Like lots of other devices, hearing aids are getting smarter all of the time. They’re also less conspicuous and cooler than ever before. The U.S. census documents that the average American is older as the population as a whole ages, and loss of hearing is, unfortunately, really common, especially in older adults. Approximately 37.5 million adults in America say they have some amount of hearing loss, and these numbers are increasing.
Fortunately hearing technology has had some exciting breakthroughs recently that will provide more options for dealing with hearing loss. Some of the innovations coming our way are presented here.
Hearing Aids That Track Your General Health
Did you realize that hearing aids can track several important vital signs as well or better than a fitness tracker? Not only can it track the time between heartbeats to help find potential cardiovascular troubles, but it also tracks calories burned, heart rate, step count, and the total number of steps taken. They are even developing technology that can determine blood pressure, oxygenation of the blood and other relevant vital signs. Hearing aids also often have other advantages, like the ability to help drown out tinnitus and will improve your social life by bettering your general hearing. Actually, social interaction has been linked to your general health as well, so actually it’s another health metric we should be following. Since hearing aids can now also sync with your smartphone so you can listen to your songs, you won’t even need a smartwatch or fitness device?
Streaming Made More Intelligent And Easier
Being connected to your virtual assistants like Siri or Alexa is becoming more important as people get more attached to these features. Even if using these assistants is not your thing, Bluetooth hearing aids permit you to stream sound from any Bluetooth device like your phone or smart TV. Imagine the advantages of this: You could hear the analysts in the big game clearly over your family’s fun (or at least avoid getting yelled at for having the volume too high). You will be capable of managing your loss of hearing more inconspicuously and also appreciate your music, phone calls, and shows more by having them directly in your ears.
Automatic Adjustments
Ever notice how Goodreads seems to know what type of book you like to read? Or how all your favorite kinds of things get promoted to you by Amazon? This is the power of artificial intelligence and big data. Modern hearing aids harness this kind of intelligence and use it to make changes based on how you reacted in the past. It will remember that you turn the volume down 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 a lot of background noise). They are extending this technology to include crowdsourcing as well, enabling information from other people to inform your hearing aids that you’re approaching a loud zone. Over time you can quickly adjust to variations in the hearing environment because your hearing aid will make suggestions based on all the information it has gathered.
What? No More Tiny 312 Batteries?
Why would you want 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 annoying and expensive. Even better, they are developing technology that will recharge hearing aids without even needing to take them out.