If you’re starting your hearing health journey, you might be researching all different types of hearing aids. Hearing aid reviews can be helpful to get a sense of how customers actually enjoy their hearing aids, and which hearing aids on the market are best for your needs. Both customer reviews and professional reviews are valuable resources for someone looking to buy hearing aids for the first time (or someone who wants to change their hearing aids). If you’re not familiar with certain terms and phrases, however, it may be difficult to really understand reviews. Audicus can help!
Terms to Know
There’s a lot of specific jargon that can crop up with hearing aid reviews, so it’s important to know what all those terms mean. For instance, many customers use “HA” for hearing aids. In addition, there are many different acronyms for styles of hearing aids that reviewers might use to describe their hearing aid:
BTE: behind the ear
OTE: on the ear
ITE: in the ear
ITC: in the canal
CIC: completely in the canal
While browsing the hearing aid forums, you will also likely stumble across the word “feedback”. For those who don’t know, feedback is a high-pitched whistling noise that hearing aids make if they do not fit correctly. Customers who report feedback most likely have ill-fitting hearing aids. Many hearing aid models have feedback suppression, or digital feedback reduction.
If you’re reading hearing aid reviews and see the term “compression” mentioned, you might be wondering what that means. Compression is automatic volume control, a feature that enables your hearing aids to adjust the volume automatically to whatever environment you’re in. This feature is not foolproof though, and many people choose to use manual volume control in conjunction with the automatic control.
Features to Look For
There may be specific features you need in a hearing aid, but you might be unsure of what they are right now. Hearing aid reviews are good sources of information about how these extra features work for others. Special features of hearing aids may include:
Telecoil: A small wire that allows hearing aids to pick up signals from a telephone or an audio induction loop. A loop is a cable that surrounds a room and sends a magnetic signal to your hearing aid to enable better hearing.
Bluetooth: Bluetooth capability is an important feature in many digital hearing aids, and can link your hearing aid up to your TV, phone, and computer.
Enhanced Clarity: This is a special feature for Audicus hearing aids that can vastly improve your hearing ability. Enhanced clarity includes extra channels for your hearing aid that boost clarity, speech filtration, and speech recognition.
Directional microphone: This type of microphone takes the audio signal in front of you (like the voice of a person you’re talking to) much louder than noises from the rear or the sides. This is very advantageous in noisy social settings with a lot of background noise, like in a crowded room or when watching TV.
Before investing in hearing aids, it is important to do background research on the different types of models and makes. Customer forums and hearing aid reviews are great sources of information on all kinds of hearing aids and hearing devices, and they can really give you great insight to how a hearing aid might work (or not work) for you! Check out hearing aid forums and customer reviews before making any purchases, so you can be sure you’re getting the best hearing aid for your lifestyle and environment.