Hearing aid technology has improved a lot over the past few decades, but at their core, hearing aids have always been made of four basic parts: a microphone, a processor, a receiver and a power source. The microphone picks up the sounds
Hearing aid technology has improved a lot over the past few decades, but at their core, hearing aids have always been made of four basic parts: a microphone, a processor, a receiver and a power source. The microphone picks up the sounds in your environment and passes it to the processor. The processor enhances the signal and delivers it to the receiver which delivers the amplified signal to the ear canal. The power source, or battery, drives the system.
Hearing aid technology can be considered either advanced or basic, based on the sophistication of the processor. Even today’s basic digital hearing aids offer far more benefit than the best hearing aids of previous generations.
New and advanced hearing aid technology
As the level of technology increases, digital hearing aids become more automatic and have more features to help you communicate in difficult listening situations. New technologies translate to higher price points for hearing aids and greater benefits. The following features are more likely to be offered in advanced hearing aids.
Top-of-the-line sound processing and frequency response
All hearing aids process sound, which means that when sound arrives into the hearing aid, it has to be sectioned into chunks of sound (sometimes referred to as "channels") and digitized before it can be amplified. The better the hearing aid, the more flexibility it has to "chunk" sounds customized to your unique hearing loss prescription. For example, if you have only high-frequency hearing loss, a better-made hearing aid can amplify only those sounds, whereas a lower-end model might amplify mid- and high-frequency sounds. This customization of the hearing aid is called its frequency response.
Bluetooth compatibility is a wireless feature that enables hearing aids to connect to mobile phones and other devices that use Bluetooth, often through an intermediary device. Bluetooth technology has the ability to improve the signal-to-noise ratio and eliminate feedback from the microphone because