HardOfHearing

Some info for deaf/hard of hearing concerns.

Resources:

• Wired comments on Why Hearing Aids Suck 
• How to read your audiogram
  • 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.
• 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.
• Assistech has the widest range of HOH products I have seen on one site.
• Hearing Mojo is a nice little blog for keeping up to date on issues, from the perspective of HOH.
• Audiology Online is where the audies get their news. Hear what they hear!
• New product announcements can be found at the Hearing Products Report. Click the Product Showcase link for this month's stuff.
• Batteries become a big deal for anyone wearing HAs or implants. Microbattery.com has a wide assortment and good prices. Their battery test charts show which brands last the longest in your hearing instrument! PowerOne rechargeable batteries look nifty but I have found no US distrutor.
• Kelly Tremblay has done an interesting study in how our brains interpret sound which has been modified by a hearing aid or cochlear implant.
• Hearing Aid Forums is another community of HA wearers and sellers which provide much needed information for those of us in this situation.
  Deafdude1 has been blogging some interesting stuff.
  
  

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)

• I have used Hearing Haven for repair of my Epoq's via mail order. It does take some time, but the prices are good. They cheerfully fixed my HA again at no fee when it failed about 5 months after the first fix - but it took nearly a month (because they were out of stock on the failed part - the receiver).
• I could have replaced the receiver myself, if I had known how to get the part! Today I found HearingAidSpares.com in the UK. He also operates Blackminster Hearing Centre. I've emailed to ask if he will work with us Americans - and sadly, the answer is no. He says "It's simply too tricky & expensive for all concerned." 
• A Dry and Store box seems expensive (I have the Global which set me back about $100), but will save you a good many trips back to the audie's office for cleaning and repair and so on. Very worth your while.

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:

• Theboom
• Comfort Audio products (from Hearmore)
• Clearsounds neckloop/mic (I have this and like it)
• Alertmaster receiver and clock and motion sensor (I have these)
• Jim's 40 turn neckloop is interesting. Waiting for him to publish construction details!
• I'm currently using this FreeTalk Wireless headset for my Skype calls and such. The battery seems only to last for about 15 minutes so I just leave the charging cord attached. It is one of the few headsets loud enough for me. At least now I don't have to take my hearing aids out; I can sort of perch them half over the aids and half over my ear for better clarity of sound.

The PerfectHOHDevice

Where are the tcoil-equipped cellphones?

 Speech banana