Hearing aids, like many other devices, are getting smarter, more inconspicuous and more stylish every day, and just in time. The average American is older, reports The Us Census Department, as the whole population gets older, and loss of hearing is, sadly, extremely common, particularly in older adults. About 37.5 million adults in America say they have some hearing loss, and these numbers are going up.
Fortunately more choices for dealing with hearing loss are available because of exciting breakthroughs in recent hearing technology. Here are just a few of the developments coming our way.
Hearing Aids That Keep Track of Your General Health
Did you realize that hearing aids can keep track of several important vital signs as well or better than a fitness tracker? Not only can it track 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 developing technology that can assess other significant vital signs like blood pressure and oxygenation of the blood. There are other possible advantages that come with hearing aids, like the ability to help drown out tinnitus and will help your overall hearing so that your social life will get better as well. Actually, social interaction has been connected 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?
More intelligent and Simpler 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 ignore the allure of talking directly to these assistants, Bluetooth hearing aids provide key advantages including streaming music directly from a smart device like your phone or maybe even streaming directly from your smart TV. Imagine the benefits of this: You can avoid getting yelled at for having the Volume too loud while watching this year’s Big Game in a room full of screaming friends. The ability 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 help you regulate your hearing loss inconspicuously.
Automatic Adjustments
Have you noticed that you get ads from Goodreads and they seem to know what kind of books you like to read? Or how all your favorite kinds of items get promoted to you by Amazon? 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. For example, if you turned down the volume the last time you went to the train station, your hearing aid will recall that and turn itself down the next time you go into the train station. They are also starting to network your hearing aids with other devices belonging to people near you in order to inform you of a possible loud noise danger nearby. 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.
You Won’t Need to Keep Changing Those Little Batteries
Who wants to constantly wrestle with hearing aid batteries? Rechargeable hearing aids are currently available. Even though you can do a lot to help increase the life of your hearing aids’ batteries, truth be told…it’s still expensive and aggravating. Better yet, they are developing technology that will recharge hearing aids without even having to take them out of your ears.