Back in autumn 2022, following a decline in my hearing, I started wearing hearing aids. Almost four years on, and following a new hearing test, I’ve got new, upgraded hearing aids – and these ones have Bluetooth.
Bluetooth hearing aids have been around for some time now, but were normally only available if you paid to have them fitted privately. And privately paid-for hearing aids are not cheap – Specsavers charge a minimum of £500 for a pair, and up to £3000 for top-of-the-range models. So I’ve gone with standard issue NHS hearing aids, which don’t cost me anything as long as I don’t lose them.
It’s only been recently that hearing aid manufacturers have started offering Bluetooth functionality in the cheapest models that they sell to the NHS. It offers some advantages to them – my old hearing aids had metal contacts on the bottom so that my hearing profile could be uploaded to them, but now this can be done wirelessly by Bluetooth. That, in turn, allows for a more streamlined casing for the hearing aids.
Phone connectivity
For me, the major advantage of Bluetooth is that I can connect my hearing aids to my phone. They support Apple’s Made for iPhone (MFi) standard, and so they work a bit like Bluetooth earbuds. Once paired, then you can route your phone’s audio to your hearing aids. However, unlike most Bluetooth audio devices, you can opt to not route system sounds and ringtones to your hearing aids, which is good. You also get to see the battery status of your hearing aids if you have the battery widget enabled on your home screen, and can use your phone to control the volume.
Another feature on iPhones is Live Listen. This allows you to use your phone’s microphone to route sound to your hearing aids. It’s useful for noisy environments, where people can talk into your phone’s microphone to help you hearing them better. Whilst you can buy microphones that also do this, it’s handy to be able to use a phone that you already own.
Other Apple devices linked to the same Apple account should be able to interact with your hearing aids when in Bluetooth range, even if not paired. I say should because my iPad says it can see my hearing aids, but I haven’t yet worked out how to route audio from my iPad to my hearing aids via my iPhone. I assume that if I buy a Mac in future, this will also work.
I’m sure Android phones also support these features, but I haven’t had any experience with them.
iPhone App
My hearing aids are manufactured by Oticon, and they also offer a companion app for your phone. This also allows you to control the volume (for both hearing aids together or individually), switch modes to enable Telecoil, and also mute the microphones. This latter option is useful for listening to music or podcasts over Bluetooth; by default, the hearing aids still listen for sound in your environment (albeit a slightly reduced volume) when Bluetooth audio is playing. If you just want to listen to audio and not your environment (essentially using your hearing aids as headphones), then the mute function is useful.
You can also enable a ‘SpeechBooster’ mode that amplifies speech in noisy environments. Being as I am mostly stuck at home at present, I haven’t tried this yet.
Not rechargeable
Whilst most paid-for hearing aids now come in a charger box, like Apple’s AirPods, these basic ones that I have still use disposable batteries. I don’t have to pay for these either – I get a supply of free batteries from the NHS. And thankfully they’re the same type as my previous models, so I can still use the spare ones I had left over. I expected the Bluetooth support to affect battery life, but they seem to last 8-10 days, which isn’t a major difference.
I’m really happy with my new hearing aids, as they negate the need to take them out to use earbuds or headphones to listen to music and podcasts. Whilst the sound quality isn’t as good as some earbuds, they’re a lot more convenient – especially when you can mute the microphones. Most of all, I’m glad Bluetooth hearing aids are now available on the NHS and that I haven’t needed to pay for them.
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