aren't exactly easy to purchase on a budget, but Bernafon have released budget Bluetooth hearing aids to their Zerena platform. The new Zerena 3 and Zerena 1 ranges of hearing aids mean that there is now budget Bluettoth hearing aids with a huge amount of model choice.

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I had a lovely chat with a very nice lady from Unitron lately, we were discussing the launch of their new Max hearing aid range for people with severe to profound hearing loss. The new Max will be based on the Tempus range which has proved so successful for Unitron. It also offers a couple of interesting settings that give users some new and interesting choices, let's talk about the Max.

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The sound made by the Krakatoa volcanic eruption in 1883 was so loud it ruptured eardrums of people 40 miles away, travelled around the world four times, and was clearly heard 3,000 miles away.

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For every situation in life, good or bad, there are many wise sayings that fit the occasion. Words of encouragement help us get through the blues, support us when we’re in physical or mental pain, and inspire us in knuckle-biting moments of decision-making.

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Phonak is the latest company to introduce remote support with their new Marvel hearing aids. The system is quite impressive offering the ability to have your hearing aids fine tuned in real time anywhere. Let's talk about the system and what it may mean to users.

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Ever just nodded, said yes or chuckled when you didn't hear what someone said? Yeah, me too. Trying to understand what someone is saying is a big problem

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Steve has talked about his experiences with the new LiNX Quattro, now its my turn. I am pretty impressed, it offers amazing sound quality and pretty much jaw dropping battery life. All in a very svelte discrete little package. Let's talk about the Quattro.

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The Phonak Marvel hearing aids were launched in the UK on Friday the 2nd of November, we found out a bit more about the devices and their availability. Here is the latest news on the Marvel hearing aids, the models, the technology levels and the availability.

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I originally tried the beta version of the BeHear in June, they have now released the product to market and I got to try the finished version recently. They have ironed out the issues and the devices deliver some amazing benefits, let's talk about the BeHear Now.

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Ian Croft of Easi Ear Hearing Care has joined the No Wax Ear Wax Removal network. Ian is an experienced hearing care professional with over 25 years of experience offering hearing care. He is the latest addition to the network offering ear wax removal in Bristol.

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Online hearing iads rip offs kind of piss us off but we don't often talk about them because the claims made on the sites are within reason. Then someone sent us a link to nanohearingaids.com and I felt we kind had to address it. So let's talk about why nanohearingaids.com is a pretty outrageous con job.

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Signia has introduced their new Motion Charge N Go NX hearing aids, here is what you need to know about the latest rechargeable hearing aid from Signia

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Hearing loss affects a portion of our society, and unfortunately, many of those affected fail to seek help due to the stigma surrounding hearing loss and hearing aids. In this article Karen Simpson identifies some of the ways we can break that stigma

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The new Bernafon IIC appears to fit more people than even Bernafon thought it would. In early trials they were able to fit the device to everyone involved. They ensured that participants were not selected carefully in order that they got a true sense of how many people the new model type would fit.

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At EUHA I was lucky enough to speak to Professor Andrew Hugill about his experience with the new LiNX Quattro. Andrew is a professor of music and a composer, but he hasn't been able to listen to music for over ten years. LiNX Quattro has changed all of that for him and reinvigorated his thoughts on music composition and enjoyment.

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Phonak has just announced the launch of their new Marvel hearing aids and they are pretty impressive devices. In fact, there is a lot to talk about , so much so that it is hard to decide where to start. I think the first thing is, that they appear to sound pretty good, on top of that there is a completely new sound, direct streaming from any Bluetooth device and finally a completely new remote care and app ecosystem. So like I said, a lot to speak about so let's get started.

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I have been wearing the new Quattro hearing aid from ReSound for the last couple of weeks, find out why they give a great hearing experience

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In an unprecedented move, the FDA has given approval to Bose to market a device as a self fitting hearing aid. It means that Bose will be able to sell the devices as hearing aids in the US where state laws allow. The move is unprecedented because the FDA is still in the process of defining what Over The Counter hearing aids will be, and this device will for all intent and purpose be just that.

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Rather than having to settle for a compromised ability to hear speech in favor of improving sound quality of your own voice, OVP eliminates the challenge via a sophisticated and unique solution. In this article Trica Benjamin, Au.D. discusses why that may be important to you.

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Researchers at the Karolinska Institute have identified four types of neurons in the peripheral auditory system, three of which are new to science. The analysis of these cells can lead to new therapies for various kinds of hearing disorders, such as tinnitus and age-related hearing loss.

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You can blame Steve, he made me do it, anyway, our first hearing aid know podcast is now live, after some internal debate, I decided to talk about hearing loss. Just be happy it wasn't video, all you have to do is listen to me, not look.

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I attended a Bernafon launch event yesterday introducing the new custom hearing aids and two new technology levels to the Zerena platform of hearing aids. The customs were big enough news, but I was particularly interested in the two new technology levels. It will mean that for the first time there will be direct connection Made For iPhone hearing aids in the budget section.

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Unfortunately, sometimes hearing aids just aren't enough to help people hear better in every situation. Even with the very best hearing aid technology, sometimes some people have issues hearing in certain situations. I have wanted to investigate this for a while but I have been spurred to action recently by a conversation with a US colleague. So this is the initial introduction of what I hope will turn into a full section on Know.

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Can't wait for the LiNX Quattro? Well here is your chance to get early access. Resound has given early access to the LiNX Quattro to some of the Premium hearing care centres in the UK and Ireland and you can book a demonstration on Hearing Aid Know.

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The much awaited Livio AI from Starkey has now been launched and they have been a bit of a smash hit in the tech world. But is it more sizzle than substance? Not really, I think that the premise of the Livio AI opens up an entire new use case for hearing aids and may well make the devices far more attractive to new consumers.

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I have been testing the Signia Styletto since last week and I have to say it sounded as good as I expected it would. It offers discretion, while still reminding you of high quality consumer electronics. It also offers freedom from batteries with a fantastic recharger case which is small enough to throw in your pocket. In fact, it is a really good hearing aid, however, there are things you need to know before choosing it.

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Made For Android has been a big ask for quite a while, with the launch of the Linx Quattro and the fanfare around the partnership between Resound and Google to deliver the protocol there has been renewed interest. I was in Denmark last week with the guys at Resound and I asked them about when we can expect the feature to go live. They reckon sometime in 2019, here is what they said.

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Salem Audiology Clinic in Salem Oregon joins the Independent hearing care network. Salem Audiology, which was founded in 1982, continues to provide the very best hearing aid aids from the leading brands aligned with outstanding levels of aftercare.

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Have you ever had a song stuck in your head? – An unwanted earworm that keeps playing over and over? A catchy piece of music that continually repeats through your mind, long after it has finished playing? This is similar to how I would describe my tinnitus. But instead of the notion of the song, there is actual ‘noise’, and the music never stops playing. There is no end to the record.

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Signia have just launched a new Lithium-ion powered rechargeable hearing aid they are calling the Styletto (that's pronounced Style-Etto). While the device is a Receiver In Canal, it is a completely new form factor concept. They also have some interesting early market research around it as well.

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Luke Glassford has over ten years experience working with personal injury experts and he recently submitted a post on industrial deafness. We asked him to outline the process for making a claim for the condition because we ourselves have no experience of the process. Here he discusses the procedure for making a claim for compensation for industrial deafness in the UK

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Bernafon has also revealed more information about their new Zerena custom Made For iPhone hearing aids (MFI). It means that they will be one of only three hearing aid brands with in the ear MFI hearing aids

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A new Facebook marketing campaign sees Oticon reveal some more information about the new Opn customs to consumers. The new hearing aids are due to arrive soon but Oticon haven't given a firm introductory date yet. It appears though that the introduction must be soon, otherwise they risk increasing interest too early.

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Are Over The Counter (OTC) Hearing Aids legal and available? Those are good questions and I will try and answer them clearly. Firstly, OTC hearing aids don't actually exist right now in 2018, because the FDA has yet to specify what they are. While the legislation has passed in the US, there are currently no lagal OTC hearing aids under that legislation. There are devices labbelled as OTC hearing aids available, but that unfortunately is a crock of shit. Let's talk OTC

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Industrial deafness can sometimes be a temporary condition, although there are many cases where the hearing loss is permanent. If the symptoms of industrial deafness are noticed and treated early enough, then the chance of the hearing loss becoming permanent are greatly reduced.

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Resound will collaborate with Google to finally introduce Made For Android hearing aids, the Linx Quattro will be the first ever Android direct streaming hearing aid. Finally Resound captures the holy grail of direct connectivity.

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As we age, the strength of our jaws will diminish, which is typically caused by deterioration of the parts that bind the jawbone to the skull. When the components of the jaw decrease, it could result in a painful condition that is referred to as temporomandibular joint disorder (TMJ).

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In this article, Ruth speaks about her personal experience of tinnitus. Ruth lost her hearing in one ear to sudden sensorineural hearing loss two years ago. She has honoured us with articles in the past and this article details her tinnitus and the coping mechanism she uses.

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Resound has announced the introduction of their new Linx Quattro, but what do we know about it so far. they haven't been really free with details, but we can make a few educated guesses to fill in the blanks.

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For those of you who are struggling with tinnitus and aren’t sure if your tinnitus is being caused by what you consume or other issues, one thing you can be sure of is that hearing loss and tinnitus are strongly connected

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Resound announces the introduction of the Linx Quattro, a new premium plus hearing aid with a Lithium-ion rechargeable power pack.

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"Does Medicare offer any coverage for hearing aids?" If you are one of the millions of Americans who experience hearing loss, know that there are steps you can take to find assistance with the phenomenal costs of hearing aids

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As I said in the last article, I found the Phonak Lyric to deliver an experience that I can only describe as almost normal hearing. In this article I want to speak about my daily experience, how it performed and how it seems to prove that placement may deliver almost normal hearing abilities.

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I have always thought the Lyric hearing aid to be a fascinating hearing aid, I mean the premise of a hearing aid that lives in your ears for months! When I was asked to try them out, my initial reaction was hell no, read the article and I will explain that. Anyway, I did try them out and here is what I found out.

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Hearing in noise can be a problem, even with hearing aids, but there ae ways to give you the very best opportunity to hear well in noisy situations. The first thing you should consider is a remote microphone system, they really deliver outstanding understanding in noisy situations. There are also a couple of things that you can do to give you the best opportunity to hear better in noisy situations even without a remote microphone.

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ZPower has pushed out a firmware upgrade for their charger, Widex in particular are pushing it out for their Beyond rechargeable hearing aids. The firmware upgrade is available on the ZPower site and it is pretty easy to undertake. If you own rechargeable hearing aids that use ZPower systems, it might be worth your while downloading the update and running it or getting in touch with your hearing professional to do it for you.

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Dan Butterworth of DJB Hearing is the latest ear wax removal specialist to join the No Wax network. Dan provides ear wax removal in Manchester and has over 25 years of experience in both public and private audiology.

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NuHeara have just pushed out a firmware upgrade for their IQbuds Boost which they are calling Focus. In essence, they just gave users the ability to focus the sound capture to their front, just like any device with directional microphones. The lines between so called hearables and hearing aids are beginning to blur considerably.

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If you have a pain in your body, you know to go to the doctor. Toothache? Schedule a visit with the dentist. Worsening vision? Time to see the eye doctor. But what do you do if you think you’re losing your hearing?

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Our friends at Hearing Tracker have just published details from a survey they and other put together on hearing aid prices in the US, it's interesting reading to say the least. Let's take a look at the numbers.

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Finally, another hearing aid brand will introduce Made For iPhone custom hearing aids, Oticon have just announced that the will launch their Opn custom hearing aids in quarter four 2018. The custom hearing aids will be Made For iPhone down to the in the canal model which is pretty much inline with what is on offer elsewhere.

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Every major hearing aid brand now has at least one style of rechargeable hearing aids. Most of them went for the ZPower system because it cut down on lead time to market. That may be changing though, rumours are that more hearing aid manufacturers will go down the route of Lithium-Ion powered systems this year and next.

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I have been using Be-Hear headsets for a little while now and I have been exceptionally impressed. These are just the Beta testing version an there are issues, but when they sort them out, they will be pretty amazing.

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Deciding on a BAHA device for your child can be a difficult experience, deciding on any surgical intervention can be hard. Cochlear has introduced a new instant fit BAHA device that allows a child to explore the benefits of BAHA without having to go down the surgery route. The Soundarc will be beneficial for children with conductive or mixed hearing loss, or single-sided deafness (SSD), who are not yet eligible or ready for an implant.

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I was asked to give a presentation recently on my thoughts about the future hearing aid customer. I used the presentation to explore the history of hearing healthcare and its effect on modern day practice. I also discussed modern consumers, their changing wants and needs and how technology was already changing to meet those needs.

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As hearing aid technology advances, features that seemed like a pipedream just a few years ago have become reality. Key among these modern hearing aid features is direct streaming – the ability to transmit live audio from a mobile device to your hearing aids. Rather than hearing things like music, TV, and phone calls with sub-optimal sound quality, streaming lets you hear what you want directly from your smartphone to your ears and at the perfect volume.

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while research into the effects of coffee and caffeine on hearing is very limited, one study shows that caffeine appears to help combat the onset of tinnitus. However, another limited study found some evidence to suggest that caffeine may lead to permanent hearing loss in a very specific situation. You can read all about it here in an article by Kathy Gallo.

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First date jitters are always a bit tortuous, but it can be even worse when you wear hearing aids, here are some solid tips to prepare for your first date when you are wearing hearing aids.

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The NuHeara IQbuds Boost have hit the market and I have been using a pair for a little while now, the original devices were excellent and could give people with generally normal hearing a little boost in speech clarity. These devices will actually give people with hearing loss some real clarity with speech. Let's take a look at hwat is different and why you could consider them if you have a hearing loss.

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I talked a couple of weeks ago about being an idiot in relation to pre-conceived ideas about Bernafon hearing aids. I liked what I heard from the Bernafon representative in relation to their software so I said I would have a go of the hearing aids. I have to say they are pretty good kit and I have been blindsided by the Soundclip-A, I mean it is a revelation.

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Attending the BIHIMA conference today and tomorrow, exploring the future of hearing aids, I will be live blogging as we go, updating the article

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Thanks to the Android Open Source Project, interested parties are able to track some of the upcoming features in the next Android release, and there’s one feature that has been spotted that made us very happy: support for Bluetooth hearing aids. According to a series of code commits that were spotted by XDA Developers, the Google Pixel and Pixel 2 smartphones will natively support connecting to Bluetooth hearing aids.

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If you have bought hearing aids at a Miracle Ear outlet, these people would like to hear from you for a small research project, they will pay for your time

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With the introduction of machine learning to hearing aids, we seem to be at the leading edge of a major change. What will machine learning mean to users and how may it change things going forward?

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Hearing loss can make work difficult, but there are plenty of assistive devices that can make your life easier, in this article Cassie runs through a few of them.

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Hearing loss is one of the most common medical conditions, affecting nearly 50 million Americans. It can be difficult to follow conversations, hear important sounds, and even enjoy simple pleasures like birds singing. However, hearing loss doesn’t always occur on its own. For many people, it can be caused by or lead to more serious health conditions.

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A lot of people think that Unitron hearing aids are just cheaper Phonak devices re-badged, they are wrong, Unitron use similar chipsets but design very different features to run on that chipset. I have always known that, mainly because I pride myself on leaving personal bias and pre-conceived ideas at the door. Well, up to now in anyway, and just to prove I am a Gobshite, along comes Bernafon, sure they are omly cheap Oticon aids re-badged right? Well no, it turns out that was my pre-conceived idea and personal bias, stand in the corner Geoff.

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The new Phonak CROS B-R has been formally launched around the world, the new rechargeable CROS hearing aid is an addition to the Phonak CROS Belong range. Let's take a look at what it has to offer.

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Widex have been pretty tight with their information about the new Evoke hearing aid platform. While we know it is the first ever hearing aid that utilises machine learning, they haven't really been free with much else. This is what we have been able to find out so far.

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Widex announced a much awaited new hearing aid platform today called the Evoke, over the last couple of months they have been teasing a major breakthrough. The new platform will be the first ever devices to use machine learning to continually improve the sound for users. These are the first ever hearing aids to use any type of cloud based artificial intelligence.

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According to a study that caught my eye recently, it seems that younger children who develop SSHL may have lower recovery rates than older children. The study was a retrospective review of 67 patients who were diagnosed with SSNHL at the hospitals at the Medical Center at Seoul National University in 2017.

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ZPower rechargeable hearing aid battery technology is different from traditional hearing aid battery technology, it requires a different care routine; and as their batteries become more and more popular, they’ve recognized the need for some additional information to help users get the most of their experience.

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This isn't your normal earwax removal specialist, for one thing, they look after children, and for another, they will treat ear infections and even write out a prescription. Meet Hearology London Bridge, the latest earwax removal provider to join the No Wax Earwax Removal Specialist Network.

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Bananas, the cure for hearing loss! Not quite, but eating more bananas is one thing that you can do to keep your hearing optimal. We have long known that certain nutirents are important for hearing function. An Australian Campaign for Better Hearing are using a novel way to highlight the link between bananas and hearing health with their Go Bananas events

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Alan Hopkirk, a Tinnitus Expert with a Practice in Glasgow, Scotland recently attended the Tinnitus Research Initiative conference in Regensburg, Germany. He did a video report which outlines his experience and the latest findings in Tinnitus Research which you can see here.

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A new earwax removal specialist has joined the No Wax Network providing ear wax removal in Belfast. EarWaxOut is a new business run by an old friend, Lindsay Gillespie has been involved in the hearing care business for over thirty years.

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A recent article in the Guardian showed that a study showed that age-related hearing loss was significantly linked to cognitive decline. What do we know about hearing loss and its possible links to dementia?

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In this the final article of the Moxi All series, I review my daily experience and offer a round up of the hearing aids. I have to say I liked them a lot, they are versatile, offer a pretty good phone experience and Unitron have been very smart with the development and positioning of them.

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A recent conversation with a friend moved me to write about sudden hearing loss again. You need to treat any sudden hearing loss as a medical emergency until you know different. A firend of mine who should have known better didn't, but thankfully the outcome was better than should have been expected.

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I have had some experience recently with the Audeo B-50 and have a couple of customers using the devices. In general, it seems that the devices have performed above expectations. They seem like a pretty solid hearing aid delivering very decent results considering their technology level.

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I have been using the Moxi All for a while now and it has proven to be a pretty solid hearing aid. In this article I talk about my day to day streaming experience, the joy of hands free phone calls and the outstanding audio experience from the TV Connector.

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We don't support many online providers of hearing aids on Hearing Aid Know, but Australian hearing aid manufacturers Blamey and Saunders is one of them. They have just launched a new rechargeable receiver in canal hearing aid that they are calling the Facett.

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I got my hands on a set of Unitron Moxi All hearing aids just recently, I have to say they are nice devices. I like the design, the thirteen battery system doesn't add much bul or weight, they have been pretty intelligent with the design of the rechargeable battery door. Overall, they are pretty nice hearing aids.

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Modern offices are a tough place for those of us with hearing loss. The trend of late has been for open plan offices, basically large open spaces stuffed full of desks, with no dividing walls between desks or areas. This is supposed to improve collaboration amongst employees as everyone can talk and see everyone else, the jury is out as to whether an open plan office improves anyone's working life but one thing is for sure: it's a nightmare if you have hearing loss. Years back the office trend was for everyone to be in cubicles, like each person had their own little walled-off area with just them and their desk in it, this layout was widely hated by people but it would have been a much easier environemnt to hear in.

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Really interesting one came up on my news feed recently, motor bike riders can risk permanent hearing loss just by riding at speed. It's nothing to do with a loud exhaust, it is all down to wind noise. It fascinated me and I never once have thought about it, I doubt if riders do either, but it means they should look at proper ear protection.

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Signia have quickly moved to widen their new nx hearing aid line up with the new Pure nx Charge & Go. Now Own Voice Processing comes in easy to use rechargeable. Let's take a look at the new device and what it has to offer.

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More news about the Moxi All has leaked out and it makes the aids look pretty impressive. Unitron have said that a full charge will deliver sixteen hours of use along with two hours of phone calls and up to five hours of TV streaming. Alongside that, there is no degradation in efficacy or limitation of features, the Moxi All will have all of the Unitron features working as normal at every level of technology.

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We figured that it probably wouldn't be long before Unitron launched a Made For All hearing aid like their Phonak stablemate. However, in true Untiron style they have done so in their own inimitable way. Meet the Moxi All, the first ever rechargeable Made For All Phones hearing aid.

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Hearing loss has a dramatic effect on the people who suffer with it. Clinically, hearing loss has been linked to depression, dementia and emotional distress. It has also been linked to an increase in falls for older people. While hearing aids are really the only treatment for most hearing loss, some new experimental drugs may change that.

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The Veterans Hearing Fund was set up to ensure that UK Veterans had access to the best equipment available to ensure they could live their lives. But many Veterans feel conflicted about what they perceive is making a claim against the British Legion. They couldn't be more wrong, this isn't a legal claim system in the normal sense, the Veterans Hearing Fund is in fact financed by fines that occurred because of the Libor Scandal. Let's take a look at it

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The latest Naida range has finally been introduced, it means that all of the latest hearing aids from Phonak now run on the Belong platform. The Naida has become the go to hearing aid for people with severe to profound hearing loss and upgrading it to the latest platform and adding a rechargeable hearing aid option to the line-up will be welcomed by many

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I swear, if I hear I am too old, I might not live much longer, or I don't know, I can't handle these new technologies again, I might just shake someone. When are you too old for quality of life? When are you too old to learn something new? When are you too old to enjoy simple conversation? Let's talk about Cyrill Blewitt and why I think he rocks.

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The whole ethos of this site is no bullshit, honest, impartial advice given to help people with hearing loss understand their problem and the equipment used to correct it. However, we have been a victim of what we are calling the great fake hearing aid review and we are pretty pissed off. Let's talk about why f@$#wits make sure that we can't have nice things.

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I was glad to see the recent announcement from Phonak in relation to the extension of their rechargeable hearing aid options. For the first time ever there will be a reliable rechargeable super power hearing aid for people with severe to profound hearing loss.

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My eye was caught recently by an article in the Hearing Journal recently about a study pertaining to hearing loss in Children with Down Syndrome. The study confirmed earlier findings of other studies and really validated the education of parents, carers and physicians as a necessary strategy for early identification and referral.

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This is a guest post by Narry Nance of Network Testing Labs, they have undertaken a review of five different in the ear hearing aids that are available either online, or through an Audiologist in combination with an online retailer. While some of the review is a little technical, it is easy to follow and they have piced a clear winner in their own mind

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Hearing loss has many co-morbidities, simply means that if you have a certain health problem, it is likely that you will have hearing loss. In this article I want to go over the connection between you heart health and hearing loss.

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In this departure from the norm, Dr. Tish Ramirez, the Sr. Manager of Education and Training for Signia delivers an article about the intertwining of different technologies and how it brings benefit to you in your search for better hearing.

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The new rechargeable hearing aids from Starkey are now available across international markets. It is of course a Lithium-Ion powered system and in a first for the industry, it is also offered as a CROS. That's the first rechargeable CROS available from any hearing aid manufacturer.

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A new press release from Phonak details a new wireless microphone technology that they have been working on in collaboration with Advanced Bionics. The details are intriguing as are the increased speech understanding in noise that they say it will deliver.

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I was very saddened recently by an article that detailed what can only be seen as a failure of nursing homes to properly deal with their residents with hearing loss. While the article was saddening, it reminded me of a recent fantastic experience with a Patient of mine in a nursing home. Let's talk about Widex hearing aids and the pure unadulterated joy delivered through a TV Dex.

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We take our hearing for granted really, that is until it has gone. A recent encounter in a UK airport reminded me of how much being able to hear enriches someone's life. Let's talk about 27 types of cement.

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As we have done for a few years now, this article will be a constantly updated living document that details the very latest and best hearing aids from the biggest hearing aid brands during 2018. If you want to know what hearing aidss are on the cutting edge, then this is where you should start.

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There are many forms of funding in the UK for hearing aids and hearing aid equipment, Access To Work is one such scheme. If you fit the requirements, you may be eligible for funding for hearing aid equipment to ensure you have access to work, or to keep you in work. Let's talk about access to work.

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Innovation this, disruption that, game changer the other, innovation is not new in the hearing aid world, but there are some things that occur that change hearing aids forever. So what will be the real game changers in hearing aids in 2018? Let's take a look.

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Leading on from our Irish hearing aid funding article yesterday, I was asked about the hearing aid funding and hearing aid grants available in the United Kingdom. So here we go, what is available and to who?

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This article has a bit of an Irish connection, recently I was asked a few questions about hearing aids in ireland. Questions like, doers the VHI cover hearing aids, and are hearing aids tax deductible? So I figured it was time I wrote an article that covered most of the questions I get asked.

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The Starkey Expo seems to have proved to be an exceptionally interesting one, not just new rechargeable hearing aids, but also a teaser about hearing aids that may change the feature set and use case forever. The teased a brand new hearing aid that included sensors that would not just track activity, but also detect falls and report them.

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Starkey has announced that they will be introducing a new rechargeable hearing aid system this year called the Muse IQr. In a change in their direction so far, the new devices are Lithium-Ion powered. Here is what we know.

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We have finally released the 2018 edition of The Little Book of Hearing Aids, we updated and expanded the information in the book in order that readers could have the latest information on hearing aids and the people who sell them.

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I am often asked "How long do hearing aids last?" Most people have read somewhere that hearing aids need to be replaced every five years, that's not quite true. Hearing aids can last up to ten years and more, however, it is worth explaining the five year thing and why hearing aids may well end up dead as a dodo after ten.

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Ear wax and hearing aids, pretty much everything you need to know, why they go together, what the issues are and what you need to know about the effects of hearing aids on the build up of ear wax in the ear canal and the effects of ear wax on hearing aids.

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Can ear wax removal cause tinnitus, can ear wax removal cause bleeding, can ear wax removal cause hearing loss, can ear wax removal improve hearing? We get asked a lot of questions about ear wax removal, so we decided to wirte an article so that these and other questions are answered

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Which hearing aids work directly with the iPhone is a question we get asked a lot, people seem to like the idea of direct connection without a streamer. So, I decided to write up a quick rundown on exactly what hearing aids are Made For iPhone.

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Tinnitus can be a very difficult condition, the impact can range from mildly irritating to devastating. The condition is still not well understood, however, ongoing research has made things clearer. One thing that we do know is that when there is an accompanying hearing loss, that amplification helps. So how can hearing aids help with tinnitus.

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Hearing aids, wonderful devices that can be sometimes infuriating, the most infuriating thing for many is a hearing aid whistling. So why do hearing aids squeal? That whistling is called feedback and it is caused by leaking sound generally. Let's talk about feedback, why it happens, what causes it, and what you may be able to do about it.

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In this the last article of three, I want to tie my experiences together and give a rundown on the features, models and technology around the newest hearing aid platform from Signia. Let's dive in.

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I have enjoyed wearing the new Signia Nx hearing aids over the last week, they perform as well if not better than any beamforming hearing aid I have worn up to now. The addition of the myControl app and the ability to narrowly focus the directionality offers outstanding hearing ability in really complex sound situations. Let's talk about everyday experience with the Signia Pure 312 7 Nx.

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I have been wearing a set of Signia Pure 312 7 Nx hearing aids for the last week and I am pretty impressed. Svelte, easy to wear, great in noise, connects directly to your iPhone and little or no problems with your own voice. Wait, there's more, let's talk about the latest Signia hearing aids.

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Just in case no one told you, Christmas is coming, whoop whoop. It is the ideal time for you to think about treating yourself to wireless hearing aid accessories if you are still having some problems hearing in certain areas.

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Old technology is not necessarily bad technology, and when it comes to hearing loops and telecoil systems, that statement could not be truer. Let's talk about why you should consider a telecoil in your next set of hearing aids. Even better, if you have one already, get it turned on.

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Ruth Kirkham is intimately familiar with hearing loss having suffered it herself, here she discusses why it is different than you may think. Many people equate hearing loss with volume, the truth is that hearing loss tends to be about balance. In this article, Ruth explains how she discovered that.

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I had an interesting experience yesterday and it reminded me why we always try to ensure that there is a family member present at a hearing test. I was thinking about it and my experiences with Patients and I realised that really, you should bring a family member to many of your follow up appointments as well.

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Experts in the UK have warned that ear syringing is a dangerous and ineffective method of ear cleaning. They advise that other methods are more effective and present little or no danger to the Patient.

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An interesting conversation recently got me thinking, it was in relation to the Beyond Z from Widex. Anyway, the new rechargeable is finally ready to be delivered. The Beyond, Rechargeable, what's not to like right? I said to the chap from Widex, about damn time! He said, yeah, but it took us ages to get the CE approval. Let's talk the Beyond rechargeable option and an interesting insight.

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The new Widex Custom is a departure for Widex, a new form factor, new options and a new discreet and powerful hearing aid, let's take a look

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Hearing Care is changing and Independents are leading the charge, one of our associated hearing centres in Nottingham is introducing a whole new concept in hearing care. We talked briefly to them about it and it sounds interesting, we will know more about it soon when they introduce it in the New Year.

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The new ConnectClip from Oticon is one of the first ever audio streaming devices that will act as a remote microphone and a remote control as well. The device will turn your Oticon Opn™ hearing aids into a wireless stereo headset with ConnectClip, so you can make hands-free phone calls and stream music from your smartphone. Or listen to someone speaking from a distance using its remote microphone functionality. You can even use ConnectClip as a discreet remote control for your hearing aids

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Oticon fitness app represents an new concept in hearing healthcare, one where hearing health is part of a more holistic approach to health in general

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We received a glowing review of Vibrant Hearing recently, one of our associated Independent hearing aid centres. Vibrant is owned and managed by Brenda Quinn Hays and she provides hearing care and hearing aids in Newcastle

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I find shooting to be almost a Zen experience, range shooting in particular can be hugely relaxing. However, if sport shooters don't protect their hearing they will lose it. We received an infographic submission recently from gunsafelab.com and we decided to republish it.

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I got my hands on a set of IQBuds from NuHeara recently and I have been using them for a couple of weeks. I have to say, I am pretty impressed by the sound quality. I am also impressed by their performance when it comes to hearing processing as they label it. Are they a good replacement for dedicated hearing aids, probably not. However, at under 300 quid they do a pretty good job and they offer excellent audio streaming abilities from your phone. Let's talk about the IQBuds

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I get asked all the time, why are hearing aids so damned expensive? Well, the answers are both complex and simple. Part of it si down to research and design, part of it is down to "We got to eat!" Here is the no bullshit guide to why hearing aids cost what they do.

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I was really saddened to read about the death of Andrew Broadhurst, a 39 year old man from Birmingham in the UK. A missed middle ear infection ultimately led to his death from Meningitis and encephalitis. Otitis Media, or mid-ear infection is completely treatable, however, when left without treatment it can be fatal.

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Hearing loss is a family sport, it affects the entire family of a person who suffers it. We have tried to make that clear in the past, but you can be confident now. It has to be true, the Daily Mail says so

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Oticon's Opn hearing aids have an OpenSound Navigator feature, which replaces conventional directional microphones

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Oticon's Opn hearing aid is bluetooth enabled and works seamlessly with Apple and Android devices. It also connects to the Internet Of Things via IFTTT

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There are a few times that something happens in hearing care that represents a paradigm shift. I think the new telecare upgrade from Signia is probably representative of that. I believe it will probably change the face of hearing care and how you have your hearing aids adjusted forever. Let's take a look

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One of our associated hearing aid centres will bring their high quality hearing care services, ear wax removal and the very best hearing aids to a new hearing aid centre in Auchterarder soon. Just recently, the owners both received Highly Commended Awards in the Audiologist of The Year 2017 competition

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Details of the new NX platform from Signia are starting to leak out, a completly new dual processor set up, better own voice experience, Made For iPhone and a new "open" directionality system. Let's take a look at the details that are available.

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We are attending the latest Oticon UK launch event and we will be live blogging, you can keep updated on the day here.

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It is EUHA time again and as expected some of the hearing aid brands have announced new ranges of hearing aids. Widex and Signia have made announcements today of new hearing devices and we expect more details to follow.

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When do you mention your hearing loss at a job interview?

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There are many standard reasons that people give for not using hearing aids, the biggest is the "My hearing isn't that bad". Let's take a look at that little cherry and all the others. Strap yourself in though, I ain't going to be gentle.

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People always hate hearing a recording of their own voice. Hearing aid wearers just usually hate their own voices full stop. Signia may have fixed that problem

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I've been losing my hearing since the age of 5, now aged 43 there ain't much left

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I'm using the

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Ruth discusses her experience with the Oticon Spirit Synergy, the aid supplied to her by the NHS. Geoff also explains why her SSHL may be responsible for much of the problems.

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A new study by researchers at OHSU published recently has come to the conclusion that Anti-Depressants may in fact make Tinnitus worse, increasing anxiety as opposed to treating it.

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Greg Clements has been a friend of ours for many years, he is a respected hearing healthcare professional and a very decent man. We have often spoke about continuity, Greg is reaching the age where he has started to worry about what happens to his customers after he decides to retire. He found the answer recently and Clements Hearing now joins the Black and Lizars hearing care network.

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Matthew Pearson of zone1hearing has joined our network of No Wax Ear Wax Removal Specialists in London, let's meet the newest member of the network

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Hearing aid technology is changing as is cultural acceptance of the devices. Changing technology outside the hearing aid world is also beginning to play its own part. I wanted to explore what may be possible, what will a day in the life of a hearing aid user look like in five or ten years time?

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Wind noise is a real problem for hearing aid wearers. Depending on what hearing aids you have this can be a very loud noise that more or less makes your aids unusable on windy days.

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The Audeo B-Direct has now been fully introduced across the US, the UK and Ireland. We have the full run down on the hearing devices and the important things you need to know about them to make an educated decision about purchasing

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As Steve's recent article suggests, the Oticon Opns are very different hearing aids than much of what has gone before. They have been hugely well received and it seems that most people are really happy with them and their performance. But what is different and what do you need to know about them?

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I have noticed on a few web sites that some slightly older hearing aid technology is marked Obsolete, Do Not Buy, but is buying older hearing aids bad? Maybe not, in fact buying older hearing aids at a good price might just be a really good move.

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EEEARS are a new reusable ear cleaner that is being funded on Kickstarter. It is being marketed as a solution to the problem of huge amounts of cotton buds being dumped in landfill each year. But are they safe to use?

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Google celebrates British Sign Language and the work of Thomas Braidwood

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I have been thinking lately, wife says it is never a good thing, in anyway, we don't talk enough on Know about tricky hearing losses. We also don't focus enough on devices past the hearing aids. For people with severe, severe to profound or profound hearing losses, the hearing aids are rarely enough. So let's talk about ecosystems.

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We undertook an interview with Dave Fabry of GN Resound which covered the new Enzo 3D, the needs of people with severe to profound hearing loss, Resound Assist and differentiation of the Independent, the future of hearing aids and other topics

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Tested out Oticon's OPN hearing aids in restaurants and was very pleased at being able to hear people around my table very clearly

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Just over a year ago I got back from a night out with friends, sat down on the sofa and lost the hearing in my left ear. It really was as unceremonious as that.

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Rechargeable hearing aids have certainly peaked a lot of interest in consumers, up to now though they have all been behind the ear or receiver in canal styles. They are also all based on traditionaal type charger cradle technology. What if completely wireless charging was introduced, would you be interested?

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Unitron has launched new custom hearing aids on the Tempus platform that they are calling the Insera, they have also launched a new rechargeable BTE

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So Phonak have introduced a new Bluetooth hearing aid and it is a very interesting hearing aid, but how does it fare or weigh up against the existing Made For iPhone hearing devices? We decided to compare it to the Resound LiNX 3D as a methaphor for all Made For iPhone concepts, so let's talk connectivity

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We reported on a fascinating new video otoscope tool that would help with home based diagnosis of middle ear problems a while ago. HearScope was using crowd funding to generate the cash for the product development, well it smashed its target and it's coming your way soon

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Today in Copenhagen Resound announced a further expansion of their 3D platform, they are bringing 3D hearing to people with severe to profound hearing loss. Let's talk about the new Enzo 3D hearing aids and when we can expect to see them.

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We were interested to see Which talk about the different hearing aid brands and their ownership of National hearing aid retailers recently. We have talked about National hearing aid retailers here before, but I suppose we never explored their ownership. Let's talk about the Which article

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GN Resound are the latest big hearing aid brand to announce that they will be launching a rechargeable version of their new LiNX 3D hearing aids. With Widex expected to announce their own rechargeable version of their Fusion hearing aid it will mean that all of the big brands will now offer rechargeable hearing aids.

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Cotton buds are not really meant to be put in to your ears - this video might convince you why.

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Our Labrador isn't a trained hearing dog but he's my ears when I need him

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I've been running quite a bit recently and have been having problems with sweat getting in to my hearing aids and either reducing sound quality or stopping them from working altogether. I've ordered a pair of Ear Gear, which I hope will save the day.

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Sivantos launches world’s first video call for hearing aid fittings as part of an expansion of their Tel Care hearing aid app. TeleCare connects Hearing Care Professionals (HCPs) to hearing aid wearers via their Signia myHearing App and an online portal forHCPs.

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President Donald Trump signed into law today the Food and Drug Administration Reauthorization Act of 2017, legislation that provides for greater public access to over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids.

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While the big news was the Made For Any Phone, Phonak also introduced the complete range of Virto B products yesterday. They say it is the first ever hearing aid to use biometric data to improve signal to noise ratio

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Recently scientists have been studying deeper in to the Cocktail Party Effect and discovered that it is not actually our ears that are doing the work of distinguishing voices from background noise, but it is our brains that are filling in the gaps

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GN Store Nord have said that they will enter the OTC hearing aid market in the US.

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Phonak has really pulled off a ground breaking advancement, not just Made For iPhone, not just Made For Android, but Made For Any Phone. Meet the Audeo B-Direct, the only hearing aid that will connect to any mobile phone with Bluetooth directly

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The Glasgow Tinnitus Support Group meets on Wednesday the 20th of September, you can find out more details here

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I saw an interesting share from Phonak Spain today, I think Phonak may be about to change Bluetooth hearing aids forever

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In a first for the hearing industry, William Demant, the corporation who owns Oticon, say they may enter the OTC hearing aid market

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Ear infections can be a real pain, they can also be dangerous, let's talk about what you need to know about treating ear infections and protecting your hearing health

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We thought it would be nice to celebrate the kind work of someone who is devoted to helping others with hearing loss, so Nancy Gilbertson, we salute you. Here is her story and why we think her initiative is a fantastic thing

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A recent article reminded me of a young man whose hearing I had tested a couple of years ago, he had been undertaking some strenuous weight training and had suddenly gone deaf in one ear. The Reddit user in the article had suffered a sudden hearing loss in one ear from an intense sit up workout.

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Hydrogen Peroxide is one of the home remedies that is used to remove ear wax, learn how it works, how to do it and when you should consider professional ear wax removal

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Some recent advancements suggest that mind control of hearing aids may be the answer to hearing speech clearly in noise, but it could be a while before we see it happen.

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Resound's sister company Jabra has just launched an upgrade to their Elite Sports Wireless Earbuds. They offer longer battery life, personalised sound and a new colour. The upgrade brings the devices in line with the battery life of similar devices from Bragi and Apple.

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So, Phonak are teasing a big announcement and launch cycle in September and Phonak people are looking pretty smug. Is it just me or does everyone else think it might be Made For Android hearing aid time?

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I have spoken about the link between untreated hearing loss and dementia before on these pages. A recent article in the Lancet has brought it to the fore again. Let's talk about dementia, untreated hearing loss and other factors that may contribute to the problem.

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Sarah Vokes of Correct Hearing, part of the Hearing Aid Know Hearing Provider Network, was on BBC Radio Nottingham recently. The piece was excellent with a complete outline of the effects of hearing loss and the difference that hearing aids can make. It is worth listening to.

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The Over The Counter Hearing Aid Act has been passed but how long before you see them on display? Well, it could be up to three years, although no one really thinks it will be that long.

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Eargo devices have been around for a while, the company has even launched an updated Eargo Plus. What can you expect from the devices, do they live up to the hype, and just how good are they?

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There is a new addition to the No Wax Ear Wax Removal Specialists Network in Essex, based in Upminister, Click Hearing have joined the network

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Triton Hearing, a New Zealand based company announced in April that it would be providing hearing aid services to rural communities via the internet. If the measure is accepted globally, your next hearing aid could be fitted remotely. Would you want it to be?

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When Widex introduced soundclasses with the Unique platform I thought to myself there they go following the herd. Up to the Unique Widex always relied on an outstanding analysis sytem to govern the feature sets of the hearing aids. So the introduction of sound classes just seemed like more marketing rubbish. I am quite glad to admit I was wrong, bigly!

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Mid ear infections can be a stressful and painful event for children, they are also the biggest cause of ongoing hearing problems in the developing world. HearX, a company in South Africa is about to launch a solution to the problem of early diagnosis of mid ear infections. It's a smart, affordable, easy to use, mobile solution for accurate diagnosis of ear disease. The high-quality variable magnification otoscope “pen” connects to a smartphone running the hearScope application. hearScope is a diagnostic aid for doctors, nurses and healthcare providers but can also be used by parents to track and monitor their children’s ear health

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Quality Hearing Aids has two hearing aid centres in Las Vegas offering the very best hearing aids with outstanding care and attention. Steve Romeo and the team have built an excellent reputation for remarkable hearing solutions and high levels of aftercare. So if you are looking for hearing aids in Vegas, this is definitely the place for you.

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We took a look at some systems a while ago that may help people with a mild to moderate hearing loss to mild for hearing aids to hear the TV better. Today, we are taking a look at a second system from Sennheiser, the Flex 5000 digital wireless audio system.

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The other day I woke up in Barcelona. We've rented an apartment there for the summer. It's a lovely sunny day. Sunlight is streaming through the window, lighting up the entire bedroom.

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Resound have released a playlist of video tutorials for new users of the Smart 3D app for their LiNX 3D hearing aids, well worth a look if you are new to them. The tutorials will help you access the full power of the hearing aids.

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Receiver in canal and thin tube hearing aids are exceptionally popular devices, they are often fit with instant tips which are small rubber tips that go in the ear. However, if you are buying a set of thin tube or receiver in canal digital hearing aids, you should consider custom tips. Better sound, less feedback issues and more comfort, why wouldn't you? Let's talk custom tips.

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So you need hearing aids, but you aren't ready for a pipe and slippers? What you need is to know what's the best hearing aids for an active lifestyle. Let's take a look at the different considerations you need to take and what you should be looking at.

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Dance DJ Debi Ghose was always careful to protect her hearing but one visit to a festival without hearing protection left her suffering with tinnitus

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So, what are the pros or benefits of Made For iPhone hearing aids and why would you want them? Made For iPhone hearing aids have become popular, but what do they offer and why might you choose them?

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Interesting response to Australian TV advert, a recent advert from Clarity Hearing Solutions in Australia was condemned by the advert watchdog there. The advert in essence uses the frustration of loved one's as the central theme but it perhaps steps over the line by intimating domestic violence, with a twist. Take a look at what your Mum wants for Mother's Day

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Widex releases an updated Widex Zen app for the relief of tinnitus, Zen has proved effective to alleviate the frustration of tinnitus and the app is designed with this goal in mind. At the very least, it is a good test of whether Zen will be helpful to you with your tinnitus.

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Correct Hearing Limited who provide Independent advice on hearing care, hearing tests and hearing aids in Nottingham have now joined the Know Providers Network. They are an Independent family run business with long experience of the providing best in class hearing care.

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In a recent announcement BSHAA has found that the directors of an online hearing aid sales company have breached their code of practice. But what does that mean for online sales of hearing aids in the UK? More importantly, what happens now and into the future with online sales?

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Widex will be releasing a new firmware update to deal with the issues that have been disrupting the connection between the iPhone and the Beyond Fusion 2. The best thing is that it will go straight to the app, so you won't have to visit your professional to get it sorted.

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After losing the hearing in my left ear due to sudden sensorineural hearing loss I decided to try a CROS hearing aid. Receiving my CROS hearing aid was a positive experience. I was hoping it would give me some hearing ability on my left side. I was hoping it was going to give me a chance of hearing some elements of speech on my left side; to help me gain some confidence in communicating with others. I was hoping the hearing aid would provide me with some support with hearing in situations with background noise.

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In the last article we talked about the Widex Beyond, however, it is far from the only hearing aid with iPhone problems. It seems that the Oticon Opn as a Made For iPhone is problematic as well. Again, this is sad, because they are outstanding hearing aids, as with the Beyond, the problem isn't the hearing aids, it's the phone.

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We have been undertaking some research into the Widex Beyond in the recent past, mostly driven by some of the feedback we were getting. It seems that The Beyond as a Made For iPhone is a failure in some cases. Which is sad, because they are outstanding hearing aids and when the streaming does work, the sound quality is the best in the business.

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A recent conversation with a Twitter user who follows us got us thinking, even if you have old hearing aids or NHS hearing aids that aren't Bluetooth compatible. It doesn't mean that you can't make them so. A little bit of quick thinking and a few products all under seventy pounds can have you streaming music and phone calls to your devices.

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What exactly can you expect when you have been fitted with a new set of hearing aids? Well hearing better is one thing, but it's not as simple as that. Let's take a look at what happens when you first start to wear a new set of hearing aids.

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I want to hear one person's voice, who is being amplified over speakers and I don't want to have my ear drums assaulted by the laughter of the crowd. So I'm dealing with short bursts of loud noise interspersed with the comedian's voice. The aids need to be quick as comedian's are pretty rapid-fire with their jokes, if I'm a second or two behind because noise-reduction is still dapenning the laughter then I've missed the start of the next gag.

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Nine months ago I was sitting in a school auditorium, listening to a guest speaker giving a presentation. I am a teacher of Early Years children, and this was part of the school training sessions, a week before the start of the new school year. I lifted my head up from writing some notes, and out of nowhere came a loud screeching sound that filled my head with pressure.

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Steve recently had a set of LiNX 3D fitted to him and he has been raving about them ever since. We thought we would introduce you to the guy who fitted them and his Practice in High Wycombe, Bucks

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In a story I read many years ago there was a device that was implanted in your cochlea. A device that allowed you to interact with your world, giving you information, translating foreign languages and allowing you to communicate with other people in the manner of a phone or radio. I think the recent introduction of the Dash Pro by Bragi brings us one step closer to that day. Bragi and Starkey have come together to deliver the very first custom fit Hearable. The device is a further upgrade on the original Dash and it will be built to a custom fit by Starkey. Hearing professionals will take impressions and forward them to Starkey for the tailoring process.

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Hearing Matters are a long established Independent Hearing Health Care Provider in the Greater Manchester area. They are heighly respected clinical Audiologists who deliver outstanding levels of care and services like balance assessments, ear wax removal and hearing aids. They have opened a Hearing Aid Centre in Knutsford that will allow their Cheshire customers a shorter journey to receive care.

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You shouldn't really notice that a good hearing aid is in your ear. By that I mean: if a hearing aid is working really well you should be hearing comfortably in all situations and you shouldn't notice the hearing aid doing anything other than delivering a natural sound to you.

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Surprising hearing loss facts and figures infographic. UK-based figures for people with hearing loss, deafness and tinnitus

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The wife of the Inspiral Carpets drummer Craig Gill has said there needs to be a greater awareness of the devastating effects of tinnitus after an inquest into his death returned an open verdict.

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I have the receiver-in-the-ear model, this is the first time I have worn this type of hearing aid, they've been available for a while, from all the major brands, but I think they were targetted mainly at people with mild to moderate hearing losses but as technology has improved they are now available for severe hearing losses like mine.

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I've been wearing a pair of GN ReSound's Linx 3D hearing aids for about a month now and am very happy with them. I have been wearing heaing aids for over 25 years but this is my first pair from ReSound - I was a little worried I might find it difficult to switch to a new style of sound after being so used to wearing other brands but the Linxs have been easy to wear and have sounded completely natural.

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Tinnitus can be a very debilitating condition and while there is no cure yet, it can be treated very well. Alan Hopkirk of The Invisible Hearing Clinic in Glasgow has focused on the effective treatment of Tinnitus for many years.

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The British Legion manages a hearing fund for UK veterans that will pay for hearing aids or hearing equipment for UK Veterans. The fund is a fantastic idea and more and more hearing healthcare practices are becoming experienced in assisting Veterans with hearing loss get access to it

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New hearing aids and a new way to access hearing care, your hearing your way. Resound don't do things by half! So what is Resound Assist and how will it change your hearing experience? Let's take a look.

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In this article we look at the models and features sets in the latest Made For iPhone platform from GN Resound, the Linx 3D. With this release GN did not bring wireless transmission to their smaller customs and ear to ear communication is reserved for their larger custom devices. Let's take a look.

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So it's here, it's been launched, but what exactly is so exciting? Well, let's take a look at the Linx 3D platform and explore how it delivers, what it delivers. We will do a quick overview of the platform, the styles and the exciting details.

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Attending the launch of the Linx 3D in London today, quite excited at finally meeting the hearing aids that Steve has been raving about for two weeks. More on that later, let's meet the Linx 3D

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Well another hearing aid brand has gone rechargeable, this hearing device segment just seems set to grow and grow. Oticon announced an expansion of their Opn hearing aid range and a rechargeable option that like Unitron's is backward compatible.

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Buying hearing aids in Hull, well then we think we have a great place for you to start your journey to better hearing. Abid Khan of The Yorkshire Hearing Centre is one of the newest members of our hearing aid centre network. His is dedicated clinical centre that offers far more than the latest digital hearing devices

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Hearing Aid Know has become an accepted site for honest and clear advice on hearing aids over the last few years. We have now decided that we want to be the go to place for advice on hearing aid centres in the UK and Ireland as well. So we have begun a concerted effort to detail Independent Hearing Healthcare Providers across the UK and Ireland, who they are and what they offer.

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Has it got difficult to hear the TV? Is your family making comments about your hearing? Do you think that people are mumbling? Are you worried about hearing loss? If you are, there are some things I think are imperative for you to consider. Read this because it might just save you a lot of pain.

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I finally got to play with the Unitron Tempus recently at a launch event in Dublin. I was caught by surprise by the spatial awareness quality they delivered. It was much better than the North Moxi Fits I wear at the minute. Let's talk about my experiences.

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Sometimes as a professional who deals with hearing loss everyday it is easy for me to become blase with the subject. Just occasionally I am reminded that people view hearing loss in a different way to the way I do. Hearing loss is not the end of the world, nor is it a sign that you are old, stupid or infirm, it just is. It is important that you realise that so that you will not allow hearing loss to rob you of the joy of life. In this article Joe Fleming discusses four ways to deal with hearing related anxiety.

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Sometimes I have people in my clinic who report hearing the TV as a problem and maybe some problems in noisy situations. However, when I test their hearing it shows that they have a mild hearing loss. Too mild for hearing aids but they still have the problem. So this is the first of a series of articles looking into solutions that are ideal for the problems that won't break the bank. I want you to meet the Senheisser RS 5000

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You are being ripped off when you buy hearing aids! Great headline, gets lots of people interested, but is it true? Yes, no and maybe, kind of depends on what you are buying. I want to take a deeper look at buying hearing aids, what is involved and why the damned prices are so high.

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Well the wait is nearly over, GN Resound have announced the launch of a new product line up which will be officially be launched to the UK Market later this month. Details are tight but here is what we know so far.

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While a new trial questioning different hearing aid delivery models shows that professionally fitted devices were almost as good as OTC models, it's not quite that simple. Firstly, all of the participants were given the same high end hearing aids. Let's take a look at the study and what it means.

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The recent changes introduced by the Minister Of Social Protection in Ireland now mean the the hearing aid grant is now available for people who are self employed for the first time ever.

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In an article a couple of years ago 4 Game-Changing Technologies For The Deaf And Hard Of Hearing, four technologies were discussed, where are they now? We were talking to a lady named Jennifer Scott about a couple of article recently and we decided to follow up on them. In this article we decided to look at what happened to 4 technologies that were feted in 2015 as game changing possibilities

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Signia has introduced it's own Made For iPhone hearing aid for the first time, they are calling the concept the Connected Ear. Meet the Pure BT 13 Primax

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In the recent past we have written two articles about a new company who were selling hearing aids on ebay. They have now set up an e-commerce website to sell hearing aids from the big hearing aid brands online. So we thought it was high time we wrote another article on what you need to know when making a purchase of any hearing aid online.

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Yup you guessed it, part three of a a continuing look at what is available new for 2017

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Page Two of our series on the latest hearing aids available from the big manufacturers for 2017

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2017 has already seen the introduction of new hearing aids from both Phonak, Unitron and Oticon, we expect GN Resound to deliver something new at the end of April. Let's take a look at what is available for 2017

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We spoke earlier about the strange case of new top of the range hearing aids being sold on ebay. Well apparently, that was in essence a market research trial. The people behind the ebay sales have just launched a new e-commerce website, where they say you can buy hearing aids online at wholesale prices. The question I think is should you? Let's take a looka t the site and what it offers.

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Recently we had a reader ask us what we thought about online sale of hearing aids? It's a large question really and to answer we need to be more specific. But actually what he was talking about was the sale of high quality hearing aids at exceptional prices on ebay.

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The second part of the changing Oticon wax filters post, when and how to change Receiver In The Ear Hearing aid Wax Guards

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One of the things I often get asked is when and how should wax guards be changed. The answer, like much in life, isn't simple. In this first of a series of posts I want to look at how and when to change wax guards on Oticon hearing aids. I will also explain which wax guards are suitable for which Oticon hearing aids.

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Rechargeable heaering aids really seem to have reached their zenith of popularity lately, and I don't see that stopping anytime soon. The modern wave of rechargeable hearing aids have a lot going for them, but there are essentially two different types available. What are the pros and cons of rechargeable hearing aids. Let's explore them in detail.

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Invisible hearing aids are probably never going to go away, they remain exceptionally popular in the minds of first time users in particular. The idea of discretion is often paramount in the minds of people when first thinking about hearing aids. Many hearing aid brands call them different things, invisible hearing aids, IICs, Nano and more, but to the public they will probably always be hidden hearing aids.

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I said a while ago that I thought Lithium-ion rechargeable Behind The Ear Devices were soon to be introduced and Phonak have proved me right with the introduction of their latest Bolero range. An announcement yesterday indicated that the ne Bolero Belong range would have a rechargeable option called the Bolero P-R

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Sonova announces new rechargeable hearing aid from Unitron and a new custom Virto product, the Virto B-Titanium.

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I have had a few people lately ask me about hearing aids and itchy ears, does wearing hearing aids cause itchy ears? As is the case in life, nothing is simple, the answer is yes, no and maybe. Let me explain.

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It is a problem that we hear a lot, I have problems hearing the TV and my family complain about the volume all the time. Do I need hearing aids? Sometimes the answer is no, in fact sometimes even if you have a hearing loss, the answer may still be no. Let me explain.

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Over The Counter hearing aids are big news lately and I spoke about them in an article recently. I wondered would traditional manufacturers offer OTC or self fitting hearing aids? Signia have introduced a new platform aimed at developing markets called the Lotus. In essence the tech is there for self fitting, I wonder will Signia be the first to offer OTC hearing aids?

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Unitron in typical Unitron style have not only delivered a rechargeable hearing aid option, they have made it backward compatible. Meet the Moxi Fit R, from the company that focuses on user experience, even users that have bought their product before.

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I decided to update the Little Book of Hearing Aids for 2017, while I was doing it, I thought why not make it the definitive hearing aid guide. So I have expanded it beyond the scope of the original with sections about providers, hearing aid prices, hearing aid manufacturers and much more. Thank you to the people who keep asking us questions, you are our inspiration.

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I think the one of the biggest hearing aid product storys of last year was lithium-ion rechargeable hearing aids. I said in an article last year that I would expect every hearing aid brand to introduce them. It seems I may have been right, so what can you expect for rechargeable hearing aids in 2017?

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Hearing loss can be difficult to recognise for the person who suffers it, however, there are common words that become difficult to understand. In this our second guest post, Andrew Lekashman of ClearValue Hearing outlines what they are and why they can be problematic.

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Are we doing too much damage to our ears by overusing earphones? From daily use at the gym, to hours spent on gaming, we discover some interesting facts on how earphones can play their part in ear damage.

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It's the 11th January, which means if you are anything like me you've probably given up on your New Year's resolutions about nine days ago. Even so, here's a few New Year's resolutions for hearing aid wearers to help you get the most from your hearing and hearing aids in 2017.

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A Norwegian start up is the latest company set to bring a smart phone based hearing aid app to the market, they have just raised more funding and expect their offering to become a reality in the New Year. They well be attending CES looking for possible partners to drive the product and perhaps manufacture new hardware that they plan to introduce.

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Recent moves in the US seem to indicate that over the counter hearing aids will become legal there in the near future. The idea is that it will lead to low cost solutions for the bulk of Americans who need hearing aids but don't have them. That may well be the case if price is the true impediment to hearing aid adoption, but what will the introduction of these devices really mean to consumers? Will it lead to deeper adoption, what will the satisfaction rates be like and what can consumers expect their experience to be?

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Signia has re-introduced the instant fit CIC hearing aid range, it is almost invisible and can be fitted at the first visit with no waiting and no impression taking. Instant fit CICs have been around for a while and never really caught on, the silk may be the one that catches the imagination of professionals and userss alike.

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I had a good conversation recently with someone from Widex and I realised something important. Because Widex is using a separate radio for streaming and connection to the smart phone, it still has all of it's inter ear features working even when streaming. That could actually be important, depending on the situation and the sound being streamed. It made me wonder about the other manufacturers and what their hearing aids were doing.

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Bose has introduced a new product they are calling Hearphones, they are ear phones with hearing aid capabilities. Using directional microphone technology they can focus on speech to the front , allowing the user a better chance to understand conversation in noisy situations. The product has it's own smartphone app which gives user control over how the product is working, interestingly enough, Bose have recently advertised for a research Audiologist to work with their R&D team. Is Bose testing the water for a possible entry into the hearing aid market?

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Yes, I can still hear, but I don't hear like most people do, it is not something that is easy and happens passively, I have a severe hearing loss so listening and understanding conversations is hard work, it is effort.

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A study undertaken in Children's Hospital Los Angeles and 37 other Children's Oncology Group hospitals in the U.S. and Canada has shown that hearing loss related to the use of Cisplatin in chemotherapy can be be prevented. The compound used cut the incidence of hearing loss by as much as 50% in the study.

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Ear candling seems to be pretty popular and there are a lot of people who swear by it. But do hopi ear candles actually work, is there any scientific basis and what is the experience of people who have undertaken it? Let's talk about hopi ear candling.

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I had a great question from one of our readers in the UK recently about the differences between free trial and money back guarantees. You know, I thought it was a good idea for an article. So here goes, let's talk about free trials and money back offers.

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A new drug from French biotech firm Sensorion has shown promise in early animal trials as a treatment for sudden hearing loss. In a proof-of-concept study, animals were exposed to a 120 dB noise level for two hours, then randomly treated over 14 consecutive days with either a placebo or increasing doses (5 mg/kg, 10 mg/kg and 20 mg/kg) of SENS-401. Following 14 days of treatment, the residual hearing loss was dramatically lower in the group treated with SENS-401.

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I came across a recent video from Duracell designed to motivate people with hearing loss to do something about it. It is an outstanding effort, some people may feel that it lays it on a bit thick, but I really think it hit the right notes. I also think it is a relatively accurate commentary on the difficulties that untreated hearing loss raise. And no matter what my wife says, I did not well up!

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Japanese researchers have discovered a process to turn stem sells into cochlear cells (cells in the inner ear). While their focus is on correcting a certain type of congenital hearing loss, the ability to manufacture replacement cochlear cells could have far reaching benefits for any type of sensorineural hearing loss. A cure may be as little as five to ten years away for hearing loss.

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A recent small scale study undertaken in Australia has shown some interesting results around self fitting of hearing aids. Although the study was probably too small to make wider judgements it does seem to add weight to the idea of self fitting of hearing aids as a viable alternative. As with all things though there are caveats

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Google’s DeepMind and the University of Oxford are working on a lip-reading system powered by artificial intelligence. The system is already scoring better than professional lip readers and could have uses in a host of consumer electronics for the hard of hearing. It is another possible step forward in ensuring the communication ability of people with hearing loss and may work in tandem with traditional amplification strategies.

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Rechargeable hearing aids are most definitely the big news right now, however, there is another break through technology that could change things forever. A technology that has been hanging around in the background since 2009. It looks like things might be speeding up with it though, is 2017 going to be the year of Fuel Cell powered hearing aids?

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In recent news it seems that Starkey will definitely be introducing rechargeable hearing aids, however, it seems their partnership with Humavox might mean that they will introduce the most advanced rechargeable system yet with near field charging capability.

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It looks like rechargeable hearing aids are going to be one of the bigger storys in 2016, Signia have also introduced a rechargeable hearing aid range using a Lithium-ion rechargeable system. Their capacity seems to be a little bigger then the Phonak B-R as they say that the devices will deliver 24 hours of use with unlimited streaming.

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Sivantos, formerly Siemens, now the Artist who is called Signia (confused? don't worry we will explain) has just introduced a groundbreaking telehealth innovation that will help to change the hearing aid user's experience for ever. The app will allow direct comunication between the user and the professional and remote fine tuning of hearing aids. It is an amazing step forward and hopefully it will drive other manufacturers to follow.

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Widex have finally joined the Made For iPhone hearing aid market with the launch of their newest device the Beyond. They have retained the their outstanding Widex Link technology while adding a direct to iPhone radio which allows streaing and phone calls without intermediary devices. The new Beyond hearing aid is a Fusion type hearing device that is powered by their latest Unique technology.

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The popularity of the Belong B-R rechargeable range has caught Phonak by surprise, so much so that they are scrambling to keep up with demand. We think Phonak have a winner on their hands with the new rechargeable RICs, but what could it mean for the wider hearing aid industry and the future of hearing aids?

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We came aacross a video recently that indicates that Widex are finally about to introduce a remote microphone. It appears the Com Dex Remote MIc will be introduced shortly, if a new video on Youtube is anything to go by.

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I'm getting annoyed with my ears 'cos they don't hear properly.......

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We were introduced to Patient Insights from Unitron, a new hearing aid technology that is designed to work with their hearing aids. We think it is important that you understand it and the difference it could make to your experience with hearing aids. We are impressed and the possibilities for the future are staggering, let's talk about Patient Insights.

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Our readers like to keep us on our toes here, recently we were asked which is the most powerful invisible hearing aid available? You know, we didn't know, so after much research, here is what we found out, the most powerful invisible hearing aid is

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Unitron has just introduced their latest addition to the Moxi RIC range, they calll it the Now, it is the smallest ever wireless RIC hearing device. While it is a tiny hearing aid, it is a really powerful one, so if a RIC is what you are after that is discrete but powerful, then the Now might just be the one for you

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Hearing aids just like the times are a changing, we have seen a flurry of new directions in the very recent past from some of the big manufacturers. Many of the innovations have been influenced by other industries and other technologies. Hearables burst on to the scene a couple of years ago, a completely new product concept they have nevertheless become hugely popular. While they are not hearing aids per se, many of them have the capability of providing amplification. Their focus though up to now has been different, it is all about altered reality, connection and fitness. I believe that innovations within the hearable space will cross over to the hearing aid world. In fact I think it makes sense for both the manufacturers and the users for this to happen. I think the future of hearing aids is going to be a very interesting one, let me explain,

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When deciding on a hearing aid that is suitable for you and your needs you really need to understand the options you have. Hearing aid features and technology levels can be confusing, there are many features with strange and exotic names from all manufacturers, but what exactly do they do? We set out to explain them clearly, allowing you to understand what the differences are between tech levels, what the hearing aid types are and wht the features actually do.

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Unitron have introduced a fantastic new technology called Log It All, it will help you choose the very best hearing aid technology for you, based on real world and real time experiences. We really think that this technology allows you to become truly involved in the process of choosing a hearing solution. It makes you a collaborator, as opposed to an idle participant.

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If you are going to have earwax removed you will need to use an oil in your ears for a couple of days beforehand. It makes it an easier procedure for everyone involved. I was reminded of that this week when I was undertaking earwax removal on a couple of people.

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Lately I have returned to Practice, it seemed like a good thing to do because I have really missed dealing with people and playing with the latest technology. One of the things that has struck me is that denial of a hearing loss is still a common factor that needs to be overcome. I don't know why I thought it would have gone away, but I was surprised to find it was still a large factor. My own thinking around the subject is pretty simple, if I have a hearing loss I need to get it treated. However, I now realise that I am still one of a small few that think that way.

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Thinking about using an internet kit to remove earwax at home? Well then you need to read this article from Greg Clements of Clement Hearing in Glasgow, good advice on why it is not a great idea. If you are determined, he gives good advice on why you really need to be gentle and careful. You like your eardrums right?

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We have all by now read the lurid headlines in relation to the ongoing research into untreated hearing loss and its apparent link to neuro cognitve disorders like Dementia. Headlines like the one above are likely to strike fear into people. But hey, that is what sells Newspapers, let's take a closer look at the evidence.

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Are you comfortable with taking your hearing aid out, changing the battery and putting it back in when there are other people about? Gael Hannan asked this question in her HHTM column and it got me thinking.

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As you may well know, we aren't mad about RICs here at Hearing Aid Know, don't get us wrong, they are fantastic devices that offer real discretion even for moderate to severe losses. However, the placement of the receiver in the canal introduces its own problems, failed receivers or broken wires. In short, RIC devices need consistent care to ensure they continue to work, care that a lot of people don't actually give them. Thin tube BTEs however, don't need so much effort and keep on keeping on. Unitron have just released the Stride M BTE and it might just be a RIC killer, all the size and discretion of a RIC delivered in a mini BTE. Not just that, it even has a telecoil!

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Sometimes I giggle, I know I shouldn't but it strikes me as so incongrous, the questions are always about the little ones, you know the invisible ones in your ear? Honestly sometimes I imagine it is like buying a top shelf magazine in a 70s newsagent, yes, you know that one, I only read it for the articles! Anyway, enough about reminiscing about the un-needed embarrassment felt by some, let's talk about invisible hearing aids.

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Widex is introducing a new Mini BTE which will be the replacement for their iconic M, not before time either. The new device is almost as discreet as the M was but with some nice new additions and two new easywear earware thin tube configurations.

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The phrase Smart Hearing has been coined over the last few years. It usually relates to GN Resound hearing aids, specifically the Made For iPhone devices. However, the term can cover many of the most modern hearing aids available from the biggest manufacturers. For the purpose of this article though, we will really concentrate on the Resound hearing aids.

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The latest Naida V hearing aid range was introduced at a launch event held in Dublin last Thursday. The range includes new styles that are considerably smaller and more powerful than their Naida Q predecessors. The launch was attended by Matt Gilbert (the only professional deaf sportsman in English Rugby) who discussed his experiences with Naida hearing aids.

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Tinnitracks helps to relieve your tinnitus by playing specially crafted music to you. The music is modified to suit your specific tinnitus and is backed by scientific research.

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Let's take a look at what is new in hearing aids for 2016 from each of the manufacturers, most of the technology was launched late last year but there has been some stuff launched this year and we expect some of the manufacturers to launch new devices this year. For instance, Phonak is just about to launch a new super power hearing aid to replace the Naida Quest. Outside the traditional hearing device manufacturers there is still rumours about Samsung and Apple launching hearing devices of their own.

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Phonak have just released their updated CROS solution, the CROS 2. The new products are based on the Venture platform and the CROS 2 is actually a range of hearing aids that includes custom ITE hearing devices for the first time. The devices can be used with any Ventur platform hearing aid or technology level, however, for the best results it makes sense to match them with a V90 or V70 technology level hearing aid.

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The Audeo V 10 is the smallest of the Audeo Venture hearing aid range, it is a RIC device that runs on a size 10 battery. It can be fitted with two receiver types which make it quite versatile and gives it the ability to cover many hearing losses. Even with its small size it has a push button which allows manual programme changes. The devices also have Phonak's fantastic phone solution.

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Widex introduced the Fusion RIC (Receiver in Canal) hearing aid a couple of years ago. It is a truly versatile hearing aid with inter changeable receivers that allows it to cover a lot of hearing losses, let's take a closer look at the device.

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A new form of ear cleaning is being introduced across the UK & Ireland, Independent premium Practices are introducing endoscopic earwax removal. Two of our partners have introduced the procedure and the say that it is the safest method of earwax removal they have ever experienced. Let's take a look at it and give you the feedback from our partners.

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Widex introduced the Fashion a couple of years ago, it has replaced the 19, the 9 and the M hearing aid types in their line up. A truly versatile hearing aid that covers a lot of hearing losses, let's take a closer look at it.

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People who lose the ability to see or hear often gain increased ability in their remaining senses - their brain compensates for the loss of one sense by enhancing others. Research has shown that younger brains are far better at compensating for a lost sense than older brains are.

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400 Which? Members who had bought a hearing aid in the past 3 years were recently surveyed to find out about their hearing aid buying experiences in the UK. Results were based on a survey conducted between 28th March and 8th April 2014 of 407 Which? Connect members who had bought a hearing aid within the previous 3 years. 80 local independent retailers along with 255 national retailers made up the sample.

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Samsung look set to enter the hearing aid industry, they will probably unveil a new hearing aid in 2016 and it will almost certainly tie in with a release of their Galaxy smartphones. Samsung are creating quite a stir in the industry, with lots of speculation about their pending products. They have filed a number of hearing-related patents in the US, which got tongues wagging. They had a number of people attending International Hearing Aid

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Jacoti bvba today announced that it has been named a CES 2016 Innovation Awards Honoree for Jacoti Hearing Suite. Products entered in this prestigious program are judged by a preeminent panel of independent industrial designers, independent engineers and members of the trade media to honor outstanding design and engineering in cutting edge consumer electronics products across 27 product categories.

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“How many times have you been asked this question: if you had to choose, which would you prefer to be: deaf or blind? The question illustrates the misconception that deafness is in some way the opposite of blindness — as though there’s some sort of binary representation of disability. When we look at accessible Website design for the deaf, it’s not surprising to see it addressed in a similar fashion to accessibility for the blind.

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Are you in Cork, Munster or Leinster and looking for a hearing aid? If you are, I highly recommend you check out Audiology Medical Services, they are a family-run independent practice offering the latest in hearing aid technology and a great service as well. Charles Lewis and his family have been working in audiology for over 43 years and draw upon that experience to give great advice and help to locals looking for hearing aids, tinnitus

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If you have a passion for helping people to communicate effectively but are unsure about which field of study to pursue, you might consider studying communicative disorders, deaf education, or audiology. By becoming an expert in any of these areas, you will facilitate expression and understanding between people who would otherwise have difficulty communicating. Furthermore, you will enjoy the opportunity to learn about deaf culture.

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Walgreens have partnered with Connect Hearing to sell hearing aids in a small number of Walgreens stores as a trial to see if dispensing from big-brand pharmacies is a viable business model. Connect Hearing is owned by Sonova, the Swiss hearing aid manufacturer, which owns the Phonak and Unitron hearing aid brands. In response to a HearingHealthMatters articles about this partnership, Sonova’s Michael Issac confirmed that Walgreens stores in

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TIME magazine have been comparing jobs across America. They’ve looked at growth within an industry, stress-levels of workers and average incomes to determine the best and worst jobs. Being an audiologist came out top! As it turns out, audiologists, medical professionals who treat hearing and balance problems, don’t have it so bad. BLS projects the profession is expected to experience a 34% boost in jobs between 2012 and 2022. The median salary

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Hearing Direct are a Web-based company that provide hearing aids, amplified telephones and other products through their website. My Mum was not happy with her NHS-supplied behind-the-ear hearing aids so we decided to get a pair of in-the-ear aids from Hearing Direct. This is a review of the aids and a round-up of Mum’s experience of buying online. Mum has been wearing a pair of Oticon Spirits supplied by the NHS for a few years. She had two

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Uber is a technology startup that is making waves in the taxi-cab business – their Apple/Android app allows anyone to call a cab to their location, see how much the ride will cost and track pick-up and drop-off times. Uber are currently testing an update to their app that contains features for their deaf and hard of hearing drivers: – When a customer requests a pick-up, the drivers app will alert them to the request with a flashing light as well

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Audiogram Creator is a free tool that lets you record hearing test results, save them for viewing later and download them as an image to your computer, smartphone or tablet. I have released a new version of Audiogram Creator with the following features: – You can now record results for the following tests: air conduction, bone conduction, masked air conduction and masked bone conduction using the industry-standard symbols.

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A new study promoted by hearing specialist Amplifon has revealed that diabetes and hearing loss may share an often ignored link. The Consensus Paper “Hearing and Diabetes”, promoted by Amplifon, puts in evidence studies in which type 1 and type 2 diabetes sufferers were discovered to be 2.15 times more likely to have a hearing impairment than the matched control group. Diabetes patients seem to be more susceptible to noise-induced hearing loss

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According to California-based Grand View Research, Inc. the hearing amplifiers market is expected to reach $78.2 million by 2022. The market research and consulting group published a report in June on the global hearing amplifiers market by product. The total market value of the sector was $54.3 million in 2014 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 4.7% from 2015 to 2022, to reach this projected performance.

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When buying hearing aids there are two things you need to get right: find the right hearing aid at the right price and find the right person to fit it for you. hearingtracker.com helps you with both, it’s a website that contains a long list of hearing providers and hearing aids, with patient reviews of both. Hearing Tracker was founded by Dr. Abram Bailey, a registered audiologist, to help bring information and data to patients that helps us to

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On an overcast Chicago afternoon in August 2013, hip hop artist Kendrick Lamar sauntered out onto Lollapalooza’s Bud Light stage. As thousands of twenty-somethings roared with approval, he grabbed a gold-plated mic and cut straight into the intro of “Backseat Freestyle:”Martin had a dream / Martin had a dream / Kendrick have a dream… Just off to the side of the stage, on a raised platform, 36-year-old Amber Galloway Gallego thrust her hands in

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Disability rights groups have long been praising Apple for its dedication to developing accessible technology for people with visual and hearing impairments. Many people with these impairments have even gone as far as saying that iOS devices have dramatically changed their lives for the better. Apple’s newest device, the Apple watch, is the latest device to hit the headlines for its fantastic accessibility features, particularly for those with

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Researchers in America have started a clinical trial to test a ground breaking gene therapy which aims to treat hearing loss by restoring sound detecting cells that have been damaged by trauma to the inner ear. Novartis, a Swiss drug company, is collaborating with University of Kansas Medical Center to run trials on human volunteers with hearing loss. As far as I know, this is the world’s first gene therapy trial for hearing loss.

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People will often tweet about things they’ve overheard in a bar, on a train or wherever – a good one I spotted in my Twitter feed today: Overheard Muggle conversation: “I wasn’t that drunk.” “Dude, you were hugging an old man with a beard, screaming ‘Dumbledore you’re alive!'” — Proffessor Snape (@ProfSnapeSev) March 21, 2015 Sometimes I feel like I need a reminder that most other people are hearing way more than I am, when you can’t overhear a

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Transcense is a new app that accurately translates conversations in real time so the deaf and hard of hearing can participate in meetings, presentations and conversations. To put that another way: this app wants to provide real-time subtitles/captions where the captions are showing words from any number of people in a group. Founders Thibault Duchemin, Pieter Doevendans and Skinner Cheng say one-on-one conversations are easy for the deaf. Either

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This is copied from a Reddit post by kerrigan7782 – normally I would just link to external sites but I don’t know if Reddit posts are deleted after a certain amount of time. The text is about the sound being emitted during the take-off of a space rocket. The Saturn V itself, (and all large rockets nowadays) are so loud that they will kill themselves from volume alone. NASA must employ a Sound Suppression System that dumps enormous quantities of

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On 27 August 1883, the Earth let out a noise louder than any it has made since. It was 10:02 AM local time when the sound emerged from the island of Krakatoa, which sits between Java and Sumatra in Indonesia. It was heard 1,300 miles away in the Andaman and Nicobar islands (“extraordinary sounds were heard, as of guns firing”); 2,000 miles away in New Guinea and Western Australia (“a series of loud reports, resembling those of artillery in a

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Just listen to this radio clip. It’s only takes 50 seconds for the Franklin Institute’s chief bioscientist, Jayatri Das, to demonstrate something fundamental about your brain. She starts with a clip that’s been digitally altered to sound like jibberish. On first listen, to my ears, it was entirely meaningless. Next, Das plays the original, unaltered clip: a woman’s voice saying, “The Constitution Center is at the next stop.” Then we hear the

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The ability to discern pitch and to hear the difference between similar-sounding words relies on specialised cells within the inner ear, which can be damaged. For the first time, scientists have discovered what controls the cells’ development and pattering. They studied the development of these cells in chickens, which unlike humans, have the capacity to regrow sound-detecting cells after suffering hearing loss.

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I am excited to announce that I’ve been working with Geoffrey Cooling on a new product and service for audiology practices and hearing healthcare providers. Audiology Engine provides an easy-to-use Website Builder for practice websites and all the surrounding services that are needed to ensure that your website, and your practice, is a success. Geoffrey is an industry veteran who has worked as a hearing aid dispenser and more recently as a Sales

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Dr. Glen MacPherson doesn’t remember the first time he heard the sound. It may have started at the beginning of 2012, a dull, steady droning like that of a diesel engine idling down the street from his house in the Sunshine Coast of British Columbia. A lecturer at the University of British Columbia and high school teacher of physics, mathematics and biology, months passed before MacPherson realized that the noise, which he’d previously dismissed

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On Semiconductor have released two new DSPs, with the aim of lowering manufacturing costs of both high-end and low-end hearing aids. The R3920 and R3110 are new additions to their RHYTHM range of products. A DSP (or Digital Signal Processor) is the microchip inside a hearing aid that converts incoming sounds to allow you to hear them more clearly. Whilst the biggest players in the hearing aid industry still create their own DSP technology the

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An audiogram is a record of a hearing test. In other words, it is a graph that shows how well a person can hear different types of sounds. It is used to determine if a person has a hearing loss, and if so, how bad that loss is. The audiogram above is empty, no test results have been recorded on it yet. You can see down the left hand side the numbers starting at -10 and going up to 120 – these numbers represent the decibel level at which you can

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The audiogram above shows my hearing as of November 2013. The hearing test was done at the John Radcliffe hospital in Oxford during my fitting for a pair of NHS hearing aids (Oticon Spirit II BTEs). You can see from the audiogram that my hearing is in the moderately-severe to severe range – just touching on a profound loss in the higher frequencies. I have a progressive hearing loss, so my hearing hasn’t always been this bad but it has always

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As if the story about the fake sign language interpreter at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service wasn’t bizarre enough already. The Guardian has published an opinion piece by Slavoj Žižek in which he says that the fake interpreter story, “confronted us with the truth about sign language translations for the deaf“, which he says is, “it doesn’t really matter if there are any deaf people among the public who need the translation; the translator is

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Orfield Labrotories in Minnesota have built an anechoic chamber that is so quiet that no-one can bear to be inside for more than 45 minutes. It has entered into the Guiness Book Of World Records as officially the quietest place on earth – tests measured background noise in the chamber as -9.4 dBA. Yes, that’s minus 9.4 decibels! The labrotory’s founder, Steven Orfield, said, “”We challenge people to sit in the chamber in the dark – one person

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Speakers at Nelson Mandela’s memorial service were joined on stage by a sign language interpreter, but according to many sign experts he is a fake. During the service, Wilma Newhoudt-Druchen, the first deaf woman to be elected to the South African parliament tweeted: “ANC-linked interpreter on the stage with dep president of ANC is signing rubbish. He cannot sign. Please get him off.” Another tweet from Francois Deysel, a South African sign

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Unitron introduced their Flex:trial hearing aid in October 2012 and it looks set to make the hearing aid buying process a little less painful. Everyone knows that hearing aids are expensive and people looking to buy are often put off by the big outlay. There has always been a problem with being able to try before you buy: you feel uneasy about handing over your money when you haven’t tried the aid properly and you aren’t sure if you really want

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A few weeks ago my daughter asked me to teach her how to finger spell. It took me by surprise because she’d never shown any interest in learning to sign before. After about an hour of going through the alphabet she was signing words and short sentences pretty quickly. Now, I’m as much of a proud dad as the next man and I’m sure my daughter is destined for greatness but she’s no child prodigy or anything like that. If she can pick up the finger

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A team of scientists from Sheffield University have partially restored the hearing of deaf gerbils with injections created from human embryonic stem cells. Is this the end for hearing aids? The Sheffield team, lead by Dr Marcelo Rivolta, saw the gerbil’s hearing improving by an average of 46% – with the improvement taking place over four weeks from the injections. Rivolta said, “We developed a method to drive human embryonic stem cells to

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There have been two bits of hearing-related news regarding the mighty Apple recently: they’ve patented a hearing aid social network and they’re working with big-name hearing aid manufacturers to create “Made For iPhone” hearing aids. I’m really hoping that Apple is planning to make a big splash in the hearing industry, it’ll be a huge sea-change for us hearing aid wearers if they do. I doubt it’ll result in cheaper hearing aids, Apple always

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In the forthcoming iOS 6 software upgrade for the iPhone, Apple have have said that: We are working with top manufacturers to introduce Made for iPhone hearing aids that will deliver a power-efficient, high-quality digital audio experience. It would be nice if this meant the birth of an Apple iHearingAid, which blazed a trail through the hearing industry and took hearing aids into the mainstream. Sadly, the reality is a little less exciting, but

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Apple have filed a patent application for a “hearing aid social network” – you can read the actual application here. This has only recently been submitted (July 29 2012) and there isn’t much other information around the web on what a hearing aid social network could actually be – although Engadget and -->Megan have also written about it. The social network seems to be intending to offer its users the ability to share their hearing aid settings

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The National Associations of the Deaf (NAD) have been given the go-ahead by a federal court in Massachusetts to bring a legal action against Netflix. The NAD is attempting to make it a legal requirement for Netflix to offer closed captions on its streamed movie service. NAD is suing Netflix under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). Netflix tried to dismiss NADs claim as they said the ADA only applied to public buildings and structures,

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“Hearing aids are becoming a more and more interesting target not only to hack, but also simply to connect them to all kinds of consumer hardware and make the experience more seamless,” said Helga Velroyen, a Munich-based software engineer who has been at the forefront of efforts to modify hearing aids. Her interest in the topic was sparked when her own hearing started to degrade a few years ago. For some, this tinkering does not go far enough.

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When you want the latest and greatest in hearing aid technology, Bluetooth is a must-have feature. Bluetooth allows hearing aids to wirelessly communicate with other devices, including the hearing aid in your other ear, your computer, television, cell phone and digital music player. Picking the best Bluetooth hearing aid requires some attention to detail as you examine its features and choose the right aid for your needs.

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The Museum Of Endangered Sounds is a website that collects famous and memorable sounds from obsolete technology such as video game systems and VHS video recorders. Coming across that site got me thinking: what sounds would I put into a museum? What sounds are important enough to me that I’d want them stored and shared with others? Not just sounds made by out-of-date machines, but any sound that means something to me.

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In preparation for May’s NATO summit in Chicago, the city’s police force ordered a sound cannon to help them deal with the expected large number of anti-war protesters. The cannon emits high-pitched sounds up to 150 decibels that can be heard up to 1,600 feet away, that’s about a third of a mile. A 150 dB blast from the cannon is louder than standing next to an aircraft taking off or someone firing a gun right next to you. The pain-threshold in

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David Peter is a 21 year old computer programmer at San Francisco-based startup 1000memories. He is also deaf and the company’s first deaf employee. David has written a thought-provoking blog post on what it is like to be deaf and how it affects both his professional and personal life. He writes about things that are probably familiar to most of us with a hearing problem: the sense of isolation, problems with group conversation, communication

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I created a web-application for hearing aid practices a while back, it’s called Earmeter – essentially, it’s a patient-engagement tool that aims to help both the hearing professional and the patient get the most from each other. I’ve started a blog on the Earmeter site, it will be more industry-focused than Hearing Aid Know, I’ll still be writing on here too. This is a snippet of the first post on there, about using an iPad:

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Earmeter is web-based software that allows audiology practices and their patients to work more closely during and after hearing aid trials. Practices can automate communications with patients so that they can provide timely and in-depth information about the new hearing aid(s) on trial, hearing loss and anything else that a patient needs to know to get the most from their trial and new hearing experience. Earmeter aims to make it easier for

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I’d always assumed that bigger breeds of dog were used as Hearing Dogs, probably because our own dog (a west highland terrier) is a law unto himself and when I’m out walking him it always seems like the bigger dogs are better behaved. According to the Hearing Dogs For Deaf People charity the best hearing dogs are Poodles. Apparently they are one of the more intelligent breeds and, “they love to learn and as a result usually excel in their

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The music industry has changed radically in the last 10 years: digital downloads, the iPod, Internet shopping and online piracy changed the ball-game entirely. Very few people buy music today in the same way as they did 10 years ago – many companies moved with the times and changed their business models to meet the iPod generation, and many have not and are struggling to compete. The publishing industry is in upheaval too, more and more people

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In a recent address to a hearing advisory council, Brenda Battat, chief executive of the Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA) stated that the HLAA is not opposed to online hearing aid sales. She specifically mentioned hi HealthInnovations, a subsidiary of United Healthcare that started an online HA service in October 2011. The hi HealthInnovations website includes an online hearing test, after taking the test your results are used to

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Another excellent infographic from Amplifon. 50% of sufferers find tinnitus moderately or severely distressing yet 93% haven’t consulted a doctor, wonder why that is? Maybe people don’t see a doctor because it isn’t a pain or making them feel ill? Still, if their tinnitus is severely distressing them then their health is surely affected.

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Deafness Research UK is inviting you to take part in a tinnitus survey which will help set the priorities for future research into this distressing and little understood condition. Despite ongoing research in the UK and other countries there are still many unanswered questions about tinnitus assessment, diagnosis and treatment. By contributing your views you can help set the agenda for future research and ensure that scarce funds are used to

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Very interesting article on the BBC website today about Neil Harbisson, a colour-blind artist who, with the help of a friend, created a device that allows him to hear colours. Until I was 11, I didn’t know I could only see in shades of grey. I thought I could see colours but that I was confusing them. When I was 16, I decided to study art. I told my tutor I could only see in black and white, and his first reaction was, “What the hell are you

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This is a Valentine’s Day-related study from Hear The World that looked into how hearing loss can affect relationships with loved ones: It’s no secret that clear communication between partners is key to a long and lasting relationship and, following a new study, more than 60 per cent of UK hearing aid wearers say their relationship has improved since being fitted with a hearing device. The new international study, which surveyed 4,300 people

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Neurotone have just released a web-based version of their LACE training software, which is excellent news for anyone who wants to better understand speech in noise. LACE (Listening And Communication Enhancement) is essentially a training program for listening, it teaches you to listen better. I did an interview with Dr Daniel Taft from Blamey Saunders Hearing about how they use LACE a while back. I think the release of the web-based version will

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Some questions for you, dear reader. I’d love to get some responses to this, I get lots of viewers but rarely any commenters, would love to know what you think! 1. Are you happy with the way your hearing aids sound? 2. If so, how long did it take for the dispenser/audiologist to set your hearing aids up so that you were happy with them? Did they have to re-programme your aids at all to get them how you wanted them?

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It is much harder to fit hearing aids to someone who has a severe hearing loss than to someone who has only a minor loss. Turns out that a lot of the time it isn’t like that, it’s just as hard, or even harder, to fit a hearing aid to someone who has lost only a small amount of hearing as it is to someone who can hardly hear a thing. The reason is that the person with the minor loss is chasing after the perfect hearing they had a few years ago,

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New research is hoping to understand how the human brain hears sound to help develop improved hearing aids and automatic speech recognition systems. Led by the Universities of Southampton and Cambridge, the research aims to develop physiologically-inspired algorithms, which mimic how our brain hears sound to improve on traditional signal processing algorithms. The novelty of the research is that instead of looking at signal energy – as today’s

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The most common form of tinnitus (subjective tinnitus) is where only the sufferer can hear the noise – i.e. there is no noise being produced by the physical body, it’s all the mind. Common suggestions to alleviate tinnitus include TRT, de-stressing, noise therapy and relaxation techniques like yoga. Most of the recommended treatments for tinnitus involve the brain. TRT involves training the brain to stop perceiving the noise, noise therapy

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Lincoln Pharmaceuticals announced that it has introduced the first injection pharmaceutical cure for tinnitus in India. Using the brand name Tinnex, the injection utilizes the Caroverine molecule, which was developed by Lincoln Pharma under a licensing arrangement and technical collaboration with Phafag AG, Switzerland. According to the company, cochlear synaptic tinnitus is the most common cause of tinnitus and is due to disturbed interplay of

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Tinnitus retraining therapy (TRT) is a treatment that aims to reduce the perceived loudness and severity of tinnitus. Tinnitus isn’t a disease and TRT isn’t a cure as such, it is perhaps better described as a way to train someone not to hear the ringing in their ear any more or at least to be less aware and less irritated by it. TRT uses a combination of counselling and sound therapy. Sound therapy is the creation of background sounds that, when

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In our day-to-day life, most of us are exposed to noise; from the sound of a passing train to the noise of a nearby construction site. Normally, these sounds are not loud enough to damage our hearing, however, if we are exposed to loud noises that are above 85 decibels on a regular basis, it can result in noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL). Hearing loss may even occur if a person is exposed to an intensely loud noise just once, such as an

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Even though digital hearing aids do a remarkable job of helping us to hear better it is sometimes good to go back to basics. A cupped-hand behind the ear can work wonders. If you are like me then you’ll sometimes put your hand behind your ear if you didn’t hear someone as an indication that you need them to repeat themselves, it’s a visual clue for the speaker but it actually does make a real difference to what you can hear. Try it next time you

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Listening to the television and radio, using a telephone, or even answering the doorbell are things some people take for granted, but if you are hard of hearing these things are a real struggle. Assistive Listening Devices (ALD) can help. Here, we will look at how to choose the best device for your needs. Many people who are hard of hearing often wear hearing aids to help listen in their everyday life. But these might not always work very well,

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If you’ve ever phoned a computer support helpline or asked your company’s I.T. support team for help then you’ve probably heard these immortal words: It’s become a bit of a joke but it actually works and solves many computer problems. A computer has two types of memory, one is physically stored on a disk and is remembered every time you use the computer and the other is a short-term memory that is forgotten every time you switch off. If the

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The National Deaf Children’s Society (NDCS) is campaigning to get the UK government to provide better access to sign language courses for hearing parents of deaf children. Nine out of ten deaf children are born to hearing families who have little to no experience of deafness. Communicating with your child is a basic right, but many families are not getting the support they need to learn British Sign Language. Sign language courses vary

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How well my day goes is more or less governed by how well I am hearing. I’ve written before that subtle changes in how much I can hear happen day-to-day. If I’m hearing well then I am full of confidence, happy and outgoing. I’m starting conversations, joining in group conversation, I’m out and about and enjoying the day. I’m talking to people I don’t know when I’m out walking the dog. I’m answering the telephone without a second thought. I’m

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Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is the process of converting speech to text in real-time, it is not only useful to the deaf and hard of hearing, it can also help those whose first language is different to the one being used. CART is used in law courts, theatre, presentations and many other places to display a speaker’s words on a screen; it is also used to provide closed captions for live television programs.

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Analogue and digital hearing aids are very, very different things. Analogue aids use older and simpler technology. If you are a long-term analogue user and you are having problems hearing well with new digital aids then try this: Ask your audiologist to turn off noise reduction on your digital aids, if they can’t turn it off completely then at least have then reduce it to an absolute minimum. The problem is that analogue aids amplify all sounds

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Tinnitus awareness week 2012, which is run by the British Tinnitus Association (BTA), runs from 6th – 12th February. The theme this year is Raising Awareness in Primary Care. The main goals of the week are to: A survey published in the Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, May 2011 showed that around 750,000 people visit their GP each year with tinnitus and the advice they receive varies dramatically. The hope is that raising awareness

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A deaf football player was sent off after celebrating an offside goal because he couldn’t hear the whistle. Philip John Dolan, who plays for the Great Britain and Scotland deaf football teams, was playing for Kilsyth against Armadale in a replay of a Scottish Junior Cup tie when the referee ruled him offside. Unable to hear the whistle, the 24-year-old, who is known as PJ, kept playing and was given a yellow card for ignoring the signal.

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I’ve been messing around with JavaScript during lunchtimes at work this week and have started to put together a web application to allow people to add Closed Captions to videos. Currently it can add text to your own videos (mp4, flv, etc) as well as videos from Youtube. I have a few ideas of how the thing could work in terms of workflow including: It’s an interesting little project for me but I’m not really sure whether this is worth pursuing?

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Charles Limb is a surgeon who performs cochlear implantation, he is also a musician. In this 15-minuted TED talk he discusses how we hear and experience speech and music in very different ways, demonstrates how music sounds to a cochlear implant wearer and talks about other problems with CIs. Charles’ goal in his work is to bring the beauty back into sound for CI wearers, not just to give them functional speech recognition but to have CIs that

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Providing clues to deafness, researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have identified a gene that is required for proper development of the mouse inner ear. In humans, this gene, known as FGF20, is located in a portion of the genome that has been associated with inherited deafness in otherwise healthy families. “When we inactivated FGF20 in mice, we saw they were alive and healthy,” says senior author David M. Ornitz,

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The Better Hearing Institute (BHI) has issued a warning to consumers about purchasing pre-programmed, one-size-fits-all hearing aids. BHI points out that devices that are purchased over-the-counter or through the Internet without the consultation of a hearing healthcare professional may result in the devices not being accurately customized to the specific hearing needs of the individual, since hearing loss may be the symptom of a serious

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Bumped into someone yesterday and had a brief chat. Well, they had a brief chat, I had nothing; it was without a doubt the dumbest conversation I’ve ever had, I feel like an idiot. They opened the conversation with a couple of sentences, I couldn’t understand a word of it. The obvious thing to do was to tell them I didn’t hear them, so why didn’t I? I guess I was thinking, “I might be able to pick up a few words and work out what they are going

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We signed the whole hour ride back, much to our passengers, and our surprise. When she left for a moment to grab her phone so we could exchange numbers, that is when I realized how differently people saw our conversation. Excellent article Lauren Vujovich on the general public’s perception of deafness. Read it here.

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y hearing loss was first noticed when I was about 5 years old and I’ve been wearing hearing aids more or less since then. I didn’t wear aids much in my early-mid teens as I was too worried about looking cool – since the age of 19 o so I haven’t gone a single day without wearing them, I’m 37 now. I also have tinnitus in my right ear. I remember having it around my late teens and early twenties but then it went away completely for about 7-12 years

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Hearing loss can cause awkward situations, not just for the people with the hearing problem but for people communicating with them too. For someone who has never had to talk to someone with a hearing loss before it can be difficult to know what to do. First of all they’ve got to realise that you have a hearing problem and then they’ve got to work out how to deal with that and they’re probably worried about making sure they don’t offend you by

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I haven’t written much on here lately, just had a look and I’ve written 4 posts in the last 3 months, surprisingly that’s not due to laziness; I have in fact been beavering away on a new website. And it’s now finished. Well, it’s finished in that it’s ready for release but I have a lot of more ideas planned for it in the future. The site is at http://www.earmeter.com. It’s a patient-engagement tool for audiologists and hearing aid vendors, the

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A live demonstration of Sony’s new subtitle glasses took place in London this week, with positive reports from attendees. Tom Fiddian from Action on Hearing Loss – formerly the Royal National Institute for Deaf People – attended the event and reported via Twitter (@tomfiddian and hash tag #Subtitleglasses). It was this generation that was trialled in the USA and received positive feedback from the deaf community. One comment was that they were

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1. I take my hearing aids out when shaving because I can’t stand the scraping noise of the razor. 2. Wind noise is my biggest problem with my hearing aids. 3. I take my hearing aids out when driving to and from work for a bit of peace and quiet. 4. Hand-dryers always make my right hearing aid whistle with feedback. 5. I usually wait at least half-an-hour in the morning before putting my aids in. 6. I always have some spare batteries in the car

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The Oticon Focus on People Awards recognize outstanding individuals with hearing loss who show that hearing loss does not limit a person’s ability to succeed, contribute and inspire. Not that I am biased or anything but I have voted for Samantha in the Student section and Sarah in the Advocacy section. I wrote about Samantha’s book a little while ago, it’s an amazing piece of work that inspires as well as teaches. I’ve been reading Sarah’s

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This is a great video. It features 7 year-old Samantha showing a book that she made, the book is about her hearing aid and FM system and shows how she uses it in her class at school. I think this would make a great little guide for other kids (and adults too) who aren’t sure what a FM system can do for them. Also, love Samantha’s confidence and attitude towards her hearing aids, wish I was that comfortable with my aids when I was at school.

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Have you bought a hearing aid online? If so, I’d love to know your experiences. Did it meet your expectations? Was it good value for money? Have you had to have it re-programmed or checked since you bought it? Hearing aids that are sold online tend to be for mild to moderate hearing losses and so I can’t try them out myself. If you have bought online and can spare a couple of minutes to let me know what you think then please do. You can either

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I visited the audiologist yesterday. I’ve not been hearing much at all at work for a few months now and I’ve been putting off and putting off going to the audiologist; not for any particular reason other than I was being lazy and I was “doing OK, hearing bits of what was said and filling in the gaps, just scraping along”. Finally, I realised I was missing too much and I needed to sort it out. So, visited my Aud yesterday, explained that I was

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The Audicus blog is running a fun little competition, they are asking people to take photos of ear-like shapes and send them in. Don’t think there’s any prizes, just for fun. you camera and send a picture to: http://audicus.wordpress.com/2011/06/23/five-eary-pictures-ear-appreciation-campaign/

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The Hearing Aid Repair Shop is part of the Mary Hare Foundation, a UK charity that provides schooling for deaf and severely hard-of hearing children. The repair shop began operating in 2002 by repairing aids for children and young adults. Recently they’ve started fixing hearing aids for adults too and now offer a post service. Impressively, they will fix any make and model of hearing aid. At the time of writing, you can get your hearing aid

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Hearing is the ability to perceive sound by detecting vibrations through the ear. Humans have a fairly narrow range of hearing compared to other species – frequencies that we are capable of hearing are between 20 Hz and 20,000 Hz, this is know as the audio, or sonic, range. Frequencies above that range are know as ultrasonic and those below are know as infrasonic. Dogs can hear ultrasound, that’s why they hear dog whistles and we don’t.

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I read a couple of very interesting articles on Hearing Review today: It’s Not Immoral to Increase Hearing Aid Prices in an Inelastic Market and Seven Rules for Thinking About Hearing Aid Pricing. The first article talks about how a reduction in hearing aid prices does not lead to more people buying them, or, to quote directly from the article, “This means that changes in price will have little impact relative to the number of potential hearing

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If you have a moderate to severe (or worse) hearing loss then chances are that as well as struggling to hear speech and other sounds you also struggle with sounds that are too loud for you. I know I sometimes do, doors shutting in our office seem loud to me, running water always sounds a bit too loud as well. Many times over the years I’ve been in situations where I have had to turn my hearing aids down or move aware from a loud sound while

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Steve is Retail Director at Ascent Hearing, he wears hearing aids himself and also suffers from tinnitus. I have had tinnitus since the age of 33. Well to honest, I’ve had “fizzy” tinnitus since I was about seven. But I’ve had pulsing, thumping, throbbing, whooshing tinnitus since 33. It’s not a depressing thing to have as I’ve not had silence for such a long time. However, I have tried eating vast swathes of Marmite (for the vitamin B), chewing

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Hearing aids are too expensive, right? Right. Below is an image I created for my totally-made-up hearing aids store: What do you think of the two hearing aids for sale here? One is $100 and the other is $1200, which one is better? Which would you buy? If you are like most people then your gut-feeling is that the $1200 hearing aid is much better than the $100 one simply because it is more expensive. We think that more expensive is better.

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This is a guest article by Patrick Frueler. Patrick is the founder of Audicus. Audicus is a new, simple and affordable way of buying great quality hearing aids that fit. While hearing loss is often attributed to natural ageing or the iPod generation’s exposure to loud music, hearing impairment due to noise at work is particularly prevalent. Have you ever seen a fire truck blasting through with full sirens and asked yourself how on earth those

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I’ve updated the Audiogram Creator so that you can now show your audiogram results on different backgrounds. the original background is still there but you can now also choose from having a background with no decoration at all, one with speech sounds shown or one with speech sounds and the speech banana on it. The newly added background images use the UK classifications for hearing loss (normal, moderate, severe, etc) whereas the original

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A young deaf girl learns sign language to try and find herself, but instead becomes caught between the deaf and hearing worlds My Song is the debut drama from C&B Films, a new production company headed by director William Mager and scriptwriter Charlie Swinbourne, aiming to tell stories that express deaf culture in an original, compelling way. Starring Lara Steward, My Song is a coming of age story which follows Ellen, a young deaf girl stuck in

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I started losing my hearing at the age of 5, I’m now 36 and have a moderate/severe loss in both ears – it started with a mild loss and it has got steadily worse over the years. Apart from a few years in my early teens, I’ve been wearing hearing aids the whole time. I’ve developed a number of coping strategies, often without even realising it, that help me get through conversations with other people.

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A list of things that everyone with hearing loss needs to know. Useful for those having problems with their hearing aids or those thinking of buying their first pair. Hearing aids won’t give you back the perfect hearing you had as a child By far the most common type of hearing loss is sensorineural hearing loss; this is damage to the tiny nerves in the inner ear that pick up sounds and send them to your brain. A hearing aid amplifies and changes

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I’ve written before that I think that hearing aid vendors need to split the product from the service so I decided to try and breakdown a hearing aid’s price a bit to find out if it is too expensive or not. I did a bit of Googling and found that an average price for a top of the range hearing aid in the UK is about £1500. This is the rough ballpark for new models from all manufacturers. How much would you guess that a hearing aid costs to make?

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I’ve seen a few websites recently offering cures for hearing loss. Yes, cures. And, would you believe it, it’s so incredibly simple! Just send $29.99 and they’ll send you some tablets, a spray or some eardrops. It really is that easy. I’m not going to link to the websites and I’m not going to name them (don’t much fancy being sued) but it’s pretty obvious that they are total horseshit. If your doctor and audiologist cannot cure your hearing loss

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Thank you to everyone who’s taken the time to email me recently. If you’ve emailed me and haven’t had a reply then fear not, I will reply but I’ve been avoiding checking emails for the last week or two so that I can concentrate on finishing a new website that I’m building. I’m terrible for getting distracted and leaving things half-finished so I’m trying to eliminate as many distractions as possible: no email, no Twitter, no Scrubs season two

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I’m becoming more and more convinced that my ability to hear and understand what people are saying is strongly linked to how much sleep I got the night before. I’ve written before that I don’t hear the same things every day. Yesterday I was very tired and it was a bad hearing day, I couldn’t really understand anyone in the office, I was constantly straining to hear and often asking people to repeat themselves. Last night I went to bed an hour

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TV Ears are running a competition to win one of their Wireless Speakers. To stand a chance of winning you have to go to either their Facebook (www.facebook.com/tvears) or Twitter page (www.twitter.com/tvears). Competition closes on March 21 2011, winner drawn at random.

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The weekly round-up is a little collection of blog posts, articles, news, etc that I’ve enjoyed or found useful in the last week. If you’ve read something good or if you’ve got a website/article/press release/whatever that you’d like to see featured in coming weeks then please get in touch.

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ReSound, the technology leader in hearing aid solutions, has released extensions to its wireless hearing aid, Alera™. Originally released in August 2010 and the winner of a 2011 CES Innovations Design & Engineering Award, Alera is now available with configurable BTE and Remote Microphone Technology custom enhancements. “Every few years, technology takes a significant leap forward,” said Laurel A. Christensen, Chief Audiology Officer, ReSound.

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This is a press release from Phonak about their Audéo S SMART Ceramic hearing aid: The world’s most sophisticated hearing aid is being launched in the UK combining an unrivalled level of performance with a stylish design. Enclosed in a luxurious ceramic housing, the tiny device – just 2cm in length – sits discreetly behind the ear and allows optimum hearing in all environments. The Audéo S SMART Ceramics, developed by Phonak, the world’s leading

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Deafness Research UK is a charity that helps to create radical improvements in the prevention, diagnosis and treatment of all forms of hearing impairment. Andrew Goodwin is their Information and Outreach Advisor and he kindly agreed to take some time out of his busy schedule to answer a few questions: Can you tell us a bit about yourself and your role at Deafness Research UK? [Andrew Goodwin] My name is Andrew Goodwin and I’m the Information and

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I’ve just discovered the ExSilent hearing aid brand thanks to the always-informative Hearing Mojo. ExSilent is a young company from the Netherlands that produces invisible hearing aids that sit deep in the canal. Hearing Mojo is covering ExSilent’s new QLeaf Pro aid that has a feature that allows you to change programmes by tapping gently the outside of your ear. The problem being that invisible hearing aids sit so deep that it would be very

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Blamey & Saunders Hearing are a supplier of self-programmable hearing aids, they also sell Neurotone’s listening enhancement (LACE) software to compliment their hearing aid range. Dr. Daniel Taft, Australia Hears’ Chief Technology Officer, was kind enough to take the time to answer some questions about LACE. Can you give us a brief introduction to LACE? [Daniel Taft] LACE stands for Listening And Communication Enhancement. It was designed by

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Hearing aids are expensive and when you’ve spent a lot of money on a pair you expect them to fix your hearing problems. After all, that’s what they are for, to correct your hearing loss. I remember (it’s probably about five years ago now) visiting an audiologist because I was struggling to hear at work and wanted to replace my pair of aging hearing aids. I didn’t really have a lot of money to splash on new aids but I knew I needed to do

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?A HEARING aid dispenser has been banned for ignoring a patient’s ear infection until it was so smelly the pensioner wouldn’t leave the house. Specsavers worker Pauline Lutwyche’s advice to the elderly woman was to put Vaseline in her ear. The Health Professions Council (HPC) was told doctors later diagnosed a perforated ear drum. Misconduct charges were found against the 62-year-old of Warren House Walk, Sutton Coldfield, who was banned from

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I remember being so conscious of my hearing aids when I first started wearing them. It felt like they were HUGE! It felt like there was a big flashing neon arrow above my head pointing right at my ears and a sign up reading, “Hey, check this guy out, look at his ears!”. I still do find myself wondering from time to time if people have spotted them and what they are thinking about them. Last happened a few weeks ago when I was on a bus and there

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Cochlear Ltd., the world’s largest maker of bionic ears, on Tuesday reported a 16% rise in first-half profit as it expanded in emerging markets and people in developed countries with only one implant opted for a second to improve efficacy. Net profit for the six months to Dec. 31 of 87.2 million Australian dollars ($88.6 million) was up from A$75.2 million in the previous corresponding period and beat the A$84.2 million average of four analysts’

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If you’ve been reading this blog for a while you’ll know that I’ve been wearing a pair of Audiosync iSync hearing aids (also know as Starkey Otolens). On a recent visit to my audiologist I got the opportunity to try out Starkey’s Voice IQ software upgrade and because I didn’t want to send my iSyncs back to Starkey, and be without them for a week, we decided to get the Voice IQ upgrade in my S Series instead.

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I’ve written before about how important it is to have a great audiologist. But that’s not the whole story. You are involved too and you are just as important as the audiologist. When you’ve been fitted with your new hearing aid for the very first time it will be set-up to match the results of your hearing test. You are in the audiologist’s office with your new aids in your ears and you are listening to lots of new sounds. If you experiencing any

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The weekly round-up is a little collection of blog posts, articles, news, etc that I’ve enjoyed or found useful in the last week. If you’ve read something good or if you’ve got a website/article/press release/whatever that you’d like to see featured in coming weeks then please get in touch.

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I just stumbled upon hearingfamilies.com via Twitter and I thought I’d share the link with you. Here’s a bit from Dr Schorr’s about page: My name is Efrat Schorr and I am a developmental psychologist who specializes in the unique social and emotional development of children with hearing loss. I received a PhD at the University of Maryland in this field in 2005. My research on the social and emotional development of children with cochlear

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I always use subtitles when I’m watching a TV show or a movie. I don’t really need to, I have a moderate-severe bilateral hearing loss and I could turn the TV up enough so that I could hear it. I mostly watch TV when my wife and daughter have gone to bed so obviously I don’t want the TV blaring out and waking them up, that’s one reason why I always use subtitles, the other reason is: After a hard day of: straining to hear stuff, trying to stay

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I get quite a few emails from people asking which hearing aid is best but no-one has ever asked which audiologist is best. I think the second question is just as important as the first, maybe even more so. When you buy a hearing aid you are paying for the audiologists time as well as for the hearing aid itself. The time costs more than the piece of plastic you will put in your ear and what’s really important for you is that once you’ve been

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Just wanted to let you know that I’ve moved www.deafness-and-hearingaids.net to a new domain name. The site is now at: All the existing links to deafness-and-hearingaids.net still work (I hope!), they just redirect to the new name. So nothing needs to change. I’m having a bit of a spring clean on the site and felt that the old name was too long and was too much of a mouthful and it didn’t really say anything whereas the new one slips off the

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Europe’s top award for hearing professionals is back. Audiologist of the Year 2011 is a chance for hearing patients to celebrate the skills of professionals across the continent. Now in its fourth year, the respected award encourages nominations for professionals who excel in their duties and is a chance for patients to shout about their own audiologist. Reward and recognise your audiologist by telling us just what makes them so special. We

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I’m going to announce two awesome new projects in the next few weeks. One is for audiologists and hearing aid sellers and the other is for people struggling with a hearing loss. If you want the first scoop on them both, I’ve started a mailing list to keep you in the loop.

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I got an email from Michael about a problem that he is having with his Starkey 5 RIC aids – I’ll let him explain: In the higher registers of an instrument there seems to be two notes, side by side, one slight flatter than the other and one of them slightly late. So every note, whether from an instrument, voice, whistle, cell phone beep, car door beep, ignition warning, etc. has the distortion. Not all speaking voices but some. And it is all the

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When people think of hearing aids, they might think more of old ear trumpets than high-quality, advanced devices, but the integration of Bluetooth with hearing aid technology is changing that. Hearing aid manufacturers are lately using Bluetooth as a tool to improve their products, and each manufacturer is taking a different approach. I first became aware of Bluetooth technology and hearing aids in 2009, when I purchased a set of Oticon Epoq

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Envoy Medical’s Esteem is the world’s first implantable hearing aid. It doesn’t use a microphone and a speaker like a traditional hearing aid. There is nothing at all in your ear, the aid is completely internal and is therefore invisible. You can watch Envoy’s video to get a better idea of what it is about. The Esteem is not a cochlear implant. A CI is fitted to those with profound hearing loss and is fitted in the inner ear whereas the Esteem

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Earlier this year World of Warcraft player Unwelcome suffered an accident that permanently robbed him of his hearing. Feeling alienated and shunned by his real life friends, he returned to World of Warcraft for some online alienation and shunning. The loss of one’s hearing is a tragic and traumatic event, but it doesn’t necessarily mean an end to gaming. Many popular games offer subtitle options for the hearing impaired. World of Warcraft itself

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Just because I heard you yesterday does not mean I will hear you today. This list was inspired by this post from SayWhatClub.com.

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Mirroring is a behaviour in which one person copies another. It usually happens when two people are talking to each other or are in close proximity. Common mirror behaviour is things like copying someone’s body language or movements, saying the same words or expressions or looking in the same direction. It’s usually a sign that there is some kind of friendship or respect between the person being mirrored and the copier. You can read more about

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There’s one thing that people could say about my hearing loss that does get to me but in general I try not to stay calm when I get into a situation because I didn’t hear something. Sometimes I get that look and I feel like an idiot, sometimes I get frustrated because someone will not make themselves heard, sometimes I get nervous because I’ve lost the conversation and if someone asks me something I won’t have a clue what to say and will have to

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Here’s some of the blogs that I like to read. If you enjoy this site then you’ll definitely love these: Speak Up Librarian “I’m a hard of hearing librarian attempting to find my way in the world as a late deafened adult. I became aware of my hearing loss at the age of 40. These stories describe what it’s like for me to come to terms with my hearing loss and adjust to life with hearing aids. I hope you can laugh with me at some of the mistakes

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I visited Ascent last week for a bit of re-programming and while I was there I managed to get a quick look at the new iNSTAFit hearing aid from Audiosync. The iNSTAFit is part of the iSync family and is running on the same S Series technology from Starkey. What makes it different from the iSync is that it is not moulded to fit your ear, instead the aid is a thin straight tube and so one size fits all. It’s about as wide as a pencil and about 2cm

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Daniel Taft is an engineer with a PhD in cochlear implant sound processing from the University of Melbourne and the Bionic Ear Institute. He is the Chief Technology Officer for Blamey & Saunders Hearing, a company that offers hearing aids scientifically designed to order online and adjust at home. You will need to buy hearing aids that you can adjust at home, from a reputable dispenser. The company I work for, Australia Hears, offers hearing

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I’ve created a little online tool that allows you to enter your hearing test results onto an audiogram. At the moment it’s very basic but I’m hoping to add to it. You can enter the result for your left or right ear and then right-click on the audiogram to save it as a picture to your computer. I’d like to add some different audiogram graphs for you to put your results on: one that’s just an empty graph, one similar to the one I already have that

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This is from the iTunes hearing loss simulator app store page: This looks great! I wish I had an iPad just to get this app (which isn’t going to happen seeing as iPads are £500 here in the UK). I’m going to email Starkey to see if there’s an iPod version. I’d love to be able to show some other people how I hear.

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australiahears.com.au have an excellent article by Elaine Saunders called: Why is an audiogram commonly used as the basis for fitting a hearing aid? It explains how audiograms works and how they measures your hearing loss against a benchmark rather than your hearing ability. It also gives a brief history of measuring and diagnosing hearing loss. What’s most interesting though is this snippet: It’s an interesting point, I always understood the

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I hate waiting rooms, they make me nervous. Doctor surgeries, opticians, dentists, business foyers, hospital waiting rooms – they’re all the same: large rooms full of people with lots of potential for embarrassing hearing mistakes. Waiting rooms are either incredibly noisy, full of chatter, kids playing and parents shouting; or they are deathly silent with no-one uttering a word. I’m not sure which is better.

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I’m usually fairly relaxed about my hearing loss and people’s attitude towards it. It’s doesn’t bother me overly if someone decides to use a comically loud, slow and patronising voice if I ask them to repeat themselves – I just tell them they don’t need to do that. It doesn’t bother me if someone decides that repeating themselves is too much trouble – they probably aren’t worth listening too anyway.

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I’ve been wearing a pair of iSyncs for about 4 months now and I thought it was time I reviewed them. The iSyncs are the world’s first IIC (Invisible In the Canal) hearing aids. In the interests of fairness I should let you know that I got the iSyncs for free from Ascent Hearing – this came about when I was visiting their Banbury branch in the summer to have a chat with Michael Nolan. Turned out on the day that they were looking for someone to

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A hearing expert who drove over 200 miles to help a patient is the pride of Scotland after being named the UK’s Audiologist of the Year for 2010. David Bryce, who is from Aberdeen, has been chosen as the nation’s top hearing professional in a competition voted for by patients around the UK. The competition is run by hearing aid battery maker Rayovac, the manufacturer of the world’s number one selling zinc air hearing aid batteries. It encourages

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The Jubilee Project makes films for good causes. This film was produced to raise awareness and support for the American Society for Deaf Children. There are two ways that you can support this cause: The American Society for Deaf Children is a non-profit organization started in 1967 that supports and educates families of deaf and hard of hearing children and advocates for high quality programs and services.

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I have good hearing days and bad hearing days. Today was a good day, I had a conversation with someone who was a fair distance away across our open-plan office – I heard them easily and I realised that I’m not often able to understand them at that distance. I don’t think my ability to hear fluctuates from day to day but there’s definitely good spells and then not so good ones. When you have a hearing loss and understanding conversation is a

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I took our car into a garage for repair today. After dropping the keys off at the service desk I went and sat in their waiting room – it wasn’t really a room as such, just a ring of chairs in the corner of a large open-plan showroom. There were three of us sat in there. After about 15 minutes or so of waiting, the garage receptionist appeared at the opposite end of the waiting area to me and asked if anyone would like tea of coffee. I heard her

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Apple’s new iPhone 4 is just hitting the shelves here in the UK. One of its big selling points is its live video chat – you can see the person calling as well as hearing them. Apple have a new advert out showcasing this and amazingly it features two people using the phone to communicate using ASL and, not only that, it also pans around to the back of the guy’s head to show his hearing aid. Here it is:

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We all accept that noise is part of our everyday lives, however, if noise in a workplace reaches a certain level, the employer has a duty, by law, to protect their employees’ hearing. We can prevent hearing loss caused by work but once your hearing has gone, it won’t come back. It is estimated there are hundreds of thousands of people in the UK who suffer Industrial Deafness due to harmful levels of noise at work.

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The vuvuzela is the noise weapon of choice for fans at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. The long, plastic, trumpet-shaped vuvuzela was found to emit an ear-piercing noise of 127 decibel — louder than a lawnmower (90 decibels) and a chainsaw (100 decibels). You only need to expose your ears to this level of noise for a few minutes to run the risk of some damage to your hearing. Just a few minutes, and the fans are blasting these things for the

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Want to add a bit of pizzazz to your hearing aid? Does your child wear hearing aids and love jewellery? Stuck for a gift idea for the aid wearer in your life? Hayleigh’s Cherished Charms is just the thing for you! Here’s Hayleigh explaining her awesome product and how it came about: Hi! I’m Hayleigh and I am 11 years old. When I was little and attended a school for hearing impaired children I noticed that a lot of kids tried to hide their

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The gossip Web site TMZ.com is reporting that in response to the rampant use of vuvuzela horns during World Cup soccer matches, earplug sales have exploded since the group stage matches began in South Africa last week. ? TMZ has said it spoke with to two major earplug suppliers based in South Africa — Ear Plugs Online and Sheppard Medical — and each are boasting increases in sales. A rep for EPO told TMZ their sales are up 121% — having sold

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Ear infections happen when germs such as bacteria, viruses or fungi cause swelling and irritation of your ear. They are most common in childhood, and are often passed from one child to another, but they can happen at any age. Infections of the middle ear are called otitis media, and infections of the outer ear are called otitis externa. Most ear infections are uncomfortable but not serious. Most will clear up by themselves in a few days. They

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New York rapper Foxy Brown recently opened up about her deafness with talk show host and comedian, Mo’Nique. The female MC spoke about how she went deaf a few years ago and how she has now managed to regain her hearing. Foxy Brown said: “It was 100 percent gone, overnight. They don’t even know why. I have the best surgeon in the world who specializes in ear problems and the operations and surgeries and Wednesday night [in 2005], I was out

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Looking to buy a new hearing aid? They are sold in a few different ways these days, here’s a description of each: This is the most common way that a hearing aid is sold. If you go to a high-street or independent retailer then this is how you will be sold an aid. Basically, you pay one lump-sum for everything: the hearing aid itself, the audiologist’s time, the hearing test, the fitting, the programming and the after care.

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This is from a Sonitus Medical press release. Sonitus Medical Inc, developers of SoundBite, a nonsurgical and removable hearing device to transmit sound via the teeth and bone, has announced the publication of the first peer-reviewed article on its hearing system. “Preliminary Evaluation of a Novel Bone-Conduction Device for Single-Sided Deafness,” has been published in the most recent issue (31:492-497, 2010) of the Otology & Neurotology

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Binaural: “Having or relating to two ears” Monaural: “Of, relating to, or designating sound reception by one ear” If you have a binaural hearing loss then you have a problem in both of your ears – if you have Monaural then it’s only one. If you do have a binaural loss then it is very important that you wear hearing aids in both ears. Don’t be tempted to buy only one – in my opinion it would be better two buy two cheaper hearing aids than it

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-->Deep inside the ear, specialized cells called hair cells detect vibrations in the air and translate them into sound. Ten years ago, Stefan Heller, PhD, professor of otolaryngology at the Stanford University School of Medicine, came up with the idea tha

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If you are trialling a new hearing aid and you can’t decide whether to keep it then try this: Wear your new hearing aid(s) for a week. Wear them in all the environments you are normally in – at home, at work, at a party, in the street, etc. After one week of that switch back to wearing your old hearing aids for a day or so (or no aids if this is your first pair) and see what the difference is like.

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In the UK, hearing impairment is a common condition. The Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID) estimates that in the UK there are almost nine million hearing impaired people. Approximately 28% of people who are hearing impaired are between 16-60 years of age, and 72% are over 60 years of age. In terms of age-related hearing loss, about 71% of people who are hearing impaired are over 70 years of age. The severity of hearing impairment

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People don’t seem to know what to call the things in my ears. I’m pretty open about the fact that I can’t hear much and that I wear hearing aids. Most people around me day-to-day know I wear them, some even know I write on here. I quite often talk with people about hearing loss and aids – sometimes people ask where their Mum/Gran/whoever should go to buy some or what the best one to get is. And yet people can’t seem to say hearing aids. It’s

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I got fitted with a new pair of hearing aids the other day (more on these soon) and one thing that really struck me almost straight away was how much quieter silence is with them on. Seems like a weird thing to say. Silence is silence, right? It’s no noise. That’s what I thought but the difference in my perception of a silent room while wearing my old Starkey Destinys and wearing these new aids is amazing.

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When my car goes in for a service or repair I get given a courtesy car to use while mine is out of action. It’s a given that the courtesy car will be available, all garages are offering one these days. So what about when my hearing aids need servicing? Can I get courtesy aids to use while mine’s away? Because there’s no way I can go two weeks without my hearing aids, I need to go to work, I need to hear.

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Marlee Matlin had an idea for a reality show that she hoped would bring some insight into the lives and struggles of deaf people and how they cope. But while reality TV has brought us wife swappers, party girls, aging rock stars and dieting divas, apparently no one was ready for something that real. So instead, the hearing-impaired actress who won an Academy Award as lead actress for her role in “Children of a Lesser God,” took her show “My Deaf

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Picture the scene: You are in an audiologists office, you’ve had a hearing test and you need to decide which hearing aid you are going to buy. You’ve saved up for a long time to get some money together for an aid because you really need to hear better. It’s a lot of money. It’s a big decision and you can’t afford to not make the right one. Based on your test results your audiologist suggests a few different aids that would suit you. The three

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Sometimes I listen to a song and I think, “I’m so lucky that I can still hear that”. As someone with a hearing loss I spend a lot of time worrying about what I can’t hear. It’s pretty rare that I stop and think about what I can hear. I thought I’d put this article together just so that I could celebrate some of my favourite songs that I can still hear. I’m not a big listener of music and I never use an mp3 player (too paranoid about further

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The Royal National Institute for the Deaf (RNID) have simple hearing checks that you can use to help you determine whether you have a hearing problem or not. They are not full hearing tests as you would get if you visited an audiologist – it’s more of a first step to help you judge whether you need to go and see an audiologist for a full assessment. The have an online test, which you can try by clicking this link. The number for the telephone

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Google have announced that they are rolling out captions to all videos on Youtube. A little while back they announced a test of captioning for a small number of videos. I guess they’ve ironed out any problems seen during the trial run and they’re now ready to offer across the board. From Google themselves on March 4th 2010: Today, we are opening up auto-captions to all YouTube users. There will even be a “request processing” button for

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Yes they are. No they’re not. Yes they are. No they’re definitely not. Siemens have decided to hold on to their audiology division. To reinforce their desire to push forward their hearing aid business, they’ve appointed a new CEO in Roger Radke. A quote from them: “With this nomination, we hope to reinforce our activities in the domain of hearing aids, especially with the solid experience and vast network that Roger Radke obtained when he worked

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I like to watch TV with subtitles/captions on. It’s just easier, it saves me having to have the volume up too high for everyone else – particularly when the rest of my family have gone to bed, I can watch my favourite shows without waking them. This would be great if the quality of subtitling wasn’t so hit-and-miss. Some channels have no subtitles at all, which I can live with and doesn’t bother me that much. I just don’t ever watch that

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I was reading a press release today for a new hearing aid from a well-know manufacturer. It struck me that despite reading the entire thing I had absolutely no idea whether this aid would be good for me. Would it be better than the one I have? How much better? I have no idea. The new aid has features with impressive sounding names like (and I’m making these up as I don’t want to name the brand): All this on the company’s website too. From their

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Despite all the advances in hearing technology over the past few years, a survey conducted by the Phonak Hear the World initiative has found that people still associate hearing aids with old age more than any other accessory, including wheelchairs, glasses, canes and crutches. 4,405 people, aged from 14-65 in the United Kingdom, America, France, Germany, Switzerland and Italy were questioned. The top three reasons given for not wearing a hearing

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This is a mock-up from Designaffairs Studio. Can’t imagine ever wearing one of these – “Yes, sir, this hearing aid is state of the art, to wear it we simply need to stretch your ear lobe slowly over six months until it is dangling around your mouth”. Me: “uh… the behind the ear model will be fine, thanks”. It’s great to see people pushing the design of hearing aids. It’s one more step towards the day when hearing aids are as cool and ubiquitous

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If your hearing aid gets wet DON’T PANIC! Electronics and water are two things that generally don’t go well together but all is not lost if your aid does get a soaking. I’ve had several that have been waterlogged and have managed to get them working fully again. Things to do if your hearing aid gets wet The important thing to remember is: It is unlikely that you will need to buy a new hearing aid just because it got soaked – electronics are more

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How do you fancy getting something published on this site? Over the years many people have left some great comments on here, there’s been some great discussions. A lot of people have taken the time to leave comments about subjects that they care about. I get a lot of emails as well – from people who are looking for some info, want to talk about hearing aid stuff or just want to share their story. I’m opening this to anyone: bloggers,

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The competition to win a year’s supply of hearing aid batteries ends today. You’ve got until midnight (UK time) to get your entry in and give yourself a chance to win a bunch of Rayovacs. http://www.deafness-and-hearingaids.net/2010/01/18/win-a-years-supply-of-hearing-aid-batteries/ Good luck – you’ve got to be in it to win it!

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All modern hearing aids come with a phone programme, it’s a setting that the hearing aid automatically switches to when you put a phone to your ear. The programme normally reduces the volume of the sound coming from the phone and, I think, also reduces pitch to try and eliminate any feedback that might occur from having a phone pressed to your ear. I’ve never been happy with the phone programme on any of my hearing aids.

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I’m looking for a bit of help and advice. Does anyone have any information on getting hearing aids for a 3 year old? What style of aid works best? Are there any particular manufacturer or brands that are better? How often will ear moulds have to be changed? Will kids have to have their moulds changed often until their ears stop growing? There seems to be a myth about how long our ears grow for and lots of people say that they never stop, but

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All you have to do for you chance to win is leave a comment below and tell me the following: Yeah, it’s that easy! So what are you waiting for? Competition rules: Only one entry per person. The prize is 120 (20 x 6 packs) Rayovac hearing aid batteries of any size. No cash alternative to prize will be offered. Competition closes on Sunday 21st February. A winner will be chosen at random and notified via email.

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The European Commission wants to limit maximum volume on all portable MP3 players sold in the EU, including iPods, to protect users’ hearing. This follows a report last year warning that as many as 10 million Europeans are putting their hearing at risk when they listen to loud music on their MP3 players. According to the EU experts, the default maximum should be set at 85 decibels. Users would be able to override this setting to reach a top

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January 11, 2010 – Hansaton, the German-based provider of award-winning hearing systems, announced today they are now offering their products to US-based audiologists and hearing aid dispensers. Hansaton (hanz-a-tone) has designed and manufactured superior hearing devices for more than fifty years. The family-owned company currently has licensed dealers in 70 countries worldwide. Hansaton recently named industry veteran Robert Eastman as

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Siemens is selling its hearing aid business. It has shortlisted one strategic buyer and five private equity firms as potential buyers. The New York Times reports that the sale price could be over 2 billion euros (1.8 billion pounds). Siemens Hearing, which competes with Switzerland’s Sonova Holding and Denmark’s William Demant Holding A/S, is projected to make pre-tax earnings of some 170 million euros in 2010.

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A drug pump which is implanted in the ear is the latest approach for tackling tinnitus. It works by releasing a powerful new medicine that calms the overactive nerves thought to cause the condition. Tinnitus is a ringing, whistling, buzzing or hissing noise heard for no obvious reason. It may be constant, or come and go. It is estimated that about 15million people in the UK experience tinnitus at some time. For 10 to 15 per cent of sufferers,

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The iPod Touch and the iPhone have an app for everything it seems. There’s apps for using Twitter, tracking stocks, playing games, creating new recipes and making sure you don’t burn them, learning French, the list goes on and on. When is someone going to build a hearing aid app? An app that turns an iPod into a fully-functioning hearing aid, it isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds. The iPhone already has everything it needs: a microphone, two

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Should buying a hearing aid be like buying a TV or buying a pair of glasses? When you buy a new TV you can go into your local electronic store and try out a bunch of different models and pick the one you like. You get hands-on with the TV before you part with your money and you can see the differences between them side-by-side. Some people will know the different brands of TV, which ones are better, their strengths and weaknesses, they probably

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I walked into the office yesterday morning and walked straight into a conversation between a few people. I said hello and answered a question from one of them and then walked over to my desk. I took my coat off, grabbed my cup to make a tea (I’m English, we do a lot of tea), turned around and…. That look that means I instantly know that someone has spoken to me and I didn’t hear them. I’m not sure I can describe the look but if you’re hard of

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In time for the holidays, Hear the World is offering a special kind of gift: international stars such as Jude Law, Elle Macpherson, Lenny Kravitz and Laura Pausini have been photographed by rock star and photographer Bryan Adams for the Hear the World initiative. These pictures are exclusively available for you to admire in the Hear the World calendar 2010. Reserve your copy of this limited edition calendar now for EUR 19.90 / USD 29.90 / GBP

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Otologics has announced the introduction of Carina, a fully implantable hearing system that picks up sounds using a microphone implanted under the skin that the company says transmits amplified signals directly into the middle ear. Sounds are amplified according to the wearer’s needs and converted into an electrical signal. The signal is sent down the lead and into the transducer. The tip of the Carina transducer is in contact with the middle

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Below is a list of some of the hearing aid sellers in the UK. I’ve listed the major high-street chains but there are also many, many independent audiologists and sellers operating all over the UK as well. David Ormerod centres are found in more than 200 Boots branches nationwide. Their website is here. You can book an appointment with them online. To find your nearest David Ormerod branch, go here.

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OK, it’s not going to be the most exciting present under the tree this year but, for the hearing aid wearer in your life, it could be one of the most useful. Dehumidifier pots remove moisture from hearing aids, this helps prolong the life of the aid and keeps it functioning properly – and aid that it regularly popped into one of these will work longer and better. Amazon have some of these but you can get them from your local audiologist or

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Hearing aids for as many as 10 million Americans living with untreated hearing loss could soon become a reality if Congress acts, says Stephen Hansbrough, CEO of HearUSA, who is urging passage of the tax credit legislation that would make hearing aids significantly more affordable. Although almost all of the 36 million Americans with hearing loss could be helped by hearing aids, 25% currently use them, the Better Hearing Institute (BHI) reports,

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Google announced a few weeks ago that they have added the ability to auto-caption YouTube videos. That means that when the project is complete we will be able to have captions on any YouTube video whether the original uploader of the video added captions or not. Pretty damn awesome and it answers this question pretty conclusively! The ability for people to add captions manually when they upload their videos has been around to many years. But the

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Cornell researchers and colleagues have created cell phones that allow deaf people to communicate in sign language, the same way hearing people use phones to talk. For those who are deaf or hard of hearing, cell phone use has largely been limited to text messaging. But technology is catching up: Cornell researchers and colleagues have created cell phones that allow deaf people to communicate in sign language — the same way hearing people use

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Hearing aids come in lots of cool colours and shapes these days but I’ve never seen a pure white one. White hearing aids would look quite a bit like iPod earphones and would maybe help to give them that cool factor? Everywhere you look these days someone has a pair of white buds in so it’s not unusual to see people with things in their ears. Possibly manufacturers are worried about a lawsuit from Apple?

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There are some manual captioning services around, captvids.com is one, that do manual captioning of videos. That’s cool but I’m wondering if it’s possible to do automatic captioning? There’s a lot of speech recognition software around, Dragon Naturally Speaking for example, that do an amazing job. It’s probably 7 or 8 years since I’ve used a voice recognition system and even back then they were near perfect – they can only have gotten better

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ZURICH (Dow Jones)– Swiss hearing aid maker Sonova Holdings AG (SOON.VX) said Monday it is buying U.S.-based Advanced Bionics Corporation for $489 million, to enter the cochlear implant systems market where the company sees future growth rates between 10% and 15% per year. “With this transaction Sonova adds a new source of sustainable business growth and enhances its position as the leading provider of hearing healthcare solutions,” Chief

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Could we build a hearing aid? By we I mean me, you, the guy studying audiology at university, the hard of hearing electrical engineer and all the other people. In computer software there’s a thing called open source. What it means is that someone, or some people, build something and they don’t just release the finished product they also give the source code away too. Source code is the programming language statements that were used to make the

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Studies have shown that humans’ capacity to hear affects the quality of our relationships and mental health, regulates physiology and can impact stress and income levels. Explore the link between healthy hearing and overall well-being and the effects health issues such as diabetes, hypertension and medication can have on the delicate structures of hearing. Discover new strategies to preserve and improve hearing for life.

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I don’t think that UK hospitals and GP surgeries are doing enough to make themselves accessible to their deaf and hard of hearing patients. Take my local GP surgery as an example: They have a largish waiting room. They have a single speaker at one end of the room that most doctors use to call their patients – other doctors will walk to the top end of the room and call someone in. The room is often filled with patient’s chatter and kids playing.

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Pompey football legend Alan Knight spent years struggling to hear conversations. But now hearing aids have transformed his life and he is campaigning to change attitudes to deafness. ‘That John Westwood has got a lot to answer for,’ smiles Knight, recalling the hundreds of times he would be subjected to the loud ringing bell of the club’s noisiest supporter. But losing his hearing was devastating for the former goalkeeper. He felt cut off,

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All digital hearing aids are programmable. Some analogue hearing aids have programmable options too. It means that an audiologist can modify a hearing aid’s settings for your personal hearing loss – it also means that they can set the aid up so that you can hear the sounds that you want to hear in your everyday environments. There will default options for common situations such as: at home, at a party, at the theatre, listening to music, and so

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Starkey have recently introduced touch controls to their S Series hearing aids, a feature they are calling Sweep. The BTE S Series models have a touch-sensitive area that takes up most of the top side of the shell. You can use this control to either change volume or switch between programs. By default, an up or down motion increases/decreases the volume and a tap changes the program – but this can be configured differently if you want.

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Sarah, who writes the Speak Up Librarian blog, has just launched a range of t-shirts for the hard of hearing. She says that the prints, “express our communication needs with grace, humor, and a little bit of attitude”. And they certainly do that! Here’s Sarah herself modelling one of the prints. Check out the Speak Up Librarian Store for the full range. Think I’m gonna get myself a Say What?.

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Hearing aids and cochlear implants act as tiny amplifiers so the deaf and hard-of-hearing can make sense of voices and music. Unfortunately, these devices also amplify background sound, so they’re less effective in a noisy environment like a busy workplace or café. But help is on the way. Prof. Miriam Furst-Yust of Tel Aviv University’s School of Electrical Engineering has developed a new software application named “Clearcall” for cochlear

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Can anyone recommend an Assistive Listening Device for one-to-one use at home? I know next to to nothing about ALDs, I’ve never used one – If you have and can recommend it could you please leave a comment below? Thanks. For anyone interested, there’s a good article on ALDs here.

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I’ve been wearing a pair of Starkey’s new S Series hearing aids for about a month now. I have the in-the-canal (ITC) model. On Starkey’s website they list the S Series’ main features. I’ve written a bit below about how each feature is working for me. I have not had a single squeak of feedback. The feedback-elimination program was run when I had the aids fitted and they’ve been perfect since. Speech is definitely clearer and easier to understand

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I see a lot of adverts in the newspapers and on the TV for glasses. Every day there are full-page adverts in the papers and prime-time adverts on the big TV channels. Everyone is doing “Buy one get one free” offers or “Designer frames for free” etc etc. Glasses are cool, the designer frames are expensive, celebrities endorse them. According to the Royal National Institute For The Blind there are two million blind or partially sighted people in

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Hearing Aid Market has been up and running for a week now and it has already enabled someone to get a free pair of hearing aids! Carol kindly offered to donate her late Mother’s hearing aids so that they could be put to use by someone else. On the same day that I received an email from Carol I also got one from Angel in Texas. He was in need of hearing aids. I put the two in touch with each other and I am delighted to say that Carol shipped the

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The Starkey S Series hearing aids have a feature called T2. This basically enables you to control the hearing aid with a touch-tone mobile phone. Once your audiologist has switched your aids to use the T2 feature it is easy to use your mobile to change volume and programme settings – you just need to hold the phone a few inches from your ear, press the * button twice and then use the keypad to increase/decrease volume or change programme.

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A soldier has won £330,000 from the Ministry of Defence for hearing loss, after being told not to wear earplugs during a training exercise to make it more “battle realistic”. Charles Bradlaugh was left with hearing loss and tinnitus. Mr Bradlaugh, 22, was a cadet when colleagues started firing before he could find earplugs or alert anyone at Barry Buddon Training Centre in Carnoustie, Angus, in 2004.

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Shareholders of Sonic Innovations Inc, Salt Lake City, overwhelmingly approved the renaming of Sonic Innovations Inc to Otix Global Inc at the company’s recent annual shareholder meeting. The name and ticker symbol change have already been adopted. “The move is designed to create a holding company that will allow the Sonic Innovations’ brand and Sonic’s other brands to operate independently from each other,” said Sam Westover, the company’s

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I have a new pair of Starkey’s S Series hearing aids – I got them fitted at Banbury Hearing Centre. Over the next few weeks I’m going to review their performance against my old aids and write about them on here. I’m very impressed already. In the office last week I managed to listen in to someone else’s conversation from another desk – that was a welcome surprise! The noise reduction seems really good, I can listen to music in my car now –

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If you live in or around Oxfordshire, UK then I highly recommend Banbury Hearing Centre as a great audiologist and hearing aid vendor. I’ve been there twice recently to be fitted with a new pair of Starkey S Series aids and have received a really first-class service. John Enderbury is the audiologist there. I had two one-hour appointments with him – both of which stretched over the hour because John took the time to explain my new aid’s features

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Thank you very, very much to those of you who took the time to check out the Market site and send some feedback. Your comments have all helped to make a better site – I really appreciate you taking the time. Testing is now over and I plan to make Hearing Aid market available to everyone from tomorrow. Any hearing aids that were listed up until now will be deleted but the users who signed up will remain.

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Firstly, I want to to say sorry for not writing much recently and thanks for waiting it out and not unsubscribing from this RSS feed. Even though I haven’t written much I have not been totally idle. I’ve been building a new part to the site called: Don’t know if you remember but I wrote a long time ago asking if people would buy/sell or give hearing aids through this site – a lot of people replied saying that they would. I even managed to put

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Shanna Groves was diagnosed with progressive hearing loss at the age of 27 after the birth of her first child. She has written about her hearing journey in Hearing Loss Magazine, The Kansas City Star, MOMSense, and the book A CUP OF COMFORT FOR NURSES(Adams Media). LIP READER is her second book and her first novel. A member of the Hearing Loss Association of America and the National Association of Memoir Writers, Shanna lives in the Midwest with

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Sonova is reporting record sales of CHF 1.249 billion (USD $1.124 billion) and further expanded its market share on the back of organic growth of 7.8% in local currencies and 3.0% growth from acquisitions. Profitability was maintained at a high level, with an Earnings Before Interest, Tax and Amortisation (EBITA) margin of 26.6%. Income after taxes amounted to CHF 284 million (USD $255 million). The rise in net profit in the year to end-March,

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The Scripps Research Institute is reporting that scientists there have illuminated the action of harmonin, a protein which is involved in the mechanics of hearing. The finding reportedly sheds new light on the workings of mechanotransduction, the process by which cells convert mechanical stimuli into electrical activity. Defects in mechanotransduction genes can cause devastating diseases, such as Usher’s syndrome, which is characterized by

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The comment below is from Paul Weston, he originally wrote this as a comment on here but I felt it was worth posting separately as it raises some good points. I don’t necessarily agree with everything he is saying but moving his comment to its own page gives people room for comment. A quick straw poll of friends shows that of four people that have had hearing aids fitted, four of them are not used. The hearing aid has not been adjusted in a way

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Whenever someone buys a hearing aid they have a trial period in which they can decide whether they want to keep the hearing aid or not. If you are buying a hearing aid and aren’t offered a trial period then shop somewhere else. Normally the way the trial works is that you pay up-front in full for your hearing aid and you take it away. You get an amount of time for the trial and at the end of that you can give it back or keep it. During the trial

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One of three US adults already suffers from some degree of hearing loss and the use of personal stereos and an aging population may create a hearing impairment epidemic, according to a study carried out by a team of scientists at Johns Hopkins University. The researchers estimated that 55 million Americans have hearing loss in one or both ears, with men, whites and the least-educated most affected, while one out of six, or 29 million adults,

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Lip reading is a critical means of communication for many deaf people, but it has a drawback: Certain consonants (for example, p and b) can be nearly impossible to distinguish by sight alone. Tactile devices, which translate sound waves into vibrations that can be felt by the skin, can help overcome that obstacle by conveying nuances of speech that can’t be gleaned from lip reading. Researchers in MIT’s Sensory Communication Group are working on

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Deaf seven-year-old Evie Crook has a new best friend – a specially trained hearing dog. Evie is the youngest person to get an assistance dog and her confidence is starting to skyrocket. Since getting Gem she is sleeping in her own bed for the first time and is much more chatty, her parents say. “I love Gem more than 10 million bags of sugar!,” the youngster told Sky News. Evie is severely deaf, and is one of 12 children taking part in a trial

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Scientists have found what could be the root cause of tinnitus, raising the hope of a treatment in the near future. In studies carried out by Scientists in Australia, increased activity in the auditory brainstem where sounds are processed were found and linked to changes in the genes involved in regulating the activity of the nerve cells. Pathways that normally keep a lid on nerve signal transmission were blocked and others were more excitable

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Scientists at Virginia Commonwealth University have discovered that hearing loss leads to a remodelling of the brain in which auditory regions are overtaken by the sensory system that corresponds to touch. This cross-model plasticity could explain why some people with hearing loss struggle with therapies. Alex Meredith, lead scientist on the study stated, “Our study indicates that hearing deficits in adult animals result in a conversion of their

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Starkey Laboratories, Inc. is proud to introduce S SeriesTM with Drive ArchitectureTM, the extraordinary new family of hearing aids that combines art and science to create unparalleled levels of performance, comfort and personalization. S Series, developed using Starkey’s evidence-based design approach, is available in custom and a first-ever full line of receiver-in-canal (RIC) options. At the heart of every S Series hearing instrument is

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Clive Anderson is backing a charity campaign calling for people to donate their unwanted hearing aids, which will be recycled for deaf children in developing countries. Charity Sound Seekers, which aims to improve the lives of deaf children, has joined forces with Specsavers hearing centres for the appeal. More than 300 hearing centres across the country will host fundraising activities and collect unwanted hearing aids for the charity.

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usnews.com has put together what is considers to be the 30 best careers in 2009 that offer a good outlook for the future and high job satisfaction. They’ve selected Audiologist in their list and go on to say: An advantage is that audiology is an under-the-radar career—few people consider it, so competition isn’t as keen as it might be. You’d think demand for audiologists would be rapidly increasing, with all the aging boomers and the increased

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Does anyone know if it is possible to get a soft-shelled ITE, ITC or CIC hearing aid? A shell made from silicone or something similar? The question comes from Paul Murata, an athletic trainer and the University of Virginia. One of his basketball players wears in the canal hearing aids and occasionally gets hit on or around the ears during games, causing pain and sometimes even bleeding in the ear canal.

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Unilateral hearing loss (UHL) is also known as Single Sided Deafness (SSD) – it is where a person has normal hearing in one ear but an impairment in the other. People suffering UHL will have difficulty hearing and understanding speech in noisy situations and they will find it difficult to localise sound. A contralateral routing of signals (CROS) hearing aid is used to treat single sided deafness – it takes sounds from the ear with poorer hearing

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Cochlear implants, introduced 20 years ago, have given 83,000 people the ability to hear human speech; they are worn by people who are either severely hard of hearing or profoundly deaf. Surgeons drill a hole in the skull, embed a sound receiver, and weave an electrode array into the cochlea. Once the hardware is in place, software engineers take over, upgrading the devices as needed so users can enjoy more complex sounds, like music.

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2008 was a productive year in terms of hearing research. Results from stem-cell and gene research may lead to new treatment options for hearing impairment. Stem-cell and gene research contributed new knowledge about the ear and hearing in 2008, opening opportunities for the development of new treatment options for hearing impaired people in the future. Genes and cells Gene mutations causing various kinds of hearing loss were identified. We now

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By tweaking a system in the ear that limits how much sound is heard, a global team of researchers has discovered one alteration that shows that the ability of the ear to turn itself down contributes to protecting against permanent hearing loss. The report appears this week in PLoS Biology. “There’s some uncertainty in the field about what this sound-limiting system is used for,” says Paul Fuchs, PhD, an author on the paper and professor of

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Lip-reading is an essential part of communication for the hard of hearing. But do people mind having their lips read and do you mind staring at someone’s mouth when they are talking? I used to lip-read a lot and, according to a hearing specialist I saw many years ago, I’m very good at it. But I don’t look directly at people’s mouths any more, these days I tend to look people straight in the eye. Why? Because a few years ago I began to realise

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Phonak has announced that the material used for all custom product shell colors in its digital manufacturing process has been certified to be nontoxic and nonirritating according to independent laboratory biocompatibility testing. In 2007 after several years of development, Phonak introduced an advanced digital manufacturing process to all major custom production centers worldwide. This process uses proprietary 3D modelling software to create a

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Patients with cochlear implants may want to steer clear of certain magnetic imaging devices, such as 3T MRI machines, because the machines can demagnetize the patient’s implant, according to new research published in the December 2008 issue of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery. The study, conducted by a team of German reasearchers from the International Neuroscience Institute, Hannover, and the Medical University of Hannover, and American

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This unusual news items comes from Reuters India. It finishes with an amazing piece of advice for avoiding hearing loss due to kissing. A young woman in southern China has partially lost her hearing after her boyfriend ruptured her eardrum during an excessively passionate kiss, local media reported on Monday. The 20-something girl from Zhuhai, in southern Guangdong province, went to hospital completely deaf in her left ear, the China Daily said,

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It’s always encouraging to learn of progress in technologies that help the hard of hearing. This report of studies into Infrared being used in cochlear implants comes from The News website: Researchers at Northwestern University in Chicago have made a new discovery that could lead to better cochlear implants for deaf people. They have found that infrared light can stimulate neurons in the inner ear as precise as sound waves, reports New

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For many years Specsavers in St Sepulchre Gate has run a successful scheme to recycle unwanted spectacles and Nick Finn, the hearcare director, is launching a similar campaign to get people across Doncaster to give their old hearing aids to the charity Sound Seekers for people in countries such as The Gambia, Zambia and Sierra Leone. Said Nick: “This is one of the first schemes anywhere in the country to offer people the chance to recycle

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Guardian reporter Sam Wollaston spends a day with the Woolfe family. He is hearing and the Woolfe family – Ramon and Louise and their three children: Jasper, Layla and Spencer – are all deaf. I should have been prepared for it, I suppose – the silence. But it strikes me immediately. And, to begin with, I find it difficult. Here is a family behaving exactly as every other family in the country behaves every morning – having breakfast, getting

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About 10 million people in the United States alone—from troops returning from war to students with music blasting through headphones—are suffering from impairing noise-induced hearing loss. The rising trend is something researchers and physicians at the University of Michigan Kresge Hearing Research Institute, Ann Arbor, Mich, are hoping to reverse, with a cocktail of vitamins and the mineral magnesium that has shown promise as a possible way to

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It may not seem the most obvious profession for someone who is profoundly deaf, but Spencer Collins, 34, deaf since birth, has made a name for himself as DJ Harcor. He tells MIKE PILE how he made it on the London club scene. When Ascot man Spencer Collins feels the beat, it’s more than just a desire to dance – it helps him ‘hear’ the music. “I wanted to be a DJ because I love the feel of the music, the vibration, the buzz, the passion and being

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Just a quick note to anyone who has sent me an email recently and hasn’t had a reply. My PC took a turn for the worse the other week and I had to re-install the operating system. I wasn’t able to salvage my email and so everything sent before Monday 10th November has been lost. If I haven’t replied to you then please, please email me again and I’ll try to keep my PC working from now on! And I’d like to say a massive thanks to everyone who has

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Imagine arriving at work to find that your phone has been taken away while your colleagues still have theirs. And one year on, you’re still without a phone. That’s what happened to Simon Pearse and Alan Goldsmith last November. Pearse, an actuary who is hard of hearing, started using a technology called captioned telephony (CapTel) to make calls after his company switched to a digital phone system on which he found it difficult to hear clearly.

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Everton FC are another football club from the English Premier League that are launching a range of hearing aids in their club colours. Young Evertonians with hearing difficulties can now proudly wear their team’s colours – on their ears. The Blues have joined forces with scientists to tackle the problems hard-of-hearing children face while wearing hearing aids. Together they have created special clear hearing aids carrying Everton’s world-famous

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I have ITE hearing aids with a volume control on them. I tend to change the volume quite often – for example I have them up full when in the office but I usually turn them down a bit when I go outside to stop some of the traffic noise. It hadn’t occurred to me until just now how weird it must look when I’m changing volume. I use my thumb to give the volume knob a twist. I’ve also got this thing where I rotate the knob backwards and forwards a

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Be careful not to have your hearing aids turned up too much and put excessive strain on your ears. If you find yourself wincing at loud noises while wearing your hearing aids, if you start to get ringing in your ears, or if your ears hurt then you should see your audiologist and get them to test your hearing and check your volume settings. If your aid has a manual volume control then don’t be scared to turn it down a bit when you know you will

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Town Criers are a long-standing tradition here in the UK. They are employed by a local authority to make public announcements in the streets – they were first used in Medieval times but we still have some around today. They shout their announcements in public places and ring a bell to get attention. These people are loud and when I say loud I mean really loud. I’m talking a Harley Davidson revving-up right next to your eardrum loud.

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Hearing loss reportedly affects more than 36 million Americans. Although hearing problems are commonly associated with the normal aging process, more than half of all hearing-impaired persons are younger than 65. With the increased use of personal audio devices and earbuds, the number of Americans experiencing hearing loss at a younger age is growing. In response to the growing number of Americans experiencing hearing loss, the American Academy

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A great-grandmother who survived breast cancer died after suffering a rare allergic reaction after a hearing aid fitting. Doctors at Bradford Royal Infirmary could not save Mary Elizabeth Hibbitt, 83, after she contracted an infection through cracks in her skin, an inquest in Bradford heard yesterday. Mrs Hibbitt, of Tyersal Garth, Tyersal, Bradford, who had beaten breast cancer 14 years previously, died on March 1 from pneumonia caused by the

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YouTube have, at long last, added subtitle/caption support to their videos. Their blog says that they hope this will makes the videos they host more accessible to more people, including the deaf and hard of hearing. You can add subtitles to a video you have uploaded by uploading a closed caption file using the “Captions and Subtitles” menu on the editing page. It’s possible to upload multiple caption files to support subtitles in different

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“You can use those Starkey Destinys but a pair of Oticon Epochs would be much better for you. The Epochs are cutting-edge tech” said the audiologist. “Why would the Epochs be better?” I asked. “The technology is far more advanced…. ” he replied. I’m sure an Oticon Epoch is more advanced than a Starkey Destiny but I really wanted that audiologist to tell me why the Epochs would allow me to hear better. I wanted to know how they’d sound different,

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Edinburgh-based artist and filmmaker Matt Hulse has created the interactive website about James Duthie’s journey in advance of a feature film he is making. Mr Duthie, also known as Dummy Jim because he was mute, covered 3000 miles on his bike back in 1951, travelling from Fraserburgh via France to the Arctic Circle. He rode alone for three months, spending just £12 en route. His own account of his travels was published in 1957 as I Cycled Into

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This is cool. A company called Good Morning Design have produced hearing aid packaging for Widex that produces what looks like a moving sound wave when the box is opened. Not only that, apparently the sound wave represents someone saying Widex’s “High Definition Hearing” slogan.

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Some exciting news has been hitting the UK’s broadsheet newspapers today: Scientists have for the first time been able to successfully grow inner ear hair cells in mice. But don’t throw away those hearing aids just yet! This is just the first step and they now need to see if the regrown cells actually result in an improvement in hearing. After that, there will still be a long road through regulations before this treatments gets anywhere near me

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Preliminary results from studies in Belgium and Virginia offer hope for the future for hearing impaired people. Estimates suggest that approximately 500 million people worldwide suffer from hearing loss. Belgian scientists have identified the TGBF1 gene as the culprit in one of the most common forms of hearing loss in adults, otosclerosis. Otoschlerosis is a progressive form of hearing loss associated with the build-up of growing bone in the

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A swedish study indicates that simple treatment with oestrogen stimulating drugs may be useful in combating hearing loss. The researchers studied the impact of the female oestrogen hormone. They found that one of two receptors the female oestrogen sex hormone binds itself to offers good protection against hearing loss in both males and females. The study was based on experiments with mice. ”We found that the beta (oestrogen) receptor protects

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Melissa Saenz, Ph.D., a postdoc at Caltech, has discovered that the video above can identify people with auditory synesthesia, a condition that can make some people hear music, even though there is no music being played. “While I was running an experiment at the Caltech Brain Imaging Center, a group of students happened to pass by on a tour, and I volunteered to explain what I was doing,” explains Saenz, who, along with Christof Koch, the Lois

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A researcher at the University of the West of England (UWE) in Bristol wants to meet people diagnosed with impaired hearing but avoid wearing their aids. The Royal National Institute for the Deaf estimates nine million people in the UK have some degree of hearing loss but only 1.4 million use aids. Psychology student, Claire Calvert wants to find out if there is a stigma attached to the look of hearing aids. She is also interested to know what

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With a twitch of a muscle, the Chinese concave-eared torrent frog brushes off the sounds of thundering rivers, focusing on the one thing that really matters: the siren song of the opposite sex. The males of this rare species are the only animal known to be able to turn a deaf ear to distracting noises while enhancing the calls of their own kind, according to a study published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science.

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A few people have responded to my article about second hand hearing aids – there’s been a few offering aids either cheaply or for free and a few people asking for them. Would you consider using this site to buy or sell a hearing aid? If enough people are interested and you feel that this site is a trusted place to buy and sell hearing aids then I’ll try and set something up. A deaf Craigslist or something like that. I’m not looking to make any

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Nokia have announced the release of a new cell-phone accessory designed for users with hearing aids: The Nokia Wireless Loopset works with T-coil equipped hearing aids or cochlear implants, and slips around the user’s neck. The Wireless Loopset is compatible with Bluetooth-ready handsets, essentially transforming the user’s hearing aid into a headset. The device features adjustable sidetone levels, optimized volume range, single-button calling,

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If you are thinking about buying a hearing aid, it’s good to do a bit of market research to find out what’s available. After all, hearing aids are expensive items and you want to do everything you can to make sure you purchase the right one for you. When you visit a hearing aid vendor / audiologist they will surely recommend certain makes and models to you. With a bit of market knowledge you will be better placed to ask why a certain aid is

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Portsmouth Football Club and hearing aid manufacturer Starkey Laboratories have together been tackling the stigma attached to wearing hearing aids by offering a special design carrying the team crest. Suzie Butcher, from Starkey Laboratories, said: ‘Many children suffering with hearing problems can experience bullying and feelings of embarrassment from hearing aid use. ‘Starkey has seen a fantastic response from children who have opted for a

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A Dad was left deaf in one ear and needing a walking stick after a twig spiked his eardrum as he mowed the lawn. Mike Watson, 56, brushed past a bush and a branch poked into his right ear, knocking him out for several minutes. Mike, who has five kids, managed to crawl indoors and dial 999. He was rushed to hospital with a four inch piece of twig still sticking out of his ear. But despite emergency surgery he lost his hearing and now can’t

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The Lancashire (UK) police force now have 14 officers trained in British Sign Language (BSL). The Constabulary also has a Deaf Liaison Officer, PC Paula Robertson, who promotes sign language and deaf awareness training. She said: “Those who are deaf are a very isolated group and by improving the service we provide we will encourage them to report crime and other issues to us.” Supt Bob Eastwood, head of Lancashire Constabulary’s Diversity Unit,

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Researchers from the Canergie Melon university are developing the HandTalk – a glove that converts sign language into text messages that are sent to a mobile phone. There are a number of sensors on the glove that record the ASL signs and convert them into text on the fly. Three of the four team members who are developing HandTalk, senior computer engineering students Bhargav Bhat, Hemant Sikaria and Jorge L. Meza , demonstrated the prototype

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Italian hearing aid retailer Amplifon is undertaking a major expansion in the UK and a £10m rebranding exercise. The company currently trades under the Ultratone, SieTech and Hearing Health names, these will be replaced with the single Amplifon brand – the new branding is being handled by the London-based Saatchi group this July. The company, which is listed on the Milan Stock Exchange, also plans to open an additional 22 stores in the UK, three

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Found this funny video on YouTube. Will your hearing aid blend?

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Rayovac batteries and Audio Infos are looking for the Audiologist Of The Year 2008. Good service, sound advice and excellent care are what you expect from your audiologist or dispenser. When they deliver, it can make a tremendous difference to your life – so why not help your audiologist or dispenser get the recognition they deserve? Has your audiologist or dispenser gone beyond the call of duty? Have they helped in difficult or unusual

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A survey carried out by Australian Hearing has found that: MORE than 70 per cent of young adults suffer from the first sign of hearing loss. The survey, commissioned by Australian Hearing, found adults aged between 18 and 24 reported suffering from tinnitus or ringing in the ear. Professor Harvey Dillon, director of the National Acoustics Laboratory at Australian Hearing says that he was surprised by the results as it is a higher percentage than

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The Latest in “Ear Candy,” Vibe Reflects Wearer’s Fashion and Moods with Interchangeable, Ready-to-Wear Casings CHARLOTTE, N.C., April 2, 2008 – For the growing number of people with mild hearing loss, due in large part to the aging of 78 million baby boomers, hearing instrument options just leaped into a fashionable new realm where bold is “in.” Today, Siemens Hearing Instruments introduced the world’s first crest-fit hearing aid – Vibe®.

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In an interview with BBC Radio 4, Formula 1 racing commentator Murray Walker described the impact that 50 years at the side of the race track has had on his hearing and how that’s affecting his life. The commentator, who went deaf from the roar of the car engines, never wore ear protectors because he thought he would look like a wimp – even though noise in the Grand Prix pits reached 120 decibels.

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Health Canada is examining the way it tests noisy toys to make sure they aren’t damaging childrens’ tender ears. Many toys seem to sing, shout, beep and wail at deafening decibels. And the current testing method — holding a toy at an adult arm’s length — doesn’t reflect the reality that kids hold toys close to their ears, audiologists warn. Noise-induced hearing loss is growing. Studies in the U.S. show 12.5% of children have hearing problems

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The ASL Video Dictionary and Inflection Guide shows thousands of signs in crisp color video and links them to sentences that demonstrate how they change to convey different meanings. This is critical because unlike English words, ASL signs change – inflect – from sentence to sentence to show different meanings. The sign for help, for example, can change to mean help me, help them, help for a long time, etc. The experts at RIT’s National

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The Sonova Holding AG (previously Phonak Holding AG) have posted their 2007/2008 financial report. Sales across all brands, including Phonak and Unitron reached a new record of US$1.16 billion (1.2 billion CHF) – with 59% of hearing system sales being generated from products launched less than 2 years ago. New product releases in the last year have included Phonak’s Exélia and Naída, and Unitron’s Yuu and Next, as well as the iCom, iPilot, and

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America Hears (www.AmericaHears.com) announced it will offer its popular Freedom SIE (speaker-in-the-ear) hearing aids in an array of six colors for fashion-conscious consumers demanding up-to-date looks along with high-performance digital hearing assistance. The new hearing aids now are available in off-white, slate-grey, ebony, cobalt-blue and ruby-red in addition to the original flesh-toned version.

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You can use Google’s video search to find subtitled videos on the web. Then simply click the “search only closed captioned videos” checkbox:

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Something unusual happened in the office last week: I had a conversation with several people about my hearing problems and the aids that I wear. I’ve never been one to hide my hearing aids, they are there for everyone to see, but I’ve never really talked about them with anyone. Possibly people just weren’t interested or they felt they couldn’t mention them. Anyway, last week, we were talking about CSI – one of the episodes in which Grissom is

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Although Jim McGinn of Wheaton, Ill, is completely deaf in his right ear, he still can hear from that side. A sound processor McGinn wears just behind his right ear converts sound waves into tiny vibrations that move through his skull. The vibrations are detected by his good left ear, so it sounds to McGinn like he can hear from both sides. A Loyola University Health System study has found that this system of conducting sound through skull bone

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Newsweek has an interview with Howard Weinstein, the designer of the SolarAid. He talks about the hurdles he faced when trying to get it into production and how he hopes it will help bring better hearing to Africa: Weinstein knew what he had to do: change the business model. Drawing on his years in the corporate bunker, he started working the phones, chatting up financiers, consulting with electronics wizards and haggling with manufacturers. He

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Americans are coming together in a campaign to encourage Congress to pass a federal tax credit to help people buy hearing aids. To help organize the effort to have Congress pass the legislation, the Better Hearing Institute (BHI) has launched a new Web site (www.hearingaidtaxcredit.org). An excellent resource and tool for those concerned about the needs of people with hearing loss, it reaches out to adults 55+ and to parents of children with

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The Hearing Aid Bank, a program of the Deaf Service Center of Palm Beach County, provides used and recycled hearing aids free to those in financial need. Many people have the misconception that hearing aids cannot be re-used. That is basically true and there are three good reasons why a person should not use another’s hearing aid (1) sanitary issues; (2) everyone’s prescription is different and using the wrong prescription could possibly be

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I have been thinking of ways that I could expand this blog so that I can offer services and tools that people would find useful. One of the things I would like to do is start a hearing aid price database. The idea is that someone would be able to either enter a model and see the current price for it or they would be able to enter a price and see what models are available at that price. It would be impossible for me to keep a record of all

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They are some of the most extravagant headgear in the animal kingdom, but a moose’s antlers are not just for show. Scientists believe they act as elaborate hearing aids that help males to find calling females. A study has found that the antlers’ sound-gathering qualities boost the hearing of the animals by 19%. Moose, which are called elk in Europe, are well-known for their impressive hearing. Their ears are more than 60 times larger than those

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HearAtLast Holdings Inc. is pleased to announce that it has finalized the next phase of its expansion plans. Wal-Mart Canada will include HearAtLast operations in additional supercentre and discount store locations, as HearAtLast continues its national expansion program. HearAtLast along with Wal-Mart Canada’s management strategically identify locations that are best suited demographically for their unique hearing aid dispensing model. The 2008

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Why is there no established market for second hand hearing aids? Given the high price of a new aid, you would think that a cheaper second-hand model would be very tempting to a lot of people. It’s not so different from buying a second hand car The second-hand car market is huge. People have the option of buying privately and taking some risk on the quality of the car or they can buy a re-conditioned/serviced/checked car from a dealer. The same

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They would line up at 7 a.m., wait all day and spend their food money to get there – all to gain the ability to hear. “It was incredible, absolutely incredible,” Ginny Smith said. “It was overwhelming,” Rick Silverman added. Smith and Silverman, partners from American Hearing Care in Orange Park, were referring to a four-day mission trip they took to Honduras in December, where more than 2,500 hearing aids were provided to 1,266 people. Because

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William Austin, founder and chief executive of Starkey Laboratories in Eden Prairie, has long been known as the Santa Claus of Hearing. Now he’s being honored as member of the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans. The Horatio Alger award honors those who have defied adversity with hard work, courage and determination to achieve the American dream of wealth and success. Austin, 66, developed the first in-the-ear hearing aid,

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A company called Neuromonics believes it has developed an audio device that can treat people suffering from ringing in the ears, known as tinnitus. Using an audio player that over time changes the way it plays music and accompanying sounds, the firm already offers its service in number of clinics, reports today’s Wall Street Journal: For the first two months, the music mix includes a noise, which some describe as water in a shower, to cover the

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Hearing aid vendors supply both a product (the aid) and a service (fitting, maintenance, etc). To my mind, these are two completely separate things. I’m writing about this because I popped into my local Scrivens branch last weekend – I was waiting for my Wife and just happened to notice the “Hearing Care” sign in their window – to ask for a price list. I knew from previous experiences with other suppliers that it was unlikely that they’d have a

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The Hearing Review’s editor, Karl Strom, has compiled a list of last year’s top ten news items from the hearing aid / health industry. It’s an interesting list and also a very positive one – Karl talks about the advances in hearing aid technology and research as well as the increased exposure of hearing aids and hearing problems in the media last year. 1) Sonova-GN deal is blocked, putting into question future consolidation. Announced in October

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The owner of a Burger King franchise in Newark has agreed settle a lawsuit filed by a student who was fired after one day on the job because the owner discovered he wore hearing aids. Andy Patel, who owns the Burger King inside the University Hospital complex, reached a settlement with Jordan Myrie Feb. 5 as the student’s lawsuit was about to begin trial in Superior Court in Newark. Witnesses were expected to testify that Patel showed up at the

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You could hear more by taking your hearing aids out. How does that work? Well, I was in a meeting yesterday, sat around a table with seven other people – after a while I realised that I wasn’t hearing several of them as well as I normally would be. I did a quick check that the volume settings on my aids were correct – they were. I didn’t have a cold. I couldn’t think of any reason why I couldn’t hear them.

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The Signpost website is a great resource for anyone who wants to learn BSL. They have a fingerspelling video tutorial that goes through the alphabet – you can zoom the video in and out, you can view it in slow-motion and you can also view left of right-handed spelling. More impressively there is another option that allows you to type in a word and it will be finger-spelt back to you – again there are left/right, zoom and slo-mo options.

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A ground breaking appeal launched in Huddersfield to transform the lives of hard of hearing people in the Third World has been hailed a success. The hearing aid recycling scheme, the first of its kind in the UK, was launched in November last year to encourage people to give their unwanted aids in a bid to improve and even save lives of people living in developing countries. Phil Spenceley, registered hearing aid dispenser and director of

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Phonak’s revolutionary chip technology powers three exciting new Digital Wireless Accessories: iCom brings Bluetooth to the hearing impaired; the myPilot command center provides full-color display feedback; and iCube enables totally CableFree Fitting.The CORE (Communication Optimized Real-audio Engine) technology developed for the chip used in the new Exélia and Naída hearing instruments permits wireless communication between the left and right

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Whilst I was out at lunch the other day, I got a call from an old friend that I hadn’t spoken to for months. I was outside when he called – it was a windy day. He was telling me all about his new Flickr photo sets when suddenly he stopped talking mid-sentence and asked, “What’s that noise? Is it a plane?”. There was nothing overhead and I told him so. “Oh”, he said, “Must just be the wind blowing in your phone’s microphone then”.

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A new study, led by researchers at The Montreal Children’s Hospital (MCH) of the MUHC, has revealed that certain over-the-counter earwax softeners can cause severe inflammation and damage to the eardrum and inner ear. The results of the study, recently published in The Laryngoscope, suggest that use of these medications should be discouraged. “Patients often complain that wax is blocking their ears and is causing discomfort and sometimes

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Pepsi are at it again. Not content with showing a totally silent ad during the Superbowl that features two deaf characters using ASL (with subtitles) – they have produced four other videos that are, frankly, fantastic. I think Pepsi are doing a really great job with this ad campaign – they are showing the deaf community in a very positive light and are doing wonders for awareness. Whilst Pepsi clearly have one eye on marketing their product I

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Melinda Beck has written in the Wall Street Journal about her experiences with a Widex Inteo aid. It’s an interesting article because it touches on some of the problems that new hearing aid wearers face, such as: A rush of new sounds: New aid wearers will be hearing many sounds that they haven’t heard for a long time (if ever) – this can be overwhelming to begin with, but as Melinda noted with the rustling crisp packets, it soon becomes

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There’s an article in WIRED magazine by Erin Biba called “Why Things Suck: Hearing Aids”. The article starts by, quite rightly, stating that hearing aids are too expensive – I couldn’t agree more. It then goes on to talk about directional microphones, inadequate feedback and noise reduction and, finally, the the fact that insurance rarely covers hearing aids. Do you agree that feedback and noise reduction systems aren’t good enough?I don’t have

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Pepsi’s Super Bowl advert uses a Deaf joke:

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Open fit hearing aids are similar in style to BTE aids in that a shell sits above your ear and a wire travels down from there into your ear canal – but that’s where the similarities end. Open Fit BTEs are much newer technology than traditional BTEs – the shell above the ear is much smaller and the whole aid is lighter. The open in the name comes from the fact that the earpiece does not fit tightly into your ear canal – as is the case with

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A Sacramento man paid for hearing aids he didn’t get and now the salesman has disappeared. James Barnwell is back to using his 10-year old hearing aids. “It’s getting harder and harder to hear where the sounds coming from.” That’s why last February he went to River City hearing center in Fair Oaks. Purchase agreement, he paid $3,800 and in about a month got his hearing aids. But, he says they weren’t what he’d ordered.

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David Ormerod Hearing Centres achieved £30m in sales for the financial year ended September 2007 and projects growth to £36m for 2008. The company, which operates from 200 locations nationwide including Boots high street stores, NHS hospital audiology departments and standalone centres, said group sales rose by 42% from the financial year 2006 to 2007 through increased market share, expansion of the store network and acquisitions.

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Krown Manufacturing, a maker of specialty devices for people with poor hearing, was displaying this device at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. The simple machine has videos of all 4,500 words of the US sign language that can be quickly played back for reference. Krown predicts it will go on sale by the middle of the year. This story and pic came from Medgadget. A quick browse of the Krown Manufacturing website didn’t give any more

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Plantronic Clarity have released a new phone for the hard of hearing – the C4230 telephone / answering machine. Features include: Volume and tone control – A volume boost control allows you turn up to a maximum of 50db. As well as volume boost, the C4230 allows you to change the tone to suit your own hearing loss – a chart supplied with the phone guides you on tone settings that will help you. Light and vibration alerts – You can hook this

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UK readers may be interested to know that Oxford Hearing Centre are doing a buy-one-get-one-free offer on Rayovac Proline hearing aid batteries. The offer runs from the 1st to the 28th of February and covers sizes 10, 13 and 312.

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Pearl got in touch with me recently and let me know about www.saywhatclub.com – she is a long-standing member of the club and editor of their newsletter. I asked if her if she would answer a few interview questions via email and let us know what the club is all about. Steve: Before we talk about the SayWhatClub, tell us a bit about yourself? Pearl: My name is Pearl and I am hearing impaired for what seems forever. I always had difficulty hearing

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One of my new year resolutions is to begin learning sign language. It is something I have been thinking about for many years but have never got around to doing. I guess, similar to a spoken language, sign is not something your are going to learn in a short period of time – I think I need to take positive action now and start to learn so that when I do eventually lose my ability to hear I will still have a method of communication.

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A charity based in Dunmow, UK are seeking volunteers to ensure that they can continue to offer hearing services to the local community. Hearing Help Uttlesford (HHU) assisted more than 300 people in the community who use hearing aids this year, but now its services could be under threat. Chairman Yvonne Morton said: “We are only a small charity with eight volunteers, but now a couple want to retire so we are on the lookout for people to take

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I hope you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. Thank you to everyone who visited this blog over the last 12 months and a special big thank you to everyone who took the time to comment on my ramblings. I’ve really enjoyed reading a lot of great deaf / hard of hearing blogs this year, here are some of my favourites:

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A SENIOR hearing specialist at the Great Western Hospital has admitted selling NHS stock on eBay during work hours – then using hospital franking machines to send off his sales. Paul Jones, 28, was yesterday given a 16-week suspended sentence and 280 hours’ community service by Swindon magistrates after he admitted selling £276 of hearing aid batteries on the Internet auction site. The senior audiologist pocketed around £600 from his sales,

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Here’s something you don’t see everyday – an online ear trumpet gallery! The Phisick Antique Medical Collection shows a large range of ear trumpets from the 19th and 20th centuries. Fascinating to see the kind of things people used to help them hear all those years ago. I’m kinda glad technology has moved on a bit since then!

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The Business In Wales website reports that David Omerod has appeared in the Sunday Times’ list of top 100 fastest growing UK companies. The Sunday Times Fast Track 100 ranks companies based on sales growth over three years – either 2003-06 or 2004-07. “Ranked 79th is Llandudno-based hearing aid supplier David Ormerod Hearing Centres. Its revenues grew on average by 67.6% annually from 2003-06, which resulted in sales rising £4.3m to £20.3m.

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If you are a hearing aid wearer, can you go without them? Do you feel comfortable leaving the house if you haven’t got your aids in? I have a severe hearing loss in both ears – if I am not wearing my aids and somebody wants to speak to me then they have to be close and have to be talking loudly and straight at me. I don’t feel comfortable talking to people if I don’t have my hearing aids in and I wouldn’t even think about leaving the house

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I previously wrote about how letting hearing aid wearers program their own aids would be good thing. To briefly recap: I think that giving us wearers a simplified version of the software that audiologists use to program digital hearing aids to an individual’s requirements would allow us to get maximum benefit from our aids. A comment from David made me realise I’d missed a few important things in that article and got me thinking some more….

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The over-55s could soon be screened for hearing problems under new proposals. An NHS trial across Britain of 35,000 people aged 55-74 found routine hearing tests offered “substantial benefits” and were good value for money. A national programme could be in place within five years, said government adviser Professor Adrian Davis, who led the research. More than one in 10 people in the trial were found to have a moderate to severe hearing problem.

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Oticon’s new distribution guidelines state that they will only supply their products to distributors who directly fit and sell Oticon products to end-users through face-to-face in-person consultations. These new guidelines effectively bring an end to customers being able to buy Oticon products via the Internet, mail order or catalogues. In a -->press release, The American Academy of Audiology welcomes Oticon’s decision and hopes that other

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Amplifon is a hearing aid vendor. They have outlets in the USA, UK and across mainland Europe. I noticed on their UK site that they are offering a free one-month trial on all hearing aids. That means: you get to try out a new pair of aids for one month without paying out a penny; you only hand over your hard-earned if you wish to keep the aids at the end of the trial month. As far as I’m aware both Specsavers’ and David Ormerod’s both still make

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Microbattery.com offer a wide range of hearing aid batteries at good prices. Their front page has a handy little section that lets you pick the battery you need based on its colour or size code. They are stocking batteries from: Rayovac, Panasonic, Energizer, ZeniPower, Duracell, PowerOne, Renata, Sony and iCellTech. Well worth a look if you need to stock up. Do you have a particular battery brand that you swear by? Do you get better performance

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The Phonak website has a very interesting page on which they demonstrate what it is like to be partially deaf. The page has a number of links that play everyday sounds, such as people talking in various environments, bird song, a piano, a telephone, etc. You can select one of three options for each sound: how it sounds to someone with normal hearing, how it sounds to someone with mild hearing loss and, finally, how it sounds to someone with

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Bionica Corp have filed patents relating to their Clio hearing aid. Up until now they have been very quiet about the Clio but now Bionica’s chief executive officer, Peter T. Hahn, given some details of it’s design. The Clio’s controls are simple to operate, modeled after popular digital music players, Hahn said in an interview. The acoustic feedback triggered by many hearing aides, he said, was eliminated by separating the microphone from the

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The American Chronicle has published a nice article about purchasing hearing aids – you can read it here. I’ve previously written about buying your first hearing aid.

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Starkey are poised to launch their Destiny hearing aid in India by November 2007. This news comes from the ExpressHealthcare website – they are reporting that the Destiny will be sold for up to 50,000 Rupees, which according to XE.com, is around £650. From ExpressHealthcare on Starkey’s move into the Indian market: The biggest concern is that there are not many qualified audiologists in India and hence awareness is low. Said Rohit Misra,

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I was tidying out some drawers the other day and I found my old hearing aids. I have some Siemens ITCs and two pairs of Starkey ITEs – I’m sure I also have at least one pair of BTEs somewhere but they didn’t turn up. My first thought was to throw them into the bin with the rest of the stuff from the drawer but I remembered reading something somewhere about charities that recycle old hearing aids and give them to people who aren’t able to own a

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Yesterday, 150 kids got a very special gift – the ability to hear clearly. It’s a project of the Starkey Hearing Foundation, who came to L.A. with one goal in mind – to give children in need hearing aids. Sixteen-year-old Krista Gillinger is about to get the thrill of her life. One hundred and fifty children whose families can’t afford the high cost of hearing aids are getting the chance to experience clear hearing — many for the first time.

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LACE (Listening and Communication Enhancement) is computer software that helps you to improve your listening and vocal comprehension skills. Hearingaids help you hear, but they don’t help you to listen. This is where LACE comes in. The software runs on Windows and Mac and offers a number of listening tests to train your brain to better pick out and understand words in noisy, difficult situations. I downloaded the demo version and gave it a try.

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Foo Fighters star Dave Grohl has revealed that his deafness is causing problems in his marriage because his wife has to repeat herself all the time. The former Nirvana drummer admits all rock star marriages have the same issue – because loud music kills normal conversation. Grohl told women’s magazine Elle: “Any woman who’s going to date a rock musician has to be prepared to repeat herself every 10 seconds. I’m virtually deaf… my wife asks me

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The owner of two Connecticut hearing aid centers has pleaded guilty to a federal health care fraud charge. Walter Rochefort, 51, of Avon, owns one hearing center in Bristol and another in Plainville. According to court records, between September 2001 and August 2006, Rochefort submitted false claims for hearing aids and hearing-aid services. Rochefort also has more than 50 state criminal charges pending in New Britain Superior Court. Last

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Yet another warning has been published about damage that MP3 players can do to our hearing. And that’s no bad thing as it’s a very real and worrying problem. www.crutchfieldadvisor.com have a very informative article about the ways that the people can use MP3 players more safely, they include:

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More than two-thirds of young people who regularly use MP3 players face premature hearing damage because the volume is too high, a charity warns. The Royal National Institute for Deaf People said its findings were alarming, particularly with eight million MP3 players sold last year alone in the UK. It accused manufacturers of failing to put clear and prominent warnings on packaging for consumers. The RNID urges MP3 player fans to invest in

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When buying hearingaids, it can be tempting to buy one instead of two. It’s cheaper for a start. If you are worried about how you will look with hearingaids, one aid would be easier to hide then two. It might be case of, “I’ll buy one and see how I get on with it“. If you are suffering from hearing loss in both ears, you need two hearingaids. If you bought glasses, would you consider buying just the one lens?

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Widex have rejected speculation it was in talks with headset maker GN Store Nord and its hearing aid arm Resound over a potential merger. Shares in GN rose as much as 7 percent on Friday on speculation the companies were in talks, but lost some positive ground once Widex had denied the rumour. “We haven’t been in talks and are very surprised over the rumours we were to buy Resound,” Widex Sales and Marketing Chief Tom Westermann told Reuters.

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David from Hearing Mojo reports that Songbird Hearing have received venture capitalist funding in order to re-start their disposable hearing aid business. He gives a good writeup so I’m not going over it here again. I will say though, that I think there’s still a huge market for throwaway CIC hearing aids, for two reasons: Check out David’s article and while you are there, subscribe to his feed – it’s a great blog.

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It’s all about cool at the moment, isn’t it? Widex bling. Phonak making personal communication aids. Looks like hearing aid dispenser Amplifon want in on the act as they have employed Saatchi & Saatchi to improve their brand image. Industry@Saatchi strategy partner Andy Bell says: “Getting a hearing aid is thought of as a negative experience, something that many consumers will avoid for as long as possible.

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Research at the University of Essex into aiding people with hearing impairments has won a grant of nearly half a million pounds. Professor Ray Meddis of the Department of Psychology and his team of Wendy Lecluyse and Robert Ferry, have been awarded £447,000 by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Funding council to develop a computerised hearing dummy. In addition, they have been given £50,000 by the Deafness Research Council.

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Researchers at the University of Virginia are working on curing hearing loss with an experimental new form of gene therapy. With more than 275 million people around the world that suffer from sort of nerve-related deafness, scientists are working on creating a virus that when placed in ear tissue can regrown tiny hairs inside the ear canal. Otolaryngologist Brad Kesser explains these very specialized hair cells convert the mechanical energy of

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Study on hearing loss attributed to mobile phone use states the blindingly obvious ExpressIndia.com have reported on a study conducted by the Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER). The study concludes that, “People using mobile phones for more than four years and longer than 30 minutes a day are at risk of developing hearing loss particularly at higher speech frequencies. This hearing loss was more in the dominant

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Manufacturer’s of digital hearingaids supply audiologists with computer software that allows them to change an aid’s settings. The audiologist can add or remove preset programmes and adjust various sound levels. I think it would be really useful if us hearing aid wearers could have our own version of the software so that we could make modifications to our aid’s settings ourselves. This would be particularly useful when new aids are being

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Northwestern University scientists are looking into using lasers that can trigger nerve firings, in order to increase audio quality in cochlear implants over the traditional electric discharge method.From MIT Technology Review: With conventional cochlear implants, electrical signals spread in the wet, salty environment of the body, muddying the signal. That makes it difficult to trigger specific populations of nerves inside the cochlea. Further

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I wrote the other day about Olive Beal, a 108 year-old lady who was told by her local NHS hospital that she would have to wait 18 months to be fitted with new hearing aids. Well, it turns out that she won’t have to wait that long after all. Phillip Ball, an audiologist who runs his own private practice, stepped in and offered Olive a pair of new digital aids for free. Great news for Olive and also a great piece of PR by Mr Ball.

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The occlusion effect occurs when a hearingaid completely fills the outer part of the ear canal. It can cause the wearer’s voice to sound funny. Many people complain that they sound hollow or it’s like they are talking into a barrel. Chewing food can also sound odd, and even cause discomfort, to someone with occluded canals. Normally when people talk or chew, the produced sound vibrations escape through the unblocked ear – nothing is heard. But

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I have some questions for you, dear reader. I’m guessing that many of you already wear a hearingaid, so, I’d like to know what model you have and what you think of it. It would be cool to put together some stats to see what aid is most popular and which ones are rated best. So, if you can spare 5, can you leave a comment and answer these?

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15-month old Samantha Collins has Treacher Collins syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that affects the growth of her facial bones. She was also born without ears – she doesn’t even have holes that would lead into the ear canal on the side of her head. Currently, Samantha has a standard hearing aid that her parents strap to her head using a bandage. This allows her to hear some noises but the bandage doesn’t stay on an active baby’s heard for

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A 108-year-old woman has been told by her local NHS hospital that she must wait at least 18 months before she receives a new hearing aid. Olive Beal’s 5-year-old analogue hearingaid is no longer effective and she needs a digital version that cuts out background noise and makes conversation easier. She visited her local NHS hospital and after a hearing test was told, “yes, she does need a digital hearing aid, but there is an 18-month waiting

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Different hearingaids use different sizes of battery, they also consume battery power at different rates. A battery may last a week in one aid, but only 3 days in another. I’ve written before about testing a new hearingaid and making a decision whether you want to buy it – it’s also a good idea to test the batteries to find out how long they will last. During your hearingaid’s trial period, use the same battery until it runs out – did it last

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OK, so people buy hearing aids to improve their hearing. That much is obvious. But what do you really want from your hearing aid? It’s worth thinking this over before you go out to buy a hearingaid. You want to make sure you get the right aid for you. When you visit an audiologist, go armed with a checklist of the things you want and also the things you don’t want. Some things to think about: Don’t be afraid to ask questions. Even stuff that

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Miss China, 25 year old Bao Quing Ling, has been crowned Miss Deaf World 2007. In second place was Miss Germany, Kristina Weber. Third place went to Miss Ukraine, Neonila Kudic. Miss South Africa, Terneil Nicole Oppel, won the Miss Sympathy title – not quite sure what that means? Were the judges sympathetic that she din’t make the top three? The online voting currently stands like this (and I guess it won’t change much now that the title has

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The RNID have released a report called “Like it Loud?” as part of their Don’t Lose The Music campaign. The report is a call to both the Government and the Music industry to take steps to promote the issue of noise as a public health concern. The research in the report shows an alarming ignorance among young people about the damage they are potentially doing to their hearing at gigs, clubs and other noisy venues. The report argues that in order

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What is a digital hearing aid? What does it do and how does it work? Very simply put: a hearing aid is a device used to help hard of hearing people to hear sounds better. A digital hearing aid achieves this by receiving sounds through a number of microphones, processing the sound and outputting it into your ear. The processing of the sound is performed by what is essentially a mini computer inside the hearing aid – this is where the digital part

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Feedback can be a problem for hearing aid wearers. It results in an annoying whistling or squeling sound. A hearing aid has one input: the sound comes in through the microphone. It has one output: the sound goes out of the speaker into the ear drum. But, sound moves in all directions unless something blocks it. Feedback occurs when sound coming out of the speaker travels back into the microphone and is amplified again.

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A person’s hearing loss is categorised as being either mild, moderate, severe or profound. Audiologists and other hearing professionals use these terms; the four types of hearing loss are defined as follows: You can have a look at decibel levels of common sounds to get an idea of what sounds a person with each kind of loss will, or will not, be able to hear.

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David Ormerod Hearing Centre are running an offer on Rayovac hearing aid batteries. The offer is running until 31st August 2007. The normal price for a packet of 6 Rayovac batteries is around £3; this offer is undercutting that and it’s a case of the more you buy, the more you save. Well worth taking advantage of this offer and stocking up now while they are cheap. The offer is for all battery sizes. If you don’t know the size of battery your

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