Hearing aids, as with lots of other devices, are getting smarter, less conspicuous and more stylish all the time, and just in time. The U.S. census documents that the average American is older as the population as a whole continues to age, and unfortunately, hearing loss, especially in older people, is very common. Roughly 37.5 million adults in America and rising say they have some amount of hearing loss.
Fortunately hearing technology has had some amazing developments recently that will offer more possibilities for dealing with loss of hearing. Here are just a few of the enhancements that are now available.
Your General Health Can be Tracked by Your Hearing Aids
Did you realize that hearing aids can track several important vital signs as well or better than a fitness tracker? Not only can it track step count, how many calories were burned, the total number of steps you took and heart rate, it also checks the time between heartbeats to help detect any cardiovascular issues. They are even developing technology that can measure blood pressure, oxygenation of the blood and other relevant vital signs. Hearing aids also often have other advantages, including the ability to help drown out tinnitus and will improve your social life by bettering your overall hearing. Actually, social involvement has been linked to your general health as well, so actually it’s another health metric we should be following. With these new hearing aids, you won’t even need a fitness device or smartwatch because the hearing aids can sync to your smartphone so you can listen to your tunes.
Streaming Made Smarter And Simpler
Staying connected to your virtual assistants like Siri or Alexa is becoming more important as people get more attached to these features. Even if using these assistants is not your thing, Bluetooth hearing aids offer key advantages including streaming music directly from a smart device like your phone or even streaming directly from a smart TV. Consider the advantages of this: You can avoid getting yelled at for having the Volume too loud while watching this year’s Big Game in a room full of screaming friends. Being able to directly stream music, phone calls, shows and more right to your ears not only helps you hear and enjoy them more, but it will also help you handle your hearing loss discreetly.
Automatic Adjustments
Have you noticed that you get ads from Goodreads and they seem to already know what kind of books you like to read? Or how all your favorite kinds of things get promoted to you by Amazon? That’s because big data and artificial intelligence are very powerful. Modern hearing aids harness this type of intelligence and use it to make changes based on your past reactions. It will remember that you turn the volume down when you go into the train station and do that automatically the next time it detects you’ve entered the station (or any other situation with a lot of background noise). They are also starting to network your hearing aids with other devices that belong to people near you in order to warn you of a possible loud noise danger nearby. Over time you can adjust quickly to variations in the hearing environment because your hearing aid will make suggestions based on all the information it has collected.
What? No More Little 312 Batteries?
Who wants to constantly wrestle with hearing aid batteries? Rechargeable hearing aids are currently available. Even though you can do a lot to help extend the life of your hearing aids’ batteries, let’s be honest…it’s still irritating and expensive. Better yet, they are working on technology to recharge hearing aids without even needing to take them out.