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Put aside their Exorbitant cost, the problem with the prescription hearing aids is prescription. Find a doctor. Get an appointment. Sit in a waiting room. Benefit from an hour of testing before selling hard on a pair of hearing aids. Well, the indignity of all this is even worse than becoming deaf.
TV offers a solution of solution, but as all those who have tried to show a concern to a doctor via a smartphone camera: video technology cannot bring you. Audiological tests require a large-headed interaction and a lot of technologies to support this. Each Audiogram I sat down to was in a sophisticated and soundproofed room.
Hear.com– A company that sells online prescription aid and via traditional retail channels – is a bypass solution. It puts all the technologies necessary to carry out a complete hearing test in a box and put it by post with a set of prescription hearing aids, then guides you through the whole with a audiologist via a video call. I passed the virtual audience test of Heod.com twice – that’s what a television exam is like, if you decide to take one.
Everything is online
Photography: Chris Null
Photography: Chris Null
The process begins With a simple discussion. If you have never had hearing aids before, this is probably a good first step; Veterans fighters will probably jump it, especially if they know what models of hearing aids they want (or how much they want to spend). A Hear.com seller will discuss your personal impressions of your hearing loss, all the hearing aid devices that you have tried, previous hearing tests and your budget (as well as any insurance that you have). From there, they will suggest the best hearing aids (from their product range) to meet your needs, although you can also plead for a specific product if you have already identified one.
Then you will set time for your tests and hearing aids, and a few days later, a box will arrive at your door. Open it, and the collection of equipment and the tangle of wires that connect it may seem intimidating, but rest assured, even with a minimum of technical knowledge, everything goes quickly and the professionals of Hear.com can guide you through any confusion by phone.
Despite the large amount of equipment inside, the box is about as organized as possible. Above you will find a Microsoft surface tablet It was stripped of doing only one thing: serving as a duct for an audiology session based on video. After connecting the surface into the wall power, you will find a USB break box to connect to the USB port of the surface. Assuming that all the other devices are always properly connected to this USB break box (which is far from being insured; it is good to check that everything is adjusted), you are indeed good to leave. The surface has no other features in addition to launching the call with the audiology professional, and at the scheduled time, you press a button on the screen to advance the session.
Photography: Chris Null
Photography: Chris Null
After greeted you, the audiologist will guide you through a series of tests. The first is a physical examination of your ears, which is made possible thanks to the OTOSCOPE powered by USB included, which you probably know better as the lit tool with the black and conical tip that a doctor uses to examine in your ear canal. There is no doctor to guide the tool by hand, so the audiologist will tell you how to position it in each ear so that he can have a good overview of your eardrum. And yes, you too can see what the doctor sees directly on the surface screen. Spoiler: there are more waxs in your ear canal than you think.
Can you hear me now?
Assuming that you have no physical damage that would prevent the use of hearing aids, it is in traditional audience exams. This series of tests will consume most of the meeting time, and most involve carrying a pair of oversized and insulating helmets like professional musicians. The tests were very familiar to me, starting with tones played at variable frequencies and volume levels in each ear, during which you press the surface screen each time you hear something.
The test is then repeated with a bone conduction device that attaches to your forehead with a Velcro strip for another overview of how you treat the sound. Finally, a third test measures your ability to distinguish various sounds of consonant and vowel –shot against. chFor example – which is done by making you repeat the words you think you hear at the audiologist several times.
