Hearing Aid Recommendation Engine

OK. I tried out this search engine. Ideally, one would be able to select criteria from a LONG laundry list of features. That way, the AI algorithm would truly find the ideal match.

Choices here bundled features, so I ended up selecting two areas: 1. Outstanding performance in noisy places, which returned the Widex Moment Sheer 440 as my optimal choice. However, it came with the caveat of poor performance in noise, and the other features did not compare with my current Phonaks.

Choice #2 I simply had to do to see if “the lie” lives on: waterproof! Yep, Phonak my old Phonak Audeo Lumity R L90 was the winner. But, um, I bought a pair of these and SANK them like a stone in the pool going no deeper than 4".

I’m hoping this search engine can be further refined and developed to allow FAR more selections on features critical to our purchase decision. I like the concept, but question the results I’m getting.

We have something like that here (use the filters):

Hear & Compare Hearing Aids - Phonak, Sony, Bose, and More4

Compare prices, features, and sound quality using HearingTracker's hearing aid comparison tool. Our expert reviews will help guide you to the best hearing aid for you.

@wtolkien said:

If I say “I’m looking for good value” and it doesn’t recommend Costco, then something is missing…

I found the issue. It’s ignoring our value rating completely and just looking for something tagged with good value that also has a high hearing tracker score. I’ll fix that. Thanks for reporting!!

@1Bluejay said:

select criteria from a LONG laundry list of features

I’d like to be able to add weight to the picks.

WH

It’s an interesting idea … Might make another admin page with all manual controls as it would be a good way to quickly see how winners are determined with different criteria… I might find more bugs like the value one reported above.

I need hearing aids with natural sound, good perfomance in noise and minimal distortion
Result : Sony CRE-E10

I need hearing aids with good music performance, noise reduction and social gatherings
Result : Sony CRE-E10

I tried multiple variations asking for natural sound, minimal music distortion and optimal performance in noise. I always got the same result.
Sony CRE-E10.

No mention of Widex, which is , according to reviews, tends to be preferred by music lovers and natural sound. No mention of the SIgnia Active Pro IX, which is the improved professional version of the Sony CRE-E10.

The tool needs to separate professional HAs from OTC to begin with. They are not on the same playing field.

Sony was a top performer on sound at HearAdvisor and offers better value than prescription hearing aids. That’s why you’re seeing that. If you want prescription, or something intended for more than mild to moderate hearing loss, you’ll need to specify, otherwise it will default to best value for very broad searches about sound quality. You can also ask for the style, like BTE (although looks like I may need to implement a hard filter there because occasionally another style wins out due to higher match on other dimensions).

PS. CRE E10 got slightly better scores than Active IX in the lab tests at HearAdvisor…

@AbramBaileyAuD said:

you may want to specify prescription hearing aids unless you want OTC

Perhaps a way to take in audiogram data? Separate the good OTC candidates from those who should really seek a prescription solution?

WH

@1Bluejay said:

• Speech clarity
• Speech comprehension in noisy places
• Reliable BT connectivity among wide range of devices
• 312 and/or 13 battery option
• Range of useful accessories (e.g., remote mics, TV streamer)
• Full, rich sound (i.e., no tinkering with dynamic range) for music
• Outstanding performance on NON-BT phones (e.g., someone tosses me a phone to talk to a person and my aids are not paired + connected)
• Range of bright COLOR choices!
• NON-rechargeable device
• Price

I inputted your list and got this:

I need to circle back to this later to allow the user to dictate any MUST have vs NICE TO HAVE features… That will address the situation where you did not receive a non-rechargeable device…

Some other thoughts:

• it would be nice to allow order of preference, because currently that doesn’t seem to work
• we have no objective rating data for “Reliable BT connectivity among wide range of devices” or “Outstanding performance on NON-BT” so the system currently cannot provide a match based on those… however, I am thinking about leveraging the forum to summarize what people have said about particular devices in real world usage scenarios like those and add the findings into our data model… this should make it much more powerful it extend the system’s knowledge and recommendation potential through crowd sourcing.

Oh and definitely mention you have profound hearing loss!

I wonder if you could have buttons at the beginning and a question "what is your degree of hearing loss, select all that apply: mild, moderate, severe, profound, never tested/unknown that could filter out OTC immediately for people who shouldn’t be considering it. The don’t know button could take you to an online screener and categorize you and alert obvious asymmetries to possible medical concerns. Maybe that’s a big ask, but I’ve seen screeners that do something like that and I don’t know if you’d have to do it all from scratch or just slot it in.

But generally having a few basic questions about hearing loss and style preferences might pick up things people are likely to forget to add.

@1Bluejay I’ve felt you should trial the Spheres for some time. I know they’re not disposables, but….

WH