Like many other devices, hearing aids are getting smarter all of the time. They’re also more inconspicuous and cooler than they ever have been. The U.S. census documents that the average American is older as the whole population gets older, and unfortunately, hearing loss, especially in older people, is very common. Roughly 37.5 million American adults and rising say they have some amount of hearing loss.
Luckily hearing technology has had some exciting advancements recently that will provide more options for dealing with loss of hearing. Some of the advancements now available are presented here.
Hearing Aids That Track Your Overall Health
Hearing aids are equal to if not better than a fitness tracker at tracking many vital signs. Not only can it keep track of step count, how many calories were burned, the total number of steps you took and heart rate, it also monitors the time in between heartbeats to help detect any cardiovascular concerns. They are even developing technology that can measure blood pressure, oxygenation of the blood and other significant vital signs. There are other possible advantages that come with hearing aids, like the ability to help drown out tinnitus and will help you hear generally so that your social life will get better as well. Actually, social interaction has been connected to your overall health as well, so really 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 Simpler And Smarter
Staying connected to your virtual assistants like Siri or Alexa is becoming more important as people get more attached to these features. Even if you defy the lure of talking directly to these assistants, Bluetooth hearing aids provide key advantages such as streaming music directly from a smart device like your phone or maybe even streaming directly from a smart TV. Consider the advantages of this: You could hear the play-by-play in the big game clearly over your family’s fun (or at least steer clear of getting yelled at for having the volume too high). The ability 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 regulate your hearing loss inconspicuously.
Automatic Adjustments
Ever notice how Goodreads seems to know what kind of book you’d like to read? Or how all your favorite kinds of items get promoted to you by Amazon? This is the power of artificial intelligence and big data. The latest hearing aids can also make changes automatically according to your responses in the past. It will remember that you turn the volume down when you enter the train station and do that automatically the next time it recognizes you’ve entered the station (or any other circumstance with to much background noise). They are expanding this technology to include crowdsourcing also, enabling information from other users to notify your hearing aids that you’re approaching a loud zone. Over time you will be able to adjust quickly to changes in the hearing environment because your hearing aid will make recommendations based on all the information it has collected.
You Won’t Have to Keep Changing Those Little Batteries
Who wants to continuously struggle with hearing aid batteries? Rechargeable hearing aids are now on the market. Even though you can do a lot to help increase the life of your hearing aids’ batteries, let’s face it…it’s still costly and frustrating. Better yet, they are working on technology to recharge hearing aids without even having to take them out of your ears.