Over the counter (OTC) hearing aids : A failure?

OTC aids: 70% return rate?

I’ve been seeing more and more posts on this forum from people dissatisfied with OTC hearing aids. Dr. Cliff (not exactly my favorite, I take what he says with a grain of salt) released a video four days ago explaining why OTC HAs are a market failure.

I don’t have enough information to form a strong opinion on this, but I figured it might be worth sharing.

OTC Hearing Aids FAILED… Here’s Why - YouTube17

I’m thinking your well outside for OTC, actually you ment NOT no doubt

@cvkemp said:

Over the counter aids are usually for someone like me and my complicated hearing loss.

I can only speak for myself here, and you may have seen me post some of the same things on the Sonova thread. I think everything Cliff said is probably correct, but I also think the “hybrid” nature of Airpods has skewed the statistics for this entire category of devices.

First, I tried a lot of these when they first came out. As Cliff said, they mostly weren’t great. They also weren’t cheap - some cost well over $1000, and most of them couldn’t even be calibrated to an audiogram. Maybe they’re better now (though the video makes it sounds like that’s not the case). Based on what was available at that time, my honest opinion is that Apple Airpods Pro 2 (and now 3) are superior to anything else on the OTC market for mild-moderate loss and conversations in background noise. They cost $200-$250, and half the population already had them before deciding to buy an OTC hearing aid. I think a lot of the return rate comes from people buying an OTC aid, then returning it when they realize it’s no better than their Airpods that are “free” because they already have them.

Second, I think Airpods are skewing the numbers in other ways. I don’t know where they’re getting the numbers for the OTC return rate, but I doubt Airpods are included in that figure, because most people don’t buy them for that reason. They’re probably not included in the OTC sales and adoption rates, either, for the same reason. But that means the OTC adoption figures are artificially low. I already owned a pair of the original Airpod Pros, but I bought a pair of Pro 2s when they came out solely for the hearing aid features. I used them happily for years, and always preferred them to my Phonaks for media streaming and phone calls. When the Pro 3s came out, I again bought a pair solely because the hearing aid features were upgraded. But I bought them through Amazon or the Apple Store. No one knows why I bought them or how I used them, so this wouldn’t have been recorded anywhere as an OTC hearing aid purchase. I’m sure I’m not the only one. Apple might keep its own records based on user data, but I doubt anyone else knows how many Airpods are bought or used for that purpose.

Third (and this ties back to the first point), as Cliff pointed out, high-end purpose-built OTC aids (so not Airpods) cost as much or more than low-end prescription aids. I’m coming at this from the perspective of someone with unusual issues that several audiologists didn’t know what to do with, so my perspective may be biased. But given the cost overlap, the high-end OTC aids would appeal to people who can afford prescription aids and aren’t opposed to paying for them, but for whatever reason don’t think they can be helped by an audiologist. In my case, it was because three different audiologists told me they couldn’t do anything. People in that category would generally have more unusual issues than the standard ski-slope loss, because if it were that simple, they’d have just gotten what they needed from the first audiologist they saw. At first glance, OTC aids would seem like a great solution, as they did initially to me. The problem is that they’re usually set up in a manner that makes it impossible to adjust them for unusual audiograms or APD or noise sensitivity or any other non-standard hearing issue. It’s somewhat circular: going OTC only makes sense for those who’ve given up on audiologists, but the programming limitations of most OTC devices make them useless to people with less-common hearing issues.