Products
Advanced Bionics Is An Independent Cochlear Implant Maker Again
In 2004, it seemed to be a marriage made in heaven: Boston Scientific, the world’s leading manufacturer of cardiac stents and other implant devices, acquired Advanced Bionics, one of the world’s three cochlear implant manufacturers for $740 million plus additional payments based on future growth. But the marriage quickly soured and after several difficult years... 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 Read More →
Josh Swiller Can Tell You Exactly What It’s Like To Be Hard-Of-Hearing
Josh Swiller, who started an excellent blog several years ago about what it’s like to get a cochlear implant, wrote a great article for the New York Times Sunday Magazine today that may be the best description I’ve read of what it’s like to be hard-of-hearing. 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
Startup Bionica To Market New ‘Personal Communication System’
It’s not every day a new hearing-aid company is launched from the ground up. A group of entrepreneurs in Providence, Rhode Island, yesterday announced they formed Bionica Corp. to develop and market a new “Personal Communication System.” Read more 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
Hatis Assistive Listening Devices Make Hearing Aids Phone- and iPod-Friendly
Hatis Silhouette Ear HooksTo listen to an iPod or communicate successfully on the phone, even on my most powerful amplified phone, I need to hear with both ears. I’ve found the best way to accomplish that trick is with a line of products from Hatis that plug into my iPod and my phones. Read more 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
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... 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