Preferred Hearing Solutions

Communication devices are those that we use to communicate in the world around us. Most of them are electronic in nature and make communication more effective and faster and life more enjoyable. Examples of these devices are:

• telephones (both land line and cellular)
• computers
• mp3 players or iPods
• TV
• radio
• home theater
• home audio systems
• GPS navigation
• etc.

Most of these are difficult and sometimes impossible to hear and enjoy for folks with a hearing loss. With the hearing aids of the past, it was even difficult for hearing aid users to effectively use this new communication technology. That has all changed with the current generation of hearing devices. It is now possible to link all these devices so that the sound from these devices is delivered directly into the hearing aids so that the result is crisp, clear audio from whatever device to which the user is listening.

Many of these communication links use wireless Bluetooth technology to link the hearing devices to the communication devices. For example, instead of using a Bluetooth cell phone headset, a Bluetooth interface is used to connect wirelessly to the cell phone and hearing aids. This allows the cell phone audio to be delivered directly into the hearing devices for crisp, clear cell phone conversations. The audio from other communication devices that don't use Bluetooth can be connected through a wireless interface so that the audio of those devices is also delivered wirelessly to the hearing devices for clear crisp audio. The possibilities for hearing aid users to connect to the world around us through the latest technological devices are almost unlimited. It's about time!

A couple of the hearing aid companies have developed Bluetooth devices that connect with their hearing devices to provide connectivity to outside communication devices. The one we find that is the most effective, simplest to use and interfaces to more outside communication devices, Bluetooth or not, is the ConnectLine by Oticon. Oticon makes several different models of hearing devices that use this connectivity technology that are listed below:

• Epoq XW
• Epoq W
• Epoq V
• Epoq XW Power
• Epoq W Power
• Epoq V Power
• Dual Connect XW
• Dual Connect W
• Dual Connect V

Click here for more information on ConnectLine by Oticon