- Hi, guys, Cliff Olson,
Doctor of Audiology and founder of Applied Hearing Solutions
in Phoenix, Arizona.
And in this video,
I'm giving you my top 11 picks
for the best hearing aid features
in 2022, coming up.
(upbeat music)
Over the past few years,
I feel like hearing aid manufacturers have placed
an increase emphasis on making really cool features
inside of their hearing aids.
Not only have these features increase the performance
of their devices,
but it has even made their devices,
dare I say, even fun to use.
In light of this,
I wanted to share what I feel
are the 11 best hearing aid features in 2022.
Number 10 is my favorite.
But before I get into my 11 favorite,
if you could do me a huge favor and click the like button,
it really helps up my channel
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That being said,
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Now, let's go ahead and get into a few things you need
to be aware of before I reveal my list.
First, this video is focused
on the best hearing aid features of 2022.
So if you're looking
for my best hearing aids videos of 2022,
you need to check those out on my channel as well.
And I will have those videos linked down in the description.
Second, you will not experience
all the benefits of these features
unless you've had your hearing aids fit and programmed
by a hearing care professional who follows best practices.
Now, if you do not know what best practices are,
then I highly recommend that you also check out
my video talking about best practices
that I will link down in the description.
If you want to find
one of the few hearing care professionals
who actually follows comprehensive best practices
in your area,
go to my website, drcliffaud.com,
to search for a best practice pro member near you.
Third, there are countless hearing aid features
that did not make this list,
so I recommend that you do additional research
when you're done watching this video.
And seek the counsel of a hearing care professional
to make sure that you find the best hearing aid for you.
Fourth, I did not rank order these different features
because what feature might be best for someone else
might not be the best feature for you.
Fifth, pretty much every single one
of the features that I talk about
in this video have their own dedicated video
that you can find on my channel.
So if you wanna learn more
about any one of these features,
make sure you check out those videos as well.
And sixth, just like all
of the other hearing aid review videos on my channel,
this video is not sponsored.
It is just a short list
of what I find to be the best hearing aid features of 2022.
With all that said,
let's go ahead and get into feature number one,
which is the ActiveVent Receiver from Phonak.
In 2021, Phonak did something that I thought was impossible.
They created a receiver that could automatically change
between an open vent and a closed vent.
Why is this feature so amazing?
Because in some cases,
it's actually better to have open venting
with your hearing aid,
and then in other cases,
it's better to have closed venting.
For instance, if you have good low-frequency hearing
like the vast majority of hearing aid users,
you want to let those low frequencies come
into your ear canal unaffected
so you can hear them just like you hear them right now,
and then have the mid and high frequencies amplified
through the hearing aids
so they combine together inside of your ear canal.
However, having a large open vent
to allow this will prevent you
from perceiving low-frequency bass tones
when you're streaming music in through your hearing aids.
This will ultimately make music sound really flat.
But not only that,
if you go into a background noise situation,
that background noise can enter your ear canal naturally,
which can distract you from being able to understand
the speech of the person you're trying to hear.
With the ActiveVent Receiver,
you get the best of both worlds
because that vent remains open
when you're in a normal listening situation.
And then when you start to stream music
or you enter into a noisy environment,
that vent will snap shut,
preserving your low-frequency bass stones with music
and preventing that background noise from distracting you
from the person you wanna hear.
And yes, this vent can open and close automatically
so you don't have to worry about it.
As long as you have a rechargeable version
of the Phonak Audeo Paradise or Audeo Life Hearing Aids,
you can have the ActiveVent Receiver
with a custom titanium earmold.
Feature number two on my list of best hearing aid features
of 2022 is the M&RIE Receiver from ReSound.
M&RIE stands for Microphone and Receiver-In-Ear.
And ReSound is the first hearing aid manufacturer
to figure out how to put a microphone
on the back of a receiver inside of your ear canal.
Why is this feature so amazing?
Because it preserves your natural pinna effect.
What is the pinna effect?
Well, I'm glad you asked
because the pinna effect is the effect
that your outer ear has on sound
as it enters into your ear canal.
It can help you do things like better localize
which direction sound is coming from.
And it also changes the quality of the sounds that you hear.
The problem with most receiver-in-canal hearing aids
is that the microphones are actually oriented
behind your ears,
which eliminates your natural pinna effect.
Now, these hearing aid manufacturers have created
these artificial pinna effects that they program
into the hearing aids,
but it's just not as good
as actually having your natural pinna effect in use.
And this is made possible by ReSound putting a microphone
on the back of the receiver inside of your ear canal.
This M&RIE Receiver enhances the performance
of the ReSound ONE Hearing Aid.
And you can use this receiver
as long as your hearing loss is within the fitting range.
Feature number three on this year's list
of best hearing aid features
of 2022 is the completely-in-the-canal removal string
that doubles as a Bluetooth antenna from Starkey.
Starkey's Evolv AI Wireless CIC Hearing Aid
is the first hearing aid to turn its removal string
into a Bluetooth antenna to allow wireless streaming
into your CIC hearing aids.
This feature makes so much sense that I'm blown away
that no one thought of this feature years ago.
You see, the biggest limitation
of having a really small hearing aid
inside of your ear canals is that you cannot fit
a Bluetooth antenna inside of it,
so it just makes sense to make that an external antenna.
While this antenna/removal string
actually does stick out of your ears quite a ways,
it actually does do a good job of streaming audio
from a Bluetooth device into your hearing aids.
And sometimes you can actually tuck those antennas
back inside of the concha bowl of your ears.
Nevertheless, getting Bluetooth capability
with a completely-in-the-canal hearing aid
that is this small definitely makes this feature
one of the best features of 2022.
Feature number four on this year's list
of best hearing aid features is the ability
to be actively connected to two Bluetooth devices
at the exact same time
like you can do with the Phonak and Unitron Hearing Aids.
If there is one thing that annoys the heck
out of Bluetooth hearing aid users is having to determine
which Bluetooth device they wanna be actively connected to
at any given moment to stream audio into their hearing aids.
However, the Phonak Audeo Paradise
and the Unitron Blu Hearing Aids not only let you pair
to up to eight different Bluetooth devices,
they also let you be actively connected to two
at the exact same time.
That means that you could be streaming the audio
from your favorite movie on your tablet.
And then if you get a phone call coming in,
you can actually answer that phone call
without having to go and turning off the Bluetooth
on your tablet,
turning on the Bluetooth on your phone,
and then switching it back to Bluetooth streaming.
The convenience factor of this feature alone has saved
a ton of time for Phonak and Unitron Hearing Aid users
who constantly wanna be jumping back and forth
between multiple devices.
Feature number five
on this year's list is rechargeability
of custom in-the-ear hearing aids
like you get from Starkey and Signia.
Rechargeability has taken the hearing aid industry by storm.
A couple years ago,
inside of my clinic,
rechargeable hearing aids accounted for about 10%
of hearing devices that I dispensed.
Now, it's about 90% of the hearing aids that I dispense.
This increased demand
for rechargeable hearing aids has a lot to do
with individuals with poor finger dexterity
and individuals who just do not want
to change batteries anymore.
And thanks to Starkey and Signia,
individuals who want a rechargeable hearing aid can now have
that rechargeability with an in-the-ear device.
Starkey's new Evolv AI line of hearing aids
now has a half shell
or full shell lithium rechargeable hearing aid
that uses charging contacts.
And if you go with the Signia Insio Charge&Go,
you get a lithium rechargeable battery
that uses inductive charging.
So if rechargeability is a priority for you,
you are no longer being forced to get a receiver-in-canal
or BTE hearing aid anymore.
Feature number six on the best hearing aid features
of 2022 is Edge Mode by Starkey.
The Edge Mode feature inside of Starkey's Livio Edge AI
and Evolv AI Hearing Aid uses a form
of artificial intelligence-based analysis
that allows your hearing aids to optimize noise management
and speech audibility in challenging environments.
You can activate Edge Mode
by either going through the Starkey Thrive app
or by simply tapping your designated hearing aid.
And here's an example of what happens when you do.
- [Announcer] He's gone, he's gone.
(crowd cheering drowns out speaker)
Go, go, go, go, go, no.
He's gone, he's gone.
(crowd cheering drowns out speaker)
Go, go, go, go, go, no.
No, not, no, not a flag.
Come on, are you kidding me?
- Of course, hearing better
in background noise is consistently ranked
as the number one thing
that hearing aid users are looking for.
So any feature that allows you to do this
definitely deserves a place on the best feature list.
That being said,
feature number seven on the best hearing aid features
of 2022 is deep learning by Oticon.
In late 2020,
Oticon released their new More Hearing Aid
that uses deep learning to better distinguish
between speech and background noise.
To do this, Oticon had to develop
a deep neural network,
and then train that deep neural network
with over 12 million sound samples.
By doing this,
Oticon was able to let the deep neural network determine
the different characteristics of sound
instead of having to rely on the limited ability
of engineers to manually create algorithms to do this task.
The result was a hearing aid that can help you hear better
in background noise
because it basically trained itself using deep learning
on which characteristics make speech speech
and which characteristics make noise noise.
And like I said,
any feature that can help you hear better
in background noise definitely deserves a spot on this list.
Feature number eight is the 100% invisibility that you get
with the Phonak Lyric Extended Wear Hearing Aid.
Despite the fact that more and more people
just don't give a crap
if you can see their hearing aids anymore,
it's still really nice to have an invisible option
if you prefer.
What makes the Lyric Hearing Aid so unique?
Well, it's basically the only extended wear hearing aid
that is professionally placed deep inside of your ear canal
and stays there for two months at a time.
They're typically so comfortable that the only way
that you know that you're wearing it
is that you can actually hear better
when they're in your ears.
And I'm actually wearing one right now,
and you cannot see it in there no matter how hard you look.
And the best thing is,
you get 24/7 hearing.
You literally wear this hearing aid while you're sleeping,
while you're showering,
while you're exercising,
you basically never have to take it out.
Now, they are not Bluetooth compatible,
but you can simply use any other Bluetooth device
that you want because they fit so deeply inside
of your ear canal.
Now, don't worry,
if you really need to remove it, you can,
you get a special tool for you to remove it
if you're gonna do something like skydiving,
scuba diving, or getting an MRI.
But otherwise, you get this hearing aid placed
inside of your ear,
and you just don't have to worry about it anymore.
That being said,
the only thing you really have to do is just live your life
and then go back into see your hearing care professional
every two months to give them a few minutes
to remove the old ones and put in brand new ones.
Feature number nine on the best hearing aid features
of 2022 is Own Voice Processing,
otherwise known as OVP from Signia.
Now, this OVP feature has been inside of Signia Hearing Aids
for a number of years now,
but it is a great feature for those of you
who hate the sound of your own voice
when you're wearing your hearing aids.
You actually train this feature to recognize the sound
of your own voice during your professional fitting.
So sorry, if you buy these hearing aids online,
you're not gonna get the benefit of this feature.
After training the software to recognize your own voice,
the hearing aids will reduce the amount
of amplification given to your voice
without reducing the amplification coming
from other people's voices.
It is crazy to think
that a hearing aid could be smart enough to pull this off,
but it actually works and works pretty well.
Feature number 10,
which is really my favorite feature
is the tap control feature
from Phonak, Unitron, and Starkey.
Tap control gives you the ability to control other features
by simply tapping your hearing aid
instead of having to search for a push button
or opening up your smartphone.
With the Phonak Audeo Paradise
and the Audeo Life Rechargeable Hearing Aids,
as well as the Unitron Blu Rechargeable Hearing Aids,
a double tap of your hearing aid can activate
certain features like answering phone calls
or hanging up on a phone call
once you're done talking.
You can pause and start streaming,
and you can activate your voice assistant.
With the Starkey Evolv AI Wireless Hearing Aids,
you can use a tap to pause and start streaming,
activate your Thrive Assistant,
and activate Edge Mode.
All of them allow you to adjust the sensitivity
of the tap control.
So if you want that tap control to be really gentle,
or if you want that tap control to be really firm
so you don't accidentally activate it,
you can set that up inside of your smartphone app
or have your hearing care professional set it up for you.
The reason I like this feature so much is that it makes
the activation of certain features a lot easier
with your hearing aids.
And truth be told,
this is my mom's favorite feature in her hearing aid
so I really have to put it on the list.
And the 11th and final hearing aid feature
to make the list of best hearing aid features
in 2022 is increased water resistance by Phonak.
Phonak's Audeo Paradise Hearing Aids already had
an IP68 rating for water resistance,
which is as high of a rating as you can possibly get
for an electronic device.
But they blew this out of the water,
pun intended, with the Audeo Life Hearing Aids.
While the Audeo Life Hearing Aids use
the exact same platform as the Audeo Paradise Hearing Aids,
Phonak really beefed up the water resistance of this device.
They did this by adding pin-less receiver ports
and a gortex lining over the microphones,
sealing all of the hearing aid seams with silicone,
adding a waterproof parylene coating
over the internal circuitry,
removing the charging contacts and using inductive charging
instead of contact charging,
and using a more robust hearing aid housing
that was tested beyond the standard IP68 rating criteria.
So even though the Audeo Life Hearing Aid still has
the exact same IP68 rating,
this is by far the most water resistant hearing aid
that I've ever tested.
This means that you can safely wear this hearing aid
while you're exercising and sweating all over these devices,
as well as going outside in the rain.
You could also have peace of mind with this hearing aid
if you accidentally jump in the shower or jump in the pool.
Now, yes, you can still kill the receivers
with these devices,
but receivers can be replaced easily
through your hearing aid warranty.
All right, there you go.
Those are all of my favorite hearing aid features of 2022.
And like I said before,
there are a ton of other cool features out there
that did not make this list.
So make sure that you do your due diligence
when you're looking for the perfect set
of hearing aids for you.
That's it for this video.
If you have any questions,
leave them in the comment section below.
If you like the video,
please share it.
If you wanna see other videos just like this one,
go ahead and hit that subscribe button.
Also, feel free to check out my website, drcliffaud.com.
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