Vuvuzela Or No Vuvuzela, Ear Plugs Are A Must To Protect Your Hearing At Any Stadium Sporting Event
Stadium Noise Makers Can Damage Your Hearing
Phonak’s Hear The World Foundation touched a nerve when it warned World Cup fans of the damage stadium noise can cause to your hearing, especially if you’re in the midst of a chorus of vuvuzela horns. It turns out that, at 127 decibels (dB), a vuvuzela is louder than an air horn. On top of normal cheering in a heated match, the sound can quickly do permanent damage to your hearing. After Hear The World issued its statement, the news of potential hearing loss spread across the media and the web like wildfire — Google the phrase “vuvuzela hearing loss” and you will see 71,000 entries. What’s the best way to prevent hearing loss from noisy stadiums? There’s been talk of banning vuvuzela horns at the World Cup and other sporting events. My preference, though, is to see everyone start using simple ear plugs, which can protect you from all stadium noise at any sporting event, which, vuvuzela or no vuvuzela, often surpasses decibel levels loud enough to cause hearing damage.
Hearing Aid Technology Is Finally Going To Work In Hearing Protection Market
Phonak Primero DPD Integrates Hearing Enhancement and Protection
For a long time, the standard in hearing protection for the military, police and workers in noisy industrial environments was little more than a set of ill-fitting ear plugs. But blocking your hearing is often more dangerous than potentially losing it in noisy environments where inability to hear your colleague’s voices or failure to hear warnings of an imminent threat can put you in harm’s way. It’s no surprise, then, that hearing loss among soldiers who don’t wear their earplugs because they don’t feel safe not being able to hear what’s going on around them has become one of the biggest problems for veterans of the Irag war and other conflicts. That’s why it’s gratifying to see hearing-aid manufacturers have finally start applying advanced hearing enhancement and hearing protection technology to the problem of environmental noise. Phonak is the latest manufacturer to come up with an advanced hearing system for people trying to get their jobs done in noisy and dangerous environments, and it integrates some impressive technology. Read more
Why Don’t Hearing-Aid Companies Caption Their YouTube Videos?
My blogger friend Dr. Tom Goyne has several interesting posts with links to videos that Phonak, Widex, Oticon and other major hearing-aid companies are putting on the web. Great, but….Why aren’t any of the hearing-aid manufacturers’ videos captioned?!??! Read more
Sonova Undaunted By Collapse Of GN Resound Hearing-Aid Acquisition
Valentin Chapero is telling Wall Street that Sonova, led by its Phonak brand of hearing aids, will still vie to become the world’s number one hearing-aid company even after the collapse of its bid to acquire GN Resound from GN Store Nord. Read more
Phonak PR On Slow-Growth Hearing-Aid Market Misses The Point: It’s Not The Product, It’s The Price!
Phonak has cranked up its PR engine for the launch of the snazzy new Audeo hearing aid family, scoring a beautiful piece in BusinessWeek magazine on the wonders of its expensive new digital hearing aids with their jazzy colors and names. Read more
Phonak Aims Its Colorful New Audeo Hearing Aids At Aging Hipsters
Phonak Makes its Audeo Hearing Aids Hip
There’s a marketing bug going around the hearing-aid industry. First Oticon caught it with its Delta hearing aids, whose array of pop colors would have made Andy Warhol proud. Now Phonak has caught the bug with its Audeo hearing aids, which come in 15 hues ranging from “Crème Brule” (brown) to “Pinot Noir” (crimson) to “Pure Passion” (red) to “Green with Envy” (light green). Read more
Sebotek Patent Infringement Suit Challenges Big Hearing Aid Companies
Sebotek’s patent infringement suit against several of the world’s largest hearing-aid manufacturers is a David-and-Goliath challenge to protect its intellectual property. It also throws a big element of uncertainty into a significant and fast-growing segment of the market for open-fit behind-the-ear (BTE) hearing aids. Read more
On-Again, Off-Again Merger Of Hearing-Aid Giants Phonak and GN Resound May Be On Again
The CEO of Phonak Holding in Switzerland says he won’t be deterred, at least for now, by the German cartel office veto of the company’s acquisition of GN ReSound. Read more
And Then There Were Six: GN Store Nord Puts GN ReSound On The Block
I wrote about the “seven sisters” of the global hearing aid industry a while ago, but now it appears there will be six. Consolidation among the largest manufacturers continues as GN Store Nord considers selling GN ReSound, the world’s third-largest hearing-aid brand, to one of the other majors. Read more
GN Acquisition Of Interton Accelerates Hearing-Aid Industry Consolidation
The big are getting bigger in the hearing-aid industry, with GN Store Nord, parent of the GN ReSound Group, acquiring German hearing-instrument developer Interton for DKK 350-million ($56 million USD). Read more
