For most people with hearing loss, getting hearing aids is a life-changing event. Suddenly, the birds are singing again, the turn signal clicks, and conversations become easier. Standard hearing aids have advanced dramatically in the last five years, using artificial intelligence to reduce background clatter and focus on the voice in front of you.
However, many patients eventually come to us with a common frustration: “My hearing aids are great, but I’m still struggling in that one restaurant, or that one conference room.”
If this sounds familiar, don’t get discouraged. You are not alone, and your hearing aids are likely working exactly as designed. The reality is that sometimes hearing aids alone aren’t enough.
The Problems: Distance, Echoes, and Noise
Standard hearing aids have small microphones. They are excellent at picking up sounds within 3 to 6 feet. However, in complex environments like crowded restaurants or busy family gatherings, three main enemies take over:
- Distance: As you move away from a sound source, the signal gets weaker. If your spouse is speaking to you from across the kitchen while the faucet is running, your hearing aids are battling to separate the faucet (loud and near) from the voice (weak and far).
- Reverberation: Hard surfaces like glass windows, tile floors, and high ceilings bounce sound around, causing echo and blurring speech clarity before it even reaches your hearing aid.
- Competing Voices: When multiple people are talking at once, the background chatter blends together into a wall of noise. If the conversation at the table next to yours is just as loud as the person sitting across from you, your hearing aids have to work incredibly hard to isolate the specific voice you actually want to focus on.
Meet the Accessories: Technology to Bridge the Gap
To conquer these extreme listening situations, we utilize hearing aid accessories. Think of these as a “turbo boost” or a “super mic” for your existing devices. They allow you to place the microphone directly at the source of the sound, bypassing the distance and room noise.
Here are a few cutting-edge accessories we regularly use to bridge the hearing gap:
- The Starkey Table Talker
This is a sleek, puck-like device that you place in the middle of a table at a busy restaurant or business meeting. It uses sophisticated beamforming technology to automatically detect who is speaking and direct its microphones to their voice. The enhanced speech is streamed seamlessly directly into your Starkey hearing aids, allowing you to feel engaged in a group discussion again without the mental fatigue of straining to hear.
- StarLink Remote Microphone +
This compact, easy-to-use device is perfect for difficult one-on-one listening situations. By simply having your conversation partner wear it, their voice is prioritized and sent right to your ears. It allows you to effortlessly enjoy one-on-one conversations in noisy environments and easily stream from a variety of audio sources, like a computer or older audio setup.
- The Phonak Roger Ecosystem
For those wearing Phonak technology and needing the gold standard in noise reduction, the Phonak Roger technology is unmatched. The Roger On is a versatile microphone that can be placed on a table (in Table Mode), held by you like a pointer to focus on one speaker (Pointing Mode), or worn around a speaker’s neck (Presenter Mode). It adapts continuously to the noise level, ensuring superior speech understanding even in extreme environments.
And More…
The world of accessories extends far beyond these microphones. We also offer TV Streamers, for both Starkey and Phonak hearing devices, which send crystal-clear audio from your favorite show directly to your ears at your own volume (allowing your family to listen at their own volume), and discreet Remote Controls for adjusting settings without fiddling with your devices.