Like lots of other devices, hearing aids are getting smarter every day. They’re also more inconspicuous and more stylish than they ever have been. The U.S. census reports that the average American is older as the whole population gets older, and loss of hearing is, unfortunately, extremely common, particularly in older adults. About 37.5 million American adults and rising say they have some amount of hearing loss.
Luckily more choices for treating hearing loss are available because of exciting breakthroughs in recent hearing technology. Here are just a few of the innovations that are now available.
Hearing Aids That Keep Track of Your Overall Health
Hearing aids are as good if not better than a fitness tracker at tracking many vital signs. Not only can it monitor the time in between heartbeats to help detect potential cardiovascular problems, but it also monitors calories burned, heart rate, step count, and the total number of steps taken. They’re also working on technology that can evaluate other important vital signs such as blood pressure and oxygenation of the blood. There are other possible benefits that come with hearing aids, like the ability to help drown out tinnitus and will improve your social life by helping your overall hearing. Actually, social engagement has been connected to your general health also, so really it’s another health statistic we should be looking at. With these new hearing aids, you won’t even need a fitness device or smartwatch because the hearing aids can sync to your smartphone so you can listen to your tunes.
Simpler And More intelligent Streaming
Staying connected to your virtual assistants like Siri or Alexa is getting to be more important as people get more attached to these features. Even if you defy the enticement of talking directly to these assistants, hearing aids with Bluetooth permit you to stream sound from any Bluetooth device such as your smart TV or phone. Just consider the advantages: You can avoid getting yelled at for having the Volume too loud while watching this year’s Big Game in a room full of loud friends. Being able to directly stream phone calls, music, shows and more right to your ears not only helps you hear and enjoy them more, but it will also help you handle your hearing loss discreetly.
Automatic Adjustments
Ever notice how Goodreads seems to know what type of book you’d like to read? Or how Amazon somehow know which items to suggest? That’s because big data and artificial intelligence are very powerful. Current hearing aids can also make adjustments automatically based on your reactions in the past. It will remember that you turn down the volume when you enter the train station and do that automatically the next time it recognizes you’ve entered the station (or any other circumstance with to much background noise). They are expanding this technology to include crowdsourcing also, allowing information from other people to notify your hearing aids that you’re approaching a loud zone. Over time the hearing aids add up all this information to make recommendations and automatic corrections, so you can adjust quickly to variations in the hearing environment.
What? No More Tiny 312 Batteries?
Who wants to constantly struggle with hearing aid batteries? Rechargeable hearing aids are now on the market. While you can do a lot to help increase the life of your hearing aids’ batteries, let’s face it…it’s still costly and aggravating. Better yet, they are working on technology that will recharge hearing aids without even having to take them out.
