The quest for a better hearing aid.

Steemit said it published this but did not. I lost the post and the draft. I'm re-writing this from memory but damn! First time it happened to me.
People: save your drafts :)

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Getting a new hearing aid is a little like getting a new iPhone. Yours is GOOD enough but it's not as shiny and does not have all those cool new functions that you NEED! Still, sometimes you need a new the new iPhone for real.

Of course, there are countless good Hearing Aid firms out there so this is where the analogy ends. Every year or two they make some leaps and bounds and of course some of those will be most useful. Some, less so. But their business model is to put out a new model every 2 years or so and cash in from people upgrading their old aids. If you think that's a bit fishy, you are mostly right.
Still, software does evolve and generally it is recommended that you upgrade every 5 years. As a "top of the line" is about 1500$+, you spend about 300$/year to have the best of the best. That's a small price to pay for..you know..hearing?
And there are always lower cost options: 300$ and up.

My Phonak Bolero was top of the line back in 2014 or so but right now it's a like 2 3 generations behind. To continue the analogy above, it's like I have an iphone5 and they are talking about launching the 8. Can I still live with this one?
For sure.
Is an upgrade necessary...probably.

It's rare that you get a second hand aid so that's why usually I just try to get the best I can afford at the time. Today, I went to check about something called "OPN" from Oticon. I heard a lot of good things about it, especially that it can, maybe, create something called "TRUE" sound.

Oticon OPN

All this started bad. I had to go to a different office than I normally do, because every different firm has a different office, of course. So I had to work with a different audiologist, which is pretty shitty imho but oh well.
I had a very painful e-mail exchange first. They kept asking me to call to make an appointment and I asked if that's a joke.
They said that it was procedure.
I asked if they at least see the irony in this.
I got the equivalent of a blank stare on e-mail as a response.
I had to ask someone to call and take care of this for me as I can't really talk on the phone. Oh well, demeaning but what can I do?

Once there, I notice that the space was cold and uninviting and this audiologist woman, rather clumsy. I am not sure if she was incompetent but she did seem to be a bit lost. We did a quick audiogram to set up the new aid with and it was...
Really dissapointing. If anything, I heard WORST than before. Nothing I want to throw 2000e at any time soon.

But the reason I went here first is because someone on a hearing loss forum wrote this about the aid. It's a long quote and I can not remember who wrote it but it's an interesting read:

I think the issue is that the traditional way of solving the problem in noisy restaurants by traditional HAs work for some but may not work for others.
The traditional way is to use directional mics to pick up sound in front of you only, and thereby not pick up sound from behind and besides you, or blocking it. Sound from behind and besides you are considered noise, so they label this as noise reduction. But it's really not noise reduction in terms of being able to truly separate and removing noise from speech. It's just labeled as noise reduction by virtue of removing the sounds around you and only leave the sound in front available.

OK, so I guess this does help a little bit. BUT, it's not like the sound (and ultimately, speech) coming from your front is completely clean either. It is just as polluted with noise just the same, because the noise is all around you, in the front as well. But at least you have to deal with less now (only what's in front of you). For some people, this is enough help for them deal with it and manage to separate the noise from the polluted speech, using their brain hearing, to understand what's being said. But not everyone can do this (clean up polluted speech with their brain hearing). I guess you're one of those latter people.

One of the biggest challenge that the HA industry has never really been able to solve is exactly that -> truly have the ability to really remove noise from speech to improve speech clarity. I'll call this TRUE noise reduction, just to differentiate against the directional noise reduction label as explained above. Normal hearing people can do this TRUE noise reduction simply by using their brain hearing power. Some hearing impaired people can also do this TRUE noise reduction because they still have some innate brain hearing power left in them. These are the people who do well with the traditional HAs approach of using directional noise reduction. But then there are others who just can't manage to achieve this TRUE noise reduction using their brain hearing power, unless they get some help from the HAs.

The reason that TRUE noise reduction is a difficult problem to be solved with HAs is because traditional HAs had not been fast and powerful enough. In order to truly separate and remove noise from speech, you have to be able to take a sample snap shot of the sound signature of the noise and the sound signature of the speech, find the differences between them, and remove these differences that is seen in the noise signature, leaving only the speech signature behind. But if the HA is too slow (does not have a fast enough processing speed), it can only look at the long term sound signatures of noise and speech. Unfortunately, the long term sound signatures of both noise and speech almost always look the same because you're looking from too far above. And if they look the same, you can't find any differences to remove.

But if you can really speed up the sampling and take a much shorter term sample snap shot of the noise signature and speech signature, you can start to see different characteristics in their sound signatures beginning to appear more clearly. It's like looking through a microscope, the more you zoom in, the more you see things in much more details. Once you zoom in enough to see discernible differences, you can now know what to remove (the noise) and what to keep (the speech).

So the reason I've gone around and about trying to explain all this in a very long post here is to set the stage to tell you that I think you can probably benefit from an HA that can do this TRUE noise reduction for you. Obviously you don't do well with the traditional directional noise reduction HA because you have a hard time separating the noise from the speech (even if it's only what's in front of you) using your brain hearing power. And your traditional HA can't separate the noise from the speech for you either. So what you need is an HA that can help give you this kind of TRUE noise reduction.
As far as I know, it's the only HA in the market today that has the ability to do this is the Oticon OPN.The only reason it can do this is because there's finally a fast enough platform that enables it to go in and do this TRUE noise reduction at 100 times per second, on a moment to moment basis.

So, it's all about a software so fast that it can mimic what the human mind does naturally. It's a race to get there ASAP. The first aid to do that, will probably win a huge marketcap. I believe that eventually, all aids wil lbe able to do that. Maybe in 20 years?
I am grateful to live in this time though...Even my 5 years old Aid can do stuff that were impossible 20 years ago by the best of them.

Old aid vs new aid

Ok, so it's smaller but I did not really experience all the other benefits. Another downside of the current system here is that you can't just take the aid and test it for a week before buying. It's bullshit. No one can tell how good it is until you aren't in a crowded bar trying to chat up with a friend. Not talking in a soundproofed room with a professional...Meh.

It has some cool functions though. Connected directly to your iphone which means that you can direct sound directly towards the aid for all: incoming calls, podcasts...That's pretty cool and might have or might will fix the "can't call" problem for me. The native app is also very smart and can help you work the volume, the program based on where you are and other neat stuff. It also connects with "IFTTT" app which opens a world of possibilities.

For now, I'll keep looking but stay tuned, the adventure continues! :)

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