Oticon’s latest new technology is whiz bang, integrating a Bluetooth receiver inside its new Epoq family of hearing aids. Epoq also provides wireless binaural communication between right and left hearing aids to make stereophonic sound more natural. But to me the most exciting innovation is the integrated Bluetooth, which enables mobile phone reception directly by the hearing aids. I get that benefit currently with a pair of Hatis silhouettes which plug directly into my cell phone and hang behind my ears next to my behind-the-ear hearing aids. They work well but require that I be tethered to the phone in addition to taking them on and off and constantly making sure the silhouettes are set properly next to the telecoils in my hearing aids. Getting phone reception directly into the aids through a wireless Bluetooth connection is the holy graille. But the nifty new solution isn’t without its drawbacks.
First, you need another device – a “Streamer” – to use the Bluetooth receiver. The Streamer synchs with your Bluetooth-enabled phone and transmits to the integrated circuitry in the hearing aids. That means another device to carry around and keep track of, in addition to the set-up and operational complexity which can be a hurdle for some users. The extra Streamer device may be necessary because it solves at least one problem: Bluetooth is a power hog and would lay waste to normal hearing-aid batteries without an external power source. But it is still a step away from mobile phone nirvana.
Second, while the binaural wireless coordination between the DSP chips in each hearing aid certainly is a technological feat, I haven’t heard how well the technology actually improves the hearing experience of the person wearing them. Siemens introduced its wireless binaural technology more than a year ago, but it hardly created a ripple of excitement in the hearing loss community. I would like to be proven wrong, but I’m wondering if this technology isn’t something that looks great to engineers because it’s so sophisticated but that doesn’t deliver as much real-world benefit as originally intended. Maybe with two vendors providing similar applications there will be more general usage and we will see more positive feedback in the coming year.