Hearing aids, as with lots of other devices, are getting smarter, more inconspicuous and cooler every day, and just in time. The average American is older, reports The Us Census Department, as the population as a whole continues to age, and sadly, loss of hearing, particularly in older people, is extremely common. Approximately 37.5 million adults in America and rising say they have some degree of hearing loss.
The good news is hearing technology has had some amazing advancements recently that will provide more possibilities for dealing with loss of hearing. Here are just a few of the innovations that are now available.
Your Overall Health Can be Tracked by Your Hearing Aids
Hearing aids are equal to if not better than a fitness tracker at keeping track of several vital signs. Not only can it keep track of step count, how many calories were burned, the total number of steps you took and heart rate, it also checks the time between heartbeats to help find any cardiovascular issues. They’re also working on technology that can measure other important vital signs such as blood pressure and oxygenation of the blood. There are other possible benefits that come with hearing aids, including the ability to help drown out tinnitus and will improve your social life by helping your general hearing. Actually, social involvement has been connected to your overall health as well, so really it’s another health metric we should be following. 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 Smarter Streaming
Staying connected to your virtual assistants like Siri or Alexa is becoming more important as people get more attached to these features. Even if talking to these assistants is not your thing, hearing aids with Bluetooth permit you to stream sound from any Bluetooth device like your phone or smart TV. Consider the benefits of this: You could hear the play-by-play in the next Super Bowl clearly over your family’s cheers (or at least steer clear of getting yelled at for turning the volume too loud). The ability to directly stream music, phone calls, shows and more right to your ears not only helps you hear and appreciate them more, but it will also help you regulate your hearing loss discreetly.
Automatic Adjustments
Did you ever notice how Goodreads seems to know what type of book you’d like to read? Or how Amazon seems to know which products to recommend? That’s because big data and artificial intelligence are very powerful. The latest hearing aids can also make adjustments automatically based on your responses in the past. It will remember that you turn the volume down when you go into the train station and do that automatically the next time it recognizes you’ve entered the station (or any other circumstance with a lot of background noise). They are also starting to network your hearing aids with other devices that belong to people near you in order to alert you of a possible loud noise danger nearby. Over time you can quickly adjust to changes in the hearing environment because your hearing aid will make suggestions based on all the information it has collected.
You Won’t Need to Keep Replacing Those Little Batteries
Who wants to constantly struggle with hearing aid batteries? You can now get rechargeable hearing aids. While you can do a lot to help increase the life of your hearing aids’ batteries, truth be told…it’s still irritating and costly. Better yet, technology to recharge your hearing aids while they are still in your ears is being developed.
