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Quick poll: Importance of hearing aid dimensions like build quality

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We’re working on a new way to rate hearing aids and would like your input on which dimensions really matter. Also, did we miss anything when assessing the big picture?

Please participate. It won’t take you more than 2 minutes, and it’s a big help to us!

Quick Poll: HT Scoring Foundation156

PS. We don’t ask for your email or any information that might identify you.

23 people in this conversation14 min readJump to latest

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Done. The battery question confused me a bit. If I had rechargeables (I don’t) Battery life on a full charge, and battery longevity would be my highest priority. However, with disposables, battery life isn’t quite as high a priority, I always carry spares.

I use batteries so the question was not accurate, but I believe everyone wants more days or hours from a battery or charge.
The question about appearance was also two questions in one. Some people want to hide the hearing aid and some people want color choices.
I find that the push is for chargers and the assumption is that all want to hide the hearing aids.
Good luck with the poll.

Edited

For me the most important things are in order of importance

  1. My understanding of speech this mostly is dependent on my audiologist
  2. Comfort of my ear molds
  3. Battery needs to last the whole awake day, seems to be dependent on my amount of streaming
  4. Connectivity to a phone, I will have a phone dependent on my chosen aids.
  5. Looks and color is not important
    What anyone else thinks is their problem.

In reply to @DJ11

@DJ11 said:

The question about appearance was also two questions in one. Some people want to hide the hearing aid and some people want color choices.
I find that … the assumption is that all want to hide the hearing aids.

I agree. I think the manufacturers have, in general, a pretty boring color palate. I don’t have enough hair to hide anything, so when I got my first pair, I went with Starkey’s 2 tone black with a silver racing stripe. Since then, they have only offered boring solid colors. If bright blue or orange were an option, I would go there. If they got in with the NCAA and offered school themed HAs, I would go there - Roll Tide! If you can’t (or don’t want to) hide them, rock them.

I agree, I figure if I have to else at hearing aids, why not make them an accessory.
I bet more people want colors if they offered sports team, college colors or even insignias. lol

OK, that took less than 1 min to fill out! kev716 caught the typo … many other great suggestions about breaking questions into two as well.

I gues my own suggestion for addition would be:

  1. How important is it for you to understand conversation in noisy places?
  2. How important is it for makers to offer both battery and rechargeable options?

Even better: it’s never really been asked out loud: “If given a choice between only battery-operated and rechargeable aids, which do you prefer?” Cuz I honestly think that the rechargeables have been shoved down our ear canals without the practical consequence of this technology: redundancy (cuz batteries don’t give one a full day’s use), clutter (charger, power cord, 2nd pair of aids and all THAT attendant gear).

I also wish some market research would go in to the issue of user training & support. We get these expensive, critically needed devices and then are expected to figure out (how? where? from whom?) the myriad accessories and applications that can optimize performance.

Ah, that’s a whole 'nuther topic, but it’s utterly neglected by HA makers, who assume the overworked audi will make it all happen, or the befuddled, overwhelmed customer will get it all connected and working like a charm when it’s like being tossed in a space capsule and told: GO TO THE MOON!

Did you miss something? Yes. For at least some users of rechargeable aids (particularly those who wear glasses), the width of the unit is important. A hearing aid that has all the bells and whistles and works great but leaves one or both ears in pain at the end of the day is completely, utterly and absolutely @#%*& useless to the wearer.

I am confused by your title. “Dimensions” typically refers to measurements - length, width, height, volume, maybe weight, to a lesser extent.

Looking at the content of the poll, it seems that you are asking about “attributes”? Or “characteristics”?

edit to add: I ignored the poll for a couple of days because I have no opinion whatever on the size of my hearing aids.

In reply to @PeterH

@PeterH said:

However, with disposables, battery life isn’t quite as high a priority, I always carry spares.

How would you rate the battery dimension for disposables? Possibly I assumed the wrong thing was important. Don’t consider ease of battery change, as that’s covered by Handling.

In reply to @1Bluejay

@1Bluejay
Totally agree on this.

I had rechargeables suggested to me as they were “technologically better than their battery versions”. I see many new users brag on Facebook that they’ve got the latest ‘rechargeable’ hearing aids, as if the rechargeable part is “the main thing”.

I’ve only used a few Audiologists, but sadly, my conclusion on their “product knowledge”, is like a poor teacher… they may, at best, be one chapter ahead of you. I’ve learnt more here (for Phonak’s) than most of my early Audiologists know. I took a Roger On into an Audiologist and got “What’s that?”

P

In reply to @WhatDidYouSay

@WhatDidYouSay said:

I agree that the battery question tried to ask 2 questions in one. I have rechargeables, so I answered 5. If I were wearing disposables, I would have said 3.

Ultimately, we’re only going to have one dimension for battery rating and we’re not going rate rechargeables higher than disposable since it largely depends on user preference. However, we need a way to rate the battery dimension for either case… Possibly we should just apply less weighting to the battery dimension when the product is non rechargeable. But I assumed that people would still care about battery life in disposable options.

In reply to @DJ11

@DJ11 said:

The question about appearance was also two questions in one. Some people want to hide the hearing aid and some people want color choices.

Yeah, I struggled with that one too. I guess I might break out invisibility / discretion as a separate question in the poll to see what happens.

Updated here:

image

Sadly this means I’ll have a fork in my data, but I think worth getting it right!

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