- Have a hearing loss and wanna customize
the way that you hear music?
Well, in this video, I'm talking about a product that lets
you do just that: the Aumeo Tailored Audio Device.
Coming up.
(upbeat music)
Hi guys, Cliff Olson, doctor of audiology and founder of
Applied Hearing Solutions in Anthem, Arizona, and on this
channel I cover a bunch of hearing related information
to help make you a better informed consumer, so if you're
into that, consider hitting the subscribe button.
If you have hearing loss, you know exactly how difficult
it can be to appreciate music.
Now, the best way to treat this problem is to actually
stream audio directly into a set of hearing aids that are
custom programmed to your hearing loss prescription, but
what happens if you have hearing loss in only one ear,
or you end up going to the gym and you don't wanna
wear your hearing aids while you're working out?
You need to have a solution that allows you to listen
to music with regular headphones.
Well, that solution is here, and that solution is Aumeo.
The Aumeo was designed to identify certain areas in your
hearing that has reduced sensitivity, basically meaning
if you have a reduction in hearing in any certain frequency
range, the Aumeo is designed to identify that and compensate
for it by giving you more sound at those frequency ranges,
but before we get into how the device actually performs,
let's check out the unboxing.
Alright, pretty straightforward unboxing of the Aumeo.
Let's take it out and set it to the side here real quick
while we get everything else out of this box,
and first thing is the warranty card.
Comes with a 90 day warranty.
You can see all that warranty information on their website
there, and then you have the getting started manual.
So it has all the steps that you need to follow in order to
get this thing set up and working right.
And then here we have a little carrying case for it in that
box, and then in here we have a power cable and a 3.5
millimeter jack.
Alright, as far as the Aumeo goes, on top it has
a 3.5 millimeter jack.
That is for your headphones.
It has a volume wheel right here to increase volume,
which you can see on this little dial that it has here
that lights up when this is in use.
On the bottom it has a 3.5 millimeter jack.
That's what you take this and actually plug this
into you Bluetooth device.
I'm recording this audio from my phone, so I can't plug it
in, but you would plug it in like that, and then you would
just have this kind of dangling from your phone as an
intermediary device to your headphones.
If you didn't wanna use that, you would make sure that you
have the Bluetooth toggled here.
If you did wanna use this, you have to make sure you
turn off the Bluetooth.
This right here is you power on button, and if you want to
also pair it with your phone, you will hold and press that
down, and it will put it into Bluetooth pairing mode.
So that is pretty much it.
Very simple device, and let's see how it works.
The first thing you're gonna wanna do when you get it out of
the box is go ahead and charge it with the USB charger cable
that comes with it.
When you're done doing that, you're gonna wanna go ahead
and go into you phone or whatever Bluetooth device that you
have and download the Aumeo app.
So let's go into the app and actually open up and create
an audio profile.
Once we're inside of the audio profile, we're just gonna
follow the instructions here, and we're gonna adjust this
dial to the very softest sound that I can hear, and in my
left ear, it's pretty soft for these frequencies.
1,000 hertz, 2,000 hertz, going up to 4,000 hertz,
8,000 hertz, and 12,500 hertz.
Now going over to my right ear, we're gonna start off.
125 hertz, can hear it very softly, very softly there.
500 hertz, very softly.
Now when we hit the 2,000 hertz, this is where I actually
have some hearing loss at, so the dial's have to turn to
the right more, which makes it louder.
And 4,000 hertz, little bit of a hearing loss there as well,
and then back to normal at 8,000 hertz and 12,500 hertz.
So now it's gonna go ahead and create that profile, and I
get to name that profile.
I'm just gonna name it Cliff's Audio.
There we go.
And I'm gonna go in and actually look at that audio profile
that I created.
There it is, Cliff's Audio, and my left ear is completely
normal, when you see those pink-purple marks.
This is my right ear, and any time that you increase the
dial to where you have to make that sound louder,
you'll see it in blue here.
So you can see that at 2,000 hertz, I have a hearing loss
there, and at 4,000 hertz, I have a hearing loss there.
So what Aumeo's gonna do is it's going to compensate for the
hearing loss at those specific frequencies and give an
additional amount of sound at those frequencies
when it's playing music.
And here I'm gonna hit start to load that profile.
And there you go, it's loaded and ready to go
for me to play music.
Basically, it tests you at eight different frequencies
between a very low pitch, 125 hertz, all the way up to a
very high pitch, 12,500 hertz.
The test that I took in the Aumeo app actually looks very
similar to a hearing test that I have when I'm being
tested in a clinic.
One thing I need to mention is that if you find that you
have a hearing loss while you're testing your hearing for
this app, you should absolutely go and find a hearing care
professional in order to get a professional
hearing test done.
This is particularly important if you have a hearing loss
in only one ear and not the other.
That could indicate something that's more serious that's
causing that hearing loss.
After you create your custom sound profile, you'll be able
to upload that into the Aumeo and go ahead and listen to any
kind of audio from you phone like you normally would.
So now that you know how if works, let's get into the pros
and cons of the Aumeo, and pro number one
is that it actually works.
Yes, it is always helpful for a product to do what it says
it will do, and in my case, though, I wasn't able to
actually tell a difference with my hearing loss in the
quality of sound with the Aumeo and the quality of the sound
without the Aumeo, but what I was able to do is go back and
create several different sound profiles that mimicked either
a single-sided hearing loss, or a high-frequency hearing
loss, or a low frequency hearing loss, and it did have a
dramatic impact on the way that music was being played
from my phone.
So the Aumeo definitely does allow for customization, which
leads me to pro number two, which is the Aumeo works
even if you don't have a hearing loss.
I have to admit that the sound quality coming out of my
Skullcandy earbuds and my Apple EarPods is not the best,
but the thing is is that I can trick the app into giving me
different frequency components that I appreciate when
listening to music, and in the case of these guys, I was
actually able to go into the app and say that I had some
form of hearing loss or reduction in sensitivity in the
low frequencies, everything from 125 hertz to 250 hertz
and 500 hertz, and what that does is it tells the app
that they need to boost the low-frequency sound more
coming out of my device, and that translates better
into these little guys here.
So even if you don't have a hearing loss, you're actually
able to use the Aumeo to customize the sound a little bit
better going into your headphones, and if you have better
headphones than this, it'll probably make
an even bigger difference.
Pro number three is that you can still make a receive calls
while using the Aumeo.
In fact, you can go into the Bluetooth settings screen and
actually change whether or not you want call audio to be
active while you're listening to music, and so if you want
that functionality, you need to make sure that it's toggled
on, and then you can make and receive calls just like normal
and have it stream right through the Aumeo.
And pro number four, the Aumeo lets you use
your existing headphones.
There is no need for you to change to a different headset
if you have ones that you like and they're wired.
This is a really nice benefit of the Aumeo, that you don't
have to go out and buy an expensive set of headphones
in order to get the functionality that the Aumeo gives you.
You can have a set of really comfortable earphones that you
already have or headphones that you already have and just
use the Aumeo to customize the sound into those devices.
You just need to make sure that they're wired headphones.
That's it for the pros, but there are a few cons about this
device, and con number one is that you have to have
wired headphones.
Now, I absolutely love my custom Bragi Bluetooth earphones,
and I even like my IQbuds, but I can't use them with this
device, because while it does have Bluetooth, it only
Bluetooths with the audio device that you have.
If you're gonna use the Aumeo, you have to have a pair
of wired headphones.
Now, I personally really hate having wires on me when I'm
working out, which is pretty much the only time that I will
listen to music through headphones, but if you're the type
of person who wants the highest quality audio possible,
you're probably already using wired headphones, and using
the Aumeo and integrating the Aumeo probably won't be
that big of a deal.
Con number two is that the Bluetooth signal
from the Aumeo is weak.
When I'm streaming music into my earphones, I wanna be able
to set my phone down and walk away form it and still get
uninterrupted sound quality.
While you won't get it to be perfect with pretty much
any Bluetooth device, when you're using the Aumeo, you
better have that Aumeo really close to the Bluetooth device
that you're streaming from, otherwise it is
going to sound horrible.
In fact, when I do decide to use this, I actually opt to use
the 3.5 millimeter jack audio in and then plug the other end
into the headphone jack of my phone, that way I can directly
pull that sound from my phone and up into my ear.
So basically, this is just dangling from my phone
when I'm using it.
And con number three, you can't adjust the equalizer
while you're listening to music.
You actually have to go in and completely take a new hearing
test in order to create a new audio profile.
This does not let you customize sound as you're listening
to it, which would be the ideal for someone with normal
hearing, and probably actually would be a benefit
for someone who has a hearing loss.
Overall, I think the Aumeo is terrific product to solve
a very specific problem.
If you have a hearing loss and you want to be able to
customize the way that sound comes in through regular
headphones, it definitely serves a purpose to do that,
and on the other hand, if you have normal hearing and you
wanna customize the way that you hear music, the Aumeo
lets you do that as well.
The Aumeo is very affordable at only about $130, and I will
go ahead and link it in the description below
if you wanna grab one for yourself.
That's it for this video.
If you have any questions, leave them in the comments
section down below.
If you liked the video, please share it, and if you wanna
see more videos just like this one, go ahead
and hit that subscribe button.
I'll see you next time.
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