Hearing Aids
Bernafon Brite Hearing Aids Win Prestigious Red-Dot Design Award
Shortly after my 80-year-old mother-in-law got a CIC (completely-in-the-canal) hearing aid, we got a panicked phone call one evening. “I just ate my hearing aid,” she screamed into the phone. Read more Read More →
Siemens Gets Active With New Cielo And Nitro Hearing-Aid Families
Siemens Hearing is the quiet giant in the hearing-aid industry. While Phonak makes noise with its splashy Audeo ads, while Oticon promotes its stylish candy-colored open-fit hearing aids, while Widex keeps itself busy being the “blingi-est” hearing-aid company, and while GN ReSound makes headlines not getting itself acquired, Siemens Hearing just goes about its... Read more
Songbird Hearing Gets Re-Start Financing For Disposable Hearing Aids
Songbird Hearing, the disposable hearing-aid company which mysteriously suspended operations several years ago, has recently received venture capital financing to re-start its operations. NewSpring Capital and The Provco Group of Pennsylvania have put $4 million in new financing into the New Jersey company, according to the VentureWire newsletter. Read more Read More →
$50,000 Widex Hearing Aid Is One Of The Nuttiest Promotions I’ve Seen
I stumbled across a news release purporting to be from the Widex people in the U.K. promoting a gold- and diamond-encrusted hearing aid with remote controller priced at 25,000 UK pounds ($50,144 U.S. dollars). Advertising itself as the “blingi-est” hearing aid in the world, it is a version of the new Widex “M” family of hearing aids. Read more Read More →
Beltone Touts New Hearing Aid As Smallest And Lightest In Its Class
Beltone has introduced the Beltone Marq, an open-fit receiver-in-the-ear hearing aid that the company describes as the “smallest and lightest hearing instrument of its kind.” Read more Read More →
AdRants: Do Hearing Aids Really Need ‘Dolce and Gabanna Treatment’?
AdRants, a top web site covering the advertising industry, picked up our recent post on how Phonak is using some over-the-top advertising imagery in an attempt to make the new Phonak Audeo hearing aids more cool. The AdRants story is worth reading because it points out that the evolution in perceptions of hearing-impaired people is on the same positive track we’ve seen... Read more
Phonak Aims Its Colorful New Audeo Hearing Aids At Aging Hipsters
Phonak Makes its Audeo Hearing Aids HipThere’s a marketing bug going around the hearing-aid industry. First Oticon caught it with its Delta hearing aids, whose array of pop colors would have made Andy Warhol proud. Now Phonak has caught the bug with its Audeo hearing aids, which come in 15 hues ranging from “Crème Brule” (brown) to “Pinot Noir” (crimson) to “Pure... Read more
Oticon Integrates Wireless Bluetooth Receiver In New Epoq Hearing Aids
Oticon’s latest new technology is whiz bang, integrating a Bluetooth receiver inside its new Epoq family of hearing aids. Epoq also provides wireless binaural communication between right and left hearing aids to make stereophonic sound more natural. But to me the most exciting innovation is the integrated Bluetooth, which enables mobile phone reception directly by the hearing... Read more
Ear Gear Delivers For Cochlear Implants And Mini Open-Fit Hearing Aids
I wrote about Ear Gear hearing aid retention and protection systems a while ago and noted that if I’d been using them when I was cleaning out my gutters last fall I never would have lost my hearing aid. Read more Read More →
Varibel Hearing-Aid Glasses Integrate Eight Directional Microphones
Varibel Hearing-Aid GlassesHiding hearing aids in a pair of glasses is an idea almost as old as hearing aids themselves. But Varibel, a Dutch company, has truly put new wine in old bottles by integrating eight sophisticated directional microphones into the frame of new hearing-aid glasses that the company says effectively double the boost in hearing you get from directional... Read more
Sonic Innovations Jumps Into Open-Fit Fray With Ion Hearing Aid Family
Sonic Innovations has jumped into the booming market for comfortable “open-fit” mini behind-the-ear (BTE) hearing aids with its new Ion Open Ear family, which it touts as the smallest and most powerful in its class. Read more Read More →
Starkey ‘nFusion’ Hearing Aids Automatically Adjust To Acoustic Environment
With its nFusion hearing-aid architecture featured in a new flagship Destiny hearing-aid family, Starkey Laboratories has taken a giant step forward in the digital world. Read more Read More →