Like lots of other devices, hearing aids are getting more intuitive every day. They’re also less conspicuous and more stylish than they ever have been. The U.S. census documents that the average American is older as the whole population gets older, and loss of hearing is, sadly, very common, especially in older adults. Approximately 37.5 million adults in America say they have some amount of hearing loss, and these numbers are increasing.
Fortunately hearing technology has had some amazing breakthroughs recently that will offer more solutions for dealing with hearing loss. Some of the advancements coming our way are presented here.
Hearing Aids That Track Your Overall Health
Did you realize that hearing aids can track some important vital signs as well or better than a fitness tracker? Not only can it track the time between heartbeats to help find potential cardiovascular troubles, but it also tracks calories burned, heart rate, step count, and the total number of steps taken. They’re also working on technology that can assess other important vital signs such as blood pressure and oxygenation of the blood. 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 engagement has been connected to your overall health also, 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.
Smarter and Simpler Streaming
As we get addicted to virtual assistants like Alexa and Siri, being connected and able to communicate with them is getting more important. Even if using these assistants is not your thing, Bluetooth hearing aids offer key features such as streaming music directly from a smart device like your phone or even streaming directly from a smart TV. Imagine the benefits of this: You could hear the analysts in the next Super Bowl clearly over your family’s cheers (or at least steer clear of getting yelled at for having the volume too loud). 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 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 Amazon somehow know which products to suggest? That’s because big data and artificial intelligence are very powerful. Modern hearing aids can also make adjustments automatically according to your reactions in the past. As an example, if you turned down the volume the last time you visited the train station, your hearing aid will remember that and turn itself down the next time you go into the train station. They are extending this technology to include crowdsourcing as well, enabling information from other people to notify your hearing aids that you’re approaching a loud zone. Over time you will be able to quickly adjust to variations in the hearing environment because your hearing aid will make recommendations based on all the information it has collected.
What? No More Little 312 Batteries?
Who wants to continuously struggle with hearing aid batteries? You can now get rechargeable hearing aids. Even though you can do a lot to help increase the life of your hearing aids’ batteries, let’s be honest…it’s still irritating and pricey. Better still, technology to recharge your hearing aids while they are still in your ears is being developed.