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It's because it's a medical device. The OTC Hearing Aid Act will change that so Bose (and I would guess Samsung and Apple in the future) can sell hearing aids d

It's because it's a medical device. The OTC Hearing Aid Act will change that so Bose (and I would guess Samsung and Apple in the future) can sell hearing aids directly to consumers. Bluetooth 5.2 LE Audio will solve the vendor lock-in. So the future looks bright for us with hearing loss. Edit: And with iOS 14 you can use AirPods Pro as hearings aids by adding an audiogram to the Apple Health app. Works really well.

inetsee 6y ago
There is a hearing aid app called Fennex that seems to be very highly rated. It works with any IPhone running iOS 11 or later (thus less expensive IPhones) and works with any Bluetooth earbuds, not necessarily the AirPods Pro (thus less expensive earbuds). I have never owned an IPhone, but this app seriously tempts me to buy one.
- WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
  iPhone SE locked down to a specific carrier used in A-rate (best quality) goes for $50 on ebay. iOS14 is guaranteed to work on it for at least one year. Edit: I am not an Apple guy but needed some cheap AF development hardware.
- coupdejarnac 6y ago
  I developed a hearing aid app for iOS in the past. You might not be happy with the delay that wireless earphones introduce.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
Someone 6y ago
Apple already sells a hearing aid that they can’t legally call ‘hearing aid’. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209082 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209082: “With Live Listen, your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch can act like a microphone that sends sound to your AirPods or Powerbeats Pro. Live Listen can help you hear a conversation in a noisy area or even hear someone speaking across the room.” It even supports hearing aids (a few? Some? Many? The most popular? I wouldn’t know). See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210386 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210386
- emcq 6y ago
  Unfortunately live listen is more like a replacement for remote microphones, not the hearing aids themselves. It adds around 70ms latency with a bluetooth headset. This is enough to be very uncomfortable. For comparison, most hearing aids on the market today have around 8ms of end to end latency. Source: I've built a hearing aid and done extensive latency tests :)
  - TaylorAlexander 6y ago
    Hmm and I also heard John Carmack talking about problems with audio latency in conversations. 70ms is a lot!
  - eyesee 6y ago
    I have a major hearing impairment in one ear. Using one AirPod with Live Listen was completely unusable to me because of this latency.
  - coupdejarnac 6y ago
    I had a hearing aid app on the iOS app store for a few years, and all I got was whinging about my app not fully supporting Airpods/bluetooth headphones. I had in the app description and on the website recommending using wired headphones so there was no delay, but people don't understand how things work even when they are told point blank. The reason why people don't notice the delay with bluetooth devices during media playback is that media is delayed to sync with the bluetooth audio. When Apple deprecated wired headphones, I called it a day.
  - panabee 6y ago
    thanks for sharing! what’s considered the lower bound for comfortable latency?
    - danbmil99 6y ago
      In audio a delay of about 5 milliseconds is the most you can comfortably accept without it seeming really annoying. Well-designed, expensive hearing aids have extremely low latency, but there are theoretical limit. The more frequency domain processing you want to do, the more samples you need to do it, and the more delay you're going to have even in the best-case engineering. Smartphones are unfortunately typically not able to meet these kind of specifications. Much longer delays are acceptable in voice communication because you don't hear your own voice and the delayed voice at the same time. Point being, it really has to be a specialized device designed from the ground up to keep the latency close to the theoretical low limit.
pmayrgundter 6y ago
My gosh, thanks for posting this! It's been very frustrating watching hearing loss affect my older family members and seeing how bad the hearing aid situation is. The OTC Act + the updated Audio spec looks like the right solution!

inetsee 6y ago

There is a hearing aid app called Fennex that seems to be very highly rated. It works with any IPhone running iOS 11 or later (thus less expensive IPhones) and works with any Bluetooth earbuds, not necessarily the AirPods Pro (thus less expensive earbuds). I have never owned an IPhone, but this app seriously tempts me to buy one.

WrtCdEvrydy 6y ago
iPhone SE locked down to a specific carrier used in A-rate (best quality) goes for $50 on ebay. iOS14 is guaranteed to work on it for at least one year. Edit: I am not an Apple guy but needed some cheap AF development hardware.
coupdejarnac 6y ago
I developed a hearing aid app for iOS in the past. You might not be happy with the delay that wireless earphones introduce.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

Someone 6y ago

Apple already sells a hearing aid that they can’t legally call ‘hearing aid’. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209082 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209082: “With Live Listen, your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch can act like a microphone that sends sound to your AirPods or Powerbeats Pro. Live Listen can help you hear a conversation in a noisy area or even hear someone speaking across the room.” It even supports hearing aids (a few? Some? Many? The most popular? I wouldn’t know). See https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210386 https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT210386

emcq 6y ago
Unfortunately live listen is more like a replacement for remote microphones, not the hearing aids themselves. It adds around 70ms latency with a bluetooth headset. This is enough to be very uncomfortable. For comparison, most hearing aids on the market today have around 8ms of end to end latency. Source: I've built a hearing aid and done extensive latency tests :)
- TaylorAlexander 6y ago
  Hmm and I also heard John Carmack talking about problems with audio latency in conversations. 70ms is a lot!
- eyesee 6y ago
  I have a major hearing impairment in one ear. Using one AirPod with Live Listen was completely unusable to me because of this latency.
- coupdejarnac 6y ago
  I had a hearing aid app on the iOS app store for a few years, and all I got was whinging about my app not fully supporting Airpods/bluetooth headphones. I had in the app description and on the website recommending using wired headphones so there was no delay, but people don't understand how things work even when they are told point blank. The reason why people don't notice the delay with bluetooth devices during media playback is that media is delayed to sync with the bluetooth audio. When Apple deprecated wired headphones, I called it a day.
- panabee 6y ago
  thanks for sharing! what’s considered the lower bound for comfortable latency?
  - danbmil99 6y ago
    In audio a delay of about 5 milliseconds is the most you can comfortably accept without it seeming really annoying. Well-designed, expensive hearing aids have extremely low latency, but there are theoretical limit. The more frequency domain processing you want to do, the more samples you need to do it, and the more delay you're going to have even in the best-case engineering. Smartphones are unfortunately typically not able to meet these kind of specifications. Much longer delays are acceptable in voice communication because you don't hear your own voice and the delayed voice at the same time. Point being, it really has to be a specialized device designed from the ground up to keep the latency close to the theoretical low limit.

pmayrgundter 6y ago

My gosh, thanks for posting this! It's been very frustrating watching hearing loss affect my older family members and seeing how bad the hearing aid situation is. The OTC Act + the updated Audio spec looks like the right solution!