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...] about Phonak Aims Its Colorful New Audeo Hearing Aids At Aging Hipsters
Bluetooth
Oticon Integrates Wireless Bluetooth Receiver In New Epoq Hearing Aids
Oticon’s latest new technology is whiz bang, integrating a Bluetooth receiver inside its new Epoq family of hearing aids. Epoq also provides wireless binaural communication between right and left hearing aids to make stereophonic sound more natural. But to me the most exciting innovation is the integrated Bluetooth, which enables mobile phone reception directly by the hearing … [Read more...] about Oticon Integrates Wireless Bluetooth Receiver In New Epoq Hearing Aids
Buy Or Build? Starkey Turns Semiconductor Design Over To AMI
Buy or build? That's a question that always confronts system manufacturers. It makes sense to buy standard components, but you want to own the designs for components that give your product a performance edge. Starkey Laboratories has answered the question about a major component in its hearing aids by selling its chip design group to AMI Semiconductor, Inc., which produces DSP … [Read more...] about Buy Or Build? Starkey Turns Semiconductor Design Over To AMI
Introducing The Long-Awaited Convergence Of Hearing Aids And Consumer Electronics
Paul Dybala, Ph.D., the editor of both Audiology Online and Healthy Hearing, has filed a wonderful, comprehensive report on the convergence of hearing aids and the wave of consumer earpieces and headsets being marketed by cellphone makers and consumer electronics companies. In 1999, Dr. Dybala was among the first to predict the mainstreaming of ear-level hearing-assistance … [Read more...] about Introducing The Long-Awaited Convergence Of Hearing Aids And Consumer Electronics
London “Hearwear” Exhibit Shows Off High-Fashion Hearing-Aid Designs
A group of collaborators in the UK is bringing high fashion to hearing aids with an upcoming exhibit at one of the world's leading museums for design, the Victoria & Albert (V&A) in London. Hearwear -- The Future of Hearing, which opens tomorrow, is the brainchild of the UK's largest organization for deaf and hard-of-hearing people, RNID (formerly the Royal National … [Read more...] about London “Hearwear” Exhibit Shows Off High-Fashion Hearing-Aid Designs