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We are seeing a long term consolidation between hearing devices and headphones. On the headphones side, we are getting smaller, truly-wireless headphones with
by gpt5 5y ago
We are seeing a long term consolidation between hearing devices and headphones.
On the headphones side, we are getting smaller, truly-wireless headphones with some ambient sound features (such as noise cancellation, and iOS hearing features). New trends like AR would just accelerate the change due to the need to solve all day worn audio devices.
On the hearing aids side, almost every hearing aid today acts as an always connected set of headphones for your mobile phone (and has been like that for years on iOS).
Deregulating this could bring the tech industry innovation to hearing aids through natural progression of headphones technology.
This trend would make hearing aids not just target hearing impaired people, but also individual with normal hearing. For example, features such as protecting your ears against a sudden loud noise, silencing a loud restaurant so you can have a quiet conversation or improving the audio of a soft speaker could be useful for everyone.
- wrycoder 5y agoAnd yet Bose discontinued their very helpful Hearphone product and has introduced a much more expensive and less capable conventional aid, which they are marketing to older people. Very disappointing!
- themodelplumber 5y agoLong live the consolidation. May it work out better than the consolidation between tuna cans and more expensive hearing aids. (I have a friend who's an audiologist...watch Starkey, they are very proactive about industry changes and headwinds.)
- justinph 5y agoStarkey is not exactly a quality company and I would be more than happy to see them put out of business. They tried to shaft their employees out of retirement money, they inflated their donation numbers, and a former executive was sent to prison for all kids of fraud.
- encryptluks2 5y agoKids of fraud are no joke. I'm pretty sure I'm a kid of fraud.
- scoopertrooper 5y agoI'm not familiar with those allegations, but none of that precludes them from innovating in the hearing aid space.
- afarrell 5y agoIt is hard to do good work when you don’t have a team you trust.
- jrace 5y agoStarkey used to be an industry leader. Sadly, not for a few decades. Watch Oticon, and Sonova (Phonak/Unitron).
- mschuster91 5y ago> features such as protecting your ears against a sudden loud noise Reminds me of the Artemis Fowl series or the first Iron Man, awesome to see former science fiction coming closer to reality. Adaptive ear protection in real life would be really interesting on construction sites or for musicians...
- ansgri 5y agoThese seem to exist for quite some time, like https://www.etymotic.com/product/gun-sport-pro/ https://www.etymotic.com/product/gun-sport-pro/
- johncessna 5y agoI've got a product similar to these and they're great. You can have a normal conversation and it didn't take me long to realize their eavesdropping potential. My Surface headphones also have a feature that more or less acts as a hearing aid.
- tornato7 5y agoSome years ago there was a set of headphones sold for hunting (amplifying sounds of animals and reducing gunshot noise) that were very popular among the hearing-impaired community as a cheaper alternative to hearing aids.
- jrace 5y agoIf all you need is to amplify everything, they work fine.
- bradknowles 5y agoI want something a bit more selective. Like, capable of completely blocking out the sound of my wife snoring. I’m sure that I’m not the only one in this boat, but I may be one of the rare males complaining about their wife snoring.
- bsder 5y agoI know people complain about price, but custom in-ear monitors for musicians are on the same scale of price as hearing aids. Good in-ear monitors like good earphones are expensive. I suspect, like the earphone market, this is going to become a marketing-driven race to the bottom that swamps any genuine technical improvement.
- munk-a 5y agoTechnical improvement has been pretty stunted since the 90s anyways. The hearing aide market is insanely marked up and ends up costing an extremely significant chunk of change whenever you need a replacement. I also would mention that custom in-ear monitors for musicians apply to a really niche market as well - so we don't really have a broad market to compare either of these to.
- rjzzleep 5y agoActually CIEM balanced armature drivers were originally made for hearing aids. They're conceptually very similar, but most of the market is consolidated to 2 main manufacturers Knowles and Sonion(+ some niche manufacturers). If anything the Chinese are disrupting this market, in price, volume and choice. Just like they're doing with cheap lenses such as omnivision.
- arch_btw 5y agoYeah but have you ever worn a hearing aid? My wife has a very expensive and up to date one and there is so much white noise. She can play music on it but can't hear well enough in that ear to get any use out of that. I just don't feel like they will ever overlap that much since they have to cater to people who are quite deaf.
- jrace 5y agoNoise reduction only works so good...but when the "noise" you do not want to hear is speech, they have a much harder time.
- skellera 5y agoI was just thinking about this with the announcement of the new AirPods. Apple could really take the concert earplug market while getting great natural marketing (people wearing AirPods at concerts). Just balance and lower the volume for concerts.
- t_serpico 5y agoGreat point. They're primed for this.
- babyshake 5y agoI'd think that even if turned off, Airpods and similar devices act as decent earplugs in a pinch.
- abakker 5y agowith a lot of woodworking tools the AirPods pros definitely offer more protection than nothing. Not sure what attenuation they offer, but for the truly damaging higher frequency noise they seem to do a pretty decent job. I still wear real ear protection, but for the odd cut, or for any other day to day situation with loud noises the AirPods do a good job.
- jermaustin1 5y agoSame thing for me. Ear protection + AirPods = Silence. What I like about the AirPods Pro is they actually fit INSIDE my over ear protectors.
- bookofjoe 5y agoWhen I'm outside running on sidewalks along city streets, music via AirPods Pro with Noise Cancellation turned on sounds a bit better BUT I prefer to keep this feature turned off in favor of being able to hear ambient cars etc.
- 5y ago
- dominotw 5y ago> silencing a loud restaurant so you can have a quiet conversation or improving the audio of a soft speaker could be useful for everyone. Yes i use noice cancellation and voice isolation on my iphone here in india where noise is out of control. I can even take calls now outside in traffic and it sounds like i am in a quite room to the other person. This one of the greatest technological improvements in the recent past for me personally.
- some_random 5y ago>This trend would make hearing aids not just target hearing impaired people, but also individual with normal hearing. For example, features such as protecting your ears against a sudden loud noise, silencing a loud restaurant so you can have a quiet conversation or improving the audio of a soft speaker could be useful for everyone. Amusingly this already exists, there are a bunch of ear muffs (and some in ear equivalents I think) that relay sounds from outside in that cut off when a threshold is reached. They're pretty much exclusively sold for use with firearms, I'd love to see them developed more to work better in a setting other than the woods and shooting range.
- zucked 5y agoHaving just experienced a pair of these, it was incredible. I don't have extensive hearing loss beyond what being a teenager listening to music too loud will do for you, but the way these headphones relayed "normal" sounds while rejecting "loud" sounds was one of those - "why aren't these more popular?" moments. It felt truly superhero-esque.
- aerostable_slug 5y agoWhat's even cooler is turning up the volume and have Spidey-Senses. I've done this on a couple of hunts and it's amazing to hear everything -- you can't believe how loud grass brushing against you can be. It's like you can hear like the elk do. Well, not quite... Good sets (I like MSA Sordin) have excellent stereo imaging in front of you as well. In shooting classes, I turn them backwards so the microphones point at the instructor.
- 3pt14159 5y agoI echo these sentiments. It's a truly surreal experience if you're comfortable with firearms.
- throw10920 5y agoWould "bring[ing] the tech industry innovation to hearing aids through natural progression of headphones technology" mean that hearing aids would now need to be coupled to a smart device? If so, then hard-of-hearing people who work in secure areas where they can't bring their phones will be very unhappy...