Empowering: bluetooth-headset competes with a hearing aid for $ 3,000

composer Richard Einhorn in June 2010. проснулся deaf. He went to an audiologist and hearing aids bought for $ 3,000, which was not included in its coverage. Since Einhorn seeking alternative gadgets that help to hear, but cost less.

Who is the composer has a backpack of such devices. He prefers earphone for $ 350 production Sound World Solutions. With this headset, he is talking phone, listening to music and ambience. Another device for $ 500 was made to order by Ultimate Ears - it needed a composer to work with music. In restaurants and theaters Einhorn uses a directional microphone for $ 45 and $ 5 for the application to remove extraneous noise. Especially for high-profile places the composer has reserved a set of microphones for $ 700, which can be mounted on the interlocutor

US regulators do not include bluetooth-headset for hearing aids, but reckons to individual devices of sound amplification. Over the past year and a half advances in circuit design and energy efficiency help manufacturers achieve a new level of creating hearing devices, while maintaining affordable prices. Manufacturers want to set to enter the market of hearing aids, which is estimated at $ 6 billion. Many will continue to pay for conventional hearing aids, but people will have an inexpensive alternative.

Why individual amplification device cheaper than hearing aids? H4> The main reason - they are not governed by the law as medical devices. Calibration and adjustment devices make up a large part of the cost of the devices from major manufacturers - Siemens, Sonova, Starkey Hearing Technologies, William Demant, GN ReSound and Widex. Production of the hearing aid for $ 4400 cost ten times cheaper prices for the consumer. Handset makers are working on proprietary signal processing and transmission of information - and this affects the price.

What problems stand in the way manufacturers bluetooth-headsets in the new market? H4> Set not in doctors' offices. The doctor is unlikely to offer a person with hearing problems bluetooth-headset for $ 350, but happy to sell hearing aids for $ 4000. The average age of Americans buying such a device - 71 years old, and this complicates the search for clients.

On sale in the United States affects market legislation of hearing aids since 1977. Manufacturers of personal amplification devices should not deceive users by telling them that it is hearing aids. For example, companies have to Etymotic advertising new device Bean saying "Not hearing aid, but has many advantages».



Etymotic Bean device costs $ 300. In fact, this device technology was used in 1988, but in 2013 the scheme became cheap enough for mass production. The manufacturer uses the same technology in headphones for musicians in orchestras and infantry in the army.

The purpose device manufacturers - post headset in clinics close to Starkey, ReSound and Siemens, thus giving people a real and a cheaper alternative to hearing aids. Empowering.

Source: geektimes.ru/post/247074/