As I have now been wearing hearing aids - these ones - for almost an entire day, I feel qualified to discuss this topic as an expert. Some preliminary notes.

top quality audio humour

I test-drove my favourite hearing aid joke with the audiologist to see their reaction. After a brief rehearsal where I explained her line to her, we had this conversation:

Steve: Hey, I just got a new hearing aid! It was really cheap!
Audiologist: Oh yeah? What kind is it?
Steve: About 11:30.
Audiologist: no reaction.

I don’t care, I’m going to keep trying that joke. Remember, if I start it with you, you have to say What kind is it?

Anyway.

a note to my fellow bandleaders and really a note to 25-years-ago me.

Get some musician’s earplugs if you’re going to be standing in front of a football brass band urging them to play louder. They’re a relatively cheap way to protect your hearing. Don’t be an idiot. These are fitted things designed for YOUR ear. I eventually got some but I think some damage had already been done. (Hello, tinnitus.)

The experience of having the molding goo poured into your ear and waiting for it to coagulate is really something else. Their only downside is that they make it weird to play a brass instrument - something about air pressure or whatever, it feels like you’re playing trombone with a massive cold. I read somewhere you could fix that by drilling a tiny hole in a certain spot.

Hearing Aids vs AirPods Pro

Apple has spent a ton of money getting AirPods Pro approved by the FDA and other regulators to work as over-the-counter hearing aids, including providing a hearing test app on the iPhone that tweaks the audio profile on the headphones. This feature is available in a whole lot of countries, not yet including Canada, but, um, … I don’t work there any more so I guess I can say “it’s not too hard to work around that.” So I’ve had my AirPods Pro 2 set up as hearing aids for a few months now and have been trying them sporadically for hearing assistance (and more frequently just for listening to music or podcasts or whatever.)

• Are the new Oticon Intent hearing aids better for my hearing than my AirPods Pro with the hearing assistance feature? Yes.

but, the price

• They cost $8,000. They’ve got, I would say, roughly the same hardware (and associated software development) cost as Airpods Pro, which are $320.

The hearing aids cost 25 times as much as AirPods Pro. Are they 25 times better? No. Maybe for some people. Not for me. AirPods might still be good enough in some situations. I have only mild hearing loss, so I’m probably on the edge of hearing aid utility here.

• How much more would you freak out about losing your $8,000 hearing aids than your $320 AirPods? Probably 25 times as much. (The hearing aids do have a “Find My” feature built into the control app. I’m not sure if that’s actually using Apple’s Find My network. More experimentation to come.)

more post-sticker-shock thoughts

• If you’ve got your AirPods in, it’s totally obvious to everyone, and they all assume you’re listening to music and not paying attention to them. Kind of a stigma there. Conversely, these hearing aids are pretty inconspicuous, especially because they match the colour of the wire to the colour of your hair. The audiologist’s report claims I have “silver-grey” hair, though. That can’t be right, there must be something wrong with the lighting in that office.

• Would I like AirPods that were as inconspicuous as these things? Yes.

• Audiologist recommended a few things, including not getting hair spray on the hearing aids. Noted.

• I already miss the tight integration between AirPods and my phone. Apple is doing some proprietary Bluetooth things that these hearing aids can’t match. The hearing aids do let you answer phone calls or adjust volume by tapping a button, but they’re sure not as tightly integrated as AirPods+iPhone are. If Apple adds new features to AirPods Pro - live translation maybe? - I’ll miss out.

• No I haven’t tried putting the AirPods Pro in at the same time, but now that I am typing this, I’m …. curious…. what if I put an AirPod in one ear and a hearing aid in the other ….

• It’s one more thing I need to keep charged every night so I’m reorganizing my bedside table, and wondering what I’m going to do when travelling. There’s a portable case/charger that looks kind of like an Airpods case, I might have to get that. Older less powerful hearing aids let you buy replacement batteries at the drug store. But with these, if you travel far and left your charger at home, you’re in trouble.

• I wore these at a restaurant last night - that was the one thing I most wanted to test. Even with AirPods Pro, I’d have a hard time following conversations in a noisy place. Hearing aids were definitely better, however i was at a table with only one other person, not with a table for 8 in a noisy bar. That test will have to wait.

• Ontario offers a $1,000 rebate, I’m not sure if it’s just for senior citizens like me, or what. The audiologist filled in the paperwork, designating them as my agent. So the $1000 goes straight to them. Um, I sure hope you aren’t raising the price by $1000 first. Some people claim you can save big bucks by getting hearing aids at Costco, or at least quoting the costco price to your audiologist. I may need to make a visit over there. (I have 30 days to return these if I don’t like ‘em.)

• It is annoying that some things - like the name of the device - can only be set by the audiologist, not by me, the owner. They show up on my phone as “Stephe Hearing Aids”. STEPHE. Nobody calls me STEPHE. Please don’t start.

• You start hearing things you previously didn’t notice, like your own chewing or the sound of combing your hair or putting your glasses on.

• I’m curious to see what they’re like at a really loud environment. Will noise get cancelled at all? The AirPods Pro noise cancellation on an airplane is pretty good … At Argo games, I’m finding the volume from the speakers to be a little annoying (announcer Adam, you’re doing a great job, it’s not you, it’s me.)

• earwax is gross

take care,
stephe