Vortis Cell Phone Antenna Reduces Hearing-Aid Interference
A start-up company based in Glasgow, Scotland, has developed an innovative antenna technology eliminating the electrical interference that can make cell phones impossible to use with hearing aids. Dual-antenna array technology built into the Vortis Technologies Ltd. antenna radiates electrical signals in a figure-eight pattern out and away from the user’s head and hearing aids. Read more
ClearSounds IL40: An In-Line Telephone Amplifer For All Seasons
Usually hotel telephones are a nightmare for me. They almost never work, even with my telecoil setting turned on and my hearing-aid volume set as high as it will go. (And then, insult is added to injury when the first call I want to make is to complain about the closed-captioning on the TV set not working, but I have to schlepp to the front desk in person to complain instead). I have the same problem with phones I try to use at clients, at friends’ houses… anywhere other than home, where I can rely on my trusty amplified desktop phone. But on our recent trip to New York, I tried out a ClearSounds IL40 Portable Telephone Amplifier, and now I believe my hotel phone problems may have disappeared forever. Read more
Hearing Aids And Cellphones: One Step Forward, Half A Step Back
Making a cellphone easy to use with a hearing aid is devilishly hard. Both devices are packed with so many chips and other digital electronics that electromagnetic interference causing feedback, static and distortion is bound to occur in one or both devices. Last week, the cellphone/hearing-aid industry coalition that is racing to meet Federal Communications Commission (FCC) requirements for hearing-aid compatibility issued a good-news, bad-news update. Read more
A Comment on Amplified Phone Design
You can tell it’s an amplified phone by the size of the buttons. A lot of hearing impaired people are old, and a lot of old people also have trouble with their vision. Therefore, most amplified phones are designed with HUGE buttons with ENORMOUS numbers on them. It’s great the manufacturers can kill two birds with one stone. But consumers aren’t birds. I don’t need the big buttons, thank you. Read more
Bells and Whistles: My Search for the Perfect Amplified Phone
I recently went through a long process acquiring an amplified phone. If you’re a phone junkie like I am, you will want all the bells and whistles, even the ones you rarely use. Until recently, there wasn’t much to choose from. Perhaps the market for these souped-up devices was just so small, or the technology to make phones work well for hearing-impaired people was so expensive, that most phone manufacturers didn’t bother. However, recently we have seen an increasing number of options available, from both traditional and new suppliers. Read more
