Clarity Cordless Phone Provides Maximum Amplification with Mobility

Amplification of a bad signal is worse than no amplification at all, and until recently many amplified phones made comprehension more difficult, not easier, for people with hearing loss. Recent advances in digital sound shaping technology borrowed from the digital signal processing in hearing aids have improved the situation markedly in wireline phones. But jamming all that processing power and software into a cordless handset has been a challenge. Clarity Products decided to tackle the problem head on, and people with hearing loss can be glad the company did. The Clarity Professional C4230 5.8GHz Cordless Amplified Phone not only provides up to 50 decibels of amplification, but also provides a very clear signal through its wireless handset. Read more

Note To Steve Jobs: Why Isn’t The Apple iPhone Hearing-Aid Compatible?

I can’t believe Apple failed to make its iPhone compatible with either hearing aids or cochlear implants. I’m in the market for a mobile phone again and just discovered the lack of compatibility. Given all the hype surrounding the iPhone launch, I’m surprised there haven’t been more complaints. Read more

Agilent Makes It Easy To Design Hearing-Aid Compatible Cell Phones

Now there’s no excuse. Agilent Technologies has come up with a design system enabling manufacturers of mobile phones to easily ensure their handsets meet all the hearing-aid-compatibility (HAC) standards mandated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Read more

How To Find A Hearing-Aid-Compatible Mobile Phone

Bryan Lockwood has written in with a tip on a site that makes it very easy to find out whether the mobile phone you are shopping for will be compatible with your hearing aids. PhoneScoop.com has a phone finder which lets you search for hearing-aid compatible phones, including their ‘M’ and ‘T’ ratings. Read more

Check Out ‘The Mobile Phone Challenge’ At Healthy Hearing

Dr. Paul Dybala, who runs two excellent web sites for hard-of-hearing consumers and hearing health professionals — Healthy Hearing and Audiology Online — asked me to contribute an article to Healthy Hearing on my experiences shopping for mobile phones that would work with my powerful hearing aids. It was a fun exercise and has driven a lot of traffic to Hearing Mojo. It’s entitled ‘The Mobile Phone Challenge.’ Check it out!

Vortis Cell Phone Antenna Reduces Hearing-Aid Interference

A start-up company based in Glasgow, Scotland, has developed an innovative antenna technology eliminating the electrical interference that can make cell phones impossible to use with hearing aids. Dual-antenna array technology built into the Vortis Technologies Ltd. antenna radiates electrical signals in a figure-eight pattern out and away from the user’s head and hearing aids. Read more

ClearSounds IL40: An In-Line Telephone Amplifer For All Seasons

Usually hotel telephones are a nightmare for me. They almost never work, even with my telecoil setting turned on and my hearing-aid volume set as high as it will go. (And then, insult is added to injury when the first call I want to make is to complain about the closed-captioning on the TV set not working, but I have to schlepp to the front desk in person to complain instead). I have the same problem with phones I try to use at clients, at friends’ houses… anywhere other than home, where I can rely on my trusty amplified desktop phone. But on our recent trip to New York, I tried out a ClearSounds IL40 Portable Telephone Amplifier, and now I believe my hotel phone problems may have disappeared forever. Read more

Hearing Aids And Cellphones: One Step Forward, Half A Step Back

Making a cellphone easy to use with a hearing aid is devilishly hard. Both devices are packed with so many chips and other digital electronics that electromagnetic interference causing feedback, static and distortion is bound to occur in one or both devices. Last week, the cellphone/hearing-aid industry coalition that is racing to meet Federal Communications Commission (FCC) requirements for hearing-aid compatibility issued a good-news, bad-news update. Read more

A Comment on Amplified Phone Design

You can tell it’s an amplified phone by the size of the buttons. A lot of hearing impaired people are old, and a lot of old people also have trouble with their vision. Therefore, most amplified phones are designed with HUGE buttons with ENORMOUS numbers on them. It’s great the manufacturers can kill two birds with one stone. But consumers aren’t birds. I don’t need the big buttons, thank you. Read more

Bells and Whistles: My Search for the Perfect Amplified Phone

I recently went through a long process acquiring an amplified phone. If you’re a phone junkie like I am, you will want all the bells and whistles, even the ones you rarely use. Until recently, there wasn’t much to choose from. Perhaps the market for these souped-up devices was just so small, or the technology to make phones work well for hearing-impaired people was so expensive, that most phone manufacturers didn’t bother. However, recently we have seen an increasing number of options available, from both traditional and new suppliers. Read more