Some info for deaf/hard of hearing concerns.
Resources:
- Wired comments on Why Hearing Aids Suck
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The audiogram with speech banana shows which frequencies are necessary to the hearing of which speech sounds. I've reproduced it at the bottom of this page, too.
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Hard of Hearing Advocates (HOHA) maintain a forum of what you might call hearing aid geeks. A few audies, but a lot of regular HOH folks with a hardcore interest in getting the best from their hearing aids. Great place to ask questions about all sorts of oddball situations that non-HOH rarely worry about. Highly recommended.
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Assistech has the widest range of HOH products I have seen on one site.
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Hearing Mojo is a nice little blog for keeping up to date on issues, from the perspective of HOH.
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New product announcements can be found at the Hearing Products Report. Click the Product Showcase link for this month's stuff.
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Kelly Tremblay has done an interesting study in how our brains interpret sound which has been modified by a hearing aid or cochlear implant.
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9/29/2007: I've been wearing the Oticon Epoq aids for about 3 weeks now. Wow, what a difference. I can locate sounds in 3d space again. And with their Streamer device, I can connect the aids to my cellphone wirelessly via Bluetooth. I hear the phone in both ears, at high quality, and I speak through the Streamer's mic. It's like having a builtin wireless headset! I've written a fair amount about them at HOHA; here's the link.
The Streamer can also connect to anything with a 2.5mm stereo plug, so I can listen to music or my computer directly via my hearing aids as well.
What's missing? A way to use the Epoq/Streamer as a headset for non-bluetooth telephones. I have confirmed that the 'line in' wired input to the Streamer does not send microphone output back to whatever you've plugged it in to.
I found the answer. It's the Jabra Bluetooth Hub. This plugs into your corded phone where the handset would go (so you need a phone with a coiled handset cord - most cordless phones would not work). But I've had mine for a couple days now, and it makes using the phone easy again. What a relief!
Note that it is smaller than in looks in some of the pictures. Really only about as long as an unsharpened pencil. The device feels solid and well made. A bit heavy in your hand; no cheap plastic feel here.
The Jabra Hub is available from Amazon at $160, or from DealExtreme at $47.90. Why the difference in price? Amazon sells it with a Bluetooth earpiece, which I do not need, and DealExtreme sells the hub only - exactly what I wanted. However, DealExtreme ships items from China (so it takes a week or two to arrive), and includes a European power plug rather than an American one. No problem; just get this adapter (SKU #2723) for another $2.22 when you order the Jabra hub from DealExtreme.
It may also be possible to buy the hub alone with a US power plug from Mwave ($77) or HeadsetPlus.com ($120)
High priority is for it to work with Gizmo on my PC (which is Vista running as VM under Ubuntu), but ultimately it would work with cellphones and other devices too.
I have a cmoy amp and a splitter from radio shack (which they no longer make!). The splitter has a 2.5mm female jack which splits out to a 3.5mm male mic plug and a 3.5mm male speaker/lineout plug.
Things to look at:
The PerfectHOHDevice
Where are the tcoil-equipped cellphones?
Speech banana
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