Hearing Aids: Time For A New Approach?

Hearing aids have been around for over a century but, as with much disability related equipment, it’s only recently that people have thought to improve how they look, as well as how they work. Throughout their long history, hearing aids have barely been adapted to become more discrete and have virtually never been thought of as objects which could potentially be stylish or attractive to look at. The only concession to the former seems to have been to make many hearing aids out of skin coloured plastic, which often leaves them looking less, rather than more, natural and suggests that hearing aids are something to be embarrassed about.

But why should they be? Even if there’s an unwanted and unenlightened, although fortunately dissipating, stigma to some forms of disability (you only need see Richard Dawkins’ recent comments to see that this is sadly still the case), a simple hearing aid should surely not be a big deal. For instance, there’s no social stigma attached to wearing glasses, which carry out an extremely similar function and have been adopted as fashion accessories in a major way (sometimes even by people who don’t need them). Surely hearing aids could and should be treated, in a similar fashion. As fashion.

Tools of Life – an art project by ethical artist Elana Langer and photographer Hanna Agar – shows how possible it is to just that and bring a new way of thinking to hearing aids. These designs make hearing aids elegant, eye catching and cool. The artists aimed to challenge the stigma and social discomfort of disability and created these really bling designs based on glamorous earrings. They do a great job of showing that hearing aids can be a fashion statement. The Tools of Life hearing aids (and walkers which a similarly bedazzled) can be available on special order from freedom@whatiliveby.com.

El-Egance was another idea from a few years ago which used the quite simple idea of making a pair of hearing aids look like a pair of earrings. This may be one of those “so obvious, I can’t believe nobody ever thought of it before” ideas but it hasn’t caught on quite how one may have hoped. The technology is there to make quite small hearing equipment which can be incorporated into an earring style design and worn everyday as a fashion statement, but there aren’t many hearing aids like this available to buy. Even the El-Egance model was only ever a concept.

Here’s another example of the earring to hearing aid concept. Again the principle idea was to help people who want to have a more subtle and stylish product (well, the hearing aid element is more subtle even if the earring may be anything but). Actually this design was described by its creators as “a hearing aid that never compromises on style” . We have to say that that really is a matter of personal taste, but then style always is to some degree. If you like this, you love it. If you don’t, please don’t be put off the idea of earring hearing aids.

Of course, even earrings which don’t leave massive holes in your ear lobe are not to everybody’s taste. There are a lot of people who would not like the idea of using earring hearing aids themselves. Particularly, but by no means exclusively, a large proportion of men. So perhaps statement hearing aids would need to be accompanied by something more small and subtle.

For this there are already several options. One is the Oticon Intiga – the world’s smallest fully wireless hearing solution. It sits behind the ear with an almost invisible receiver wire that even the user barely notices. Its size plus the device not having any buttons to break its lines make it almost invisible unless you’re really looking for it. You can see the scale of how small it is in the picture below (apologies for the photo being so small too).

There are several other tiny new hearing aids which have recently received a variety of international design awards. These are classic cases of good things coming in small packages as they have high tech workings going on within them. They include the Moxi Kiss and Starkey Halo, which can sync up with an iPhone app which gives you loads of personal control over its settings. There not quite as small as the Intiga but look sleek and stylish.

Another innovative and invisible option are Lyric hearing aids which have been described as being like contact lenses for your ears. Compared to other hearing aids, these sit much further inside the ear canal, about 4mm from the ear drum, meaning they’re completely hidden from sight. They’re a whole new approach which needs to be programmed and placed into the ear by a professional and replaced at least once every four months. That sounds like a little bit of an effort and they’re expensive at around £100 per month but they do sound quite amazing too!

There are some great new approaches going on with hearing aids. As tends to be the case, these cool new designs are more aspirational than practical for many people t this stage, due to price and availability. But we always hope that, in time, they will become more mainstream and replace the equipment available through the NHS.

We’re massive fans of the idea of fashionable hearing aids with style and confidence about them but we also love that smaller, more subtle and sleek models are being produced. Either way, both of these approaches are vast improvements for the future!