Okay, call me a nerd, I don’t care. I just ordered my first pair of Hearing Aid Sweat Bands, and I can’t wait to get them. Maybe they will look ridiculous to you, but not as ridiculous as I’ll feel if I continue tempting fate by playing tennis, running around in the rain, shoveling snow at the tail end of a New England blizzard or undertaking any number of other high-risk activities with my hearing aids on, unprotected from the elements. I have super-reliable Widex behind-the-ear aids — they are pretty big old ugly pieces of plastic, to be sure, but I’ve dropped them, jogged with them on humid days, accidently walked into the shower with them, and exposed them to any number of other environmental insults, and they have never broken down. They’re like the watches in the old Timex ads — “they take a lickin’ but they keep on tickin.’” But I’ve dreaded the day that a tiny drop of moisture somehow worms its way into the inner-sanctum-circuitry of my aids and, ZAP, they die. That utter silence you hear is the sound $4,000 makes after it has disappeared from your bank account, spent on a new pair of hearing aids. So when I noticed an ad for the “Hearing Aid Sweat Band” from VanB Enterprises of New York, I did my research and quickly learned they are the best, maybe the only, game in town. What are they? Exactly what you’d think. They’re tiny little sweatsuits that you put on your hearing aids to protect them from the rain, wind, sweat, sun and cold. VanB Enterprises tested The Hearing Aid Sweat Band and determined it only muffles sound coming into the hearing aid by one or two decibels. That’s a small acoustic price to pay for the protection you get. And in addition to protecting your aids from the elements, the Sweat Band reduces the annoying noise from wind when you’re outside. But, you may ask, aren’t these so simple that you might just as easily wrap up your hearing aids in a piece of fabric from home and save the $16.95 purchase price (plus $5.70 USD shipping charge)? Think again.
Last winter I went to a basketball game at our local high school, and one of the refs had jury-rigged a system to protect his own hearing aids. By the time he was done, he had so much white tape holding so many wrappings of white gauze that he looked like a World-War-I head-wound victim. No, I’ll pay the price for the specially designed and manufactured item, made from a mysterious “special material” that has special moisture repelling qualities, and which is thin enough for you to operate the controls of your hearing aids. Plus they come in five different sizes — I got a “large” because my aids are pretty big, but they’ve got teensy ones for kids’ hearing aids as well. And they’ve got them for cochlear implants, with a nice endorsement from Cochlear Corp. of Australia, which calls the product a “wind and weather protection socklet.” There’s a nice interview in this month’s Hearing Products Report with Scott VanBuskirk, head of the family-owned company that makes the Hearing Aid Sweat Bands. He says the company has and will continue to maintain a relentless focus on improving its single product. New products will focus on new form factors, such as the new “5 XL” size that can accommodate the “shoe” that’s attached to some behind-the-ear aids to receive FM signals from wireless broadcast systems. And the company has a very interesting web site that includes a lengthy Q&A telling you everything you need to know about how to use your Sweat Band, including the concluding joke: “Q: Will it keep my hearing aid working when I go snorkeling and scuba diving? A: NO.”