Sage's Musings

So I’ve always suspected I have some degree of hearing loss. Recently in the UK and attended a dinner for ten with five each side of a table, something was very apparent. Not a noisy restaurant setting by any measure but understanding anyone not seated directly adjacent even if they were speaking directly towards me had me thinking.

So, take action. After some research, I found a DFW area audiologist who also deals with balance issues (topic for another day) but also found that Jabra, an audio headphone company I’ve used for a long time has a hearing aid side (jabraenhance.com) where you can take an at-home test using headphones that gives you an idea of how bad and what frequency ranges are most affected.

Whilst in Europe, I scheduled an online audiology appointment with the Jabra team and also scheduled an in person one with a local audiologist. I also ordered the Jabra Enhance 300 hearing aids ($1,800) because they come with a risk free 100 day trial period and I trust their stuff.

One of my good friends has a family member that suffers from genetically predictable hearing loss so he encouraged the local audiologist option. Having gone through both evaluations, I concur. The in-person audiologist has specialised diagnostic equipment that is amazing and the Jabra team (whilst equally qualified) will want that audiologist report to fine tune their product offering – you just upload the report..).

So, I love both doctors I’ve talked to for their candid assessment and advice. Jabra’s product is about 1/4 the price of the local audiologists because it’s deemed an “over the counter purchase” – you saw I bought it with no prescription!!! So, this is more a review of the product that I use as a result of each experience and reflects my personal observations based on the technology involved and the in-ear/in-brain results. As with anything so personal, your experiences will vary.

Commonality

Both offer a very similar looking product with an app, charging case, variety of ear canal tips, etc. Comfort, fit and device size (including how unobtrusive they are) are really quite common to both. Really nothing to write about here, in general. However there are differences…

Jabra Enhance

Since I received these first, they get reviews first, however these points may be compared with the Widex.

Out of the box, plug the charging case in (USB) and charge them. I did this the afternoon I landed from the UK trip and started using them that very night since the learning curve for a tech-focused chap like myself is rather flat.

Pairing to my Apple iPhone was simple (Settings – Accessibility – Hearing Devices) – they showed up as Bluetooth enabled hearing devices and I added them. I had already downloaded the Jabra Enhance Select app and once paired, they showed up there too.

The Jabra Enhance app is simple to navigate with a great user interface and several “situations” already available (all-round, restaurant, music, outdoors, etc.) so spent some time fiddling with those and their customisation options (noice filters, speech clarity, for example).

By the time my Jabra audiology appointment rolled around two days later, I was already very familiar with the app and importantly, how it controls the hearing aids.

So, my observations.

The application presets are a great place to start and I suspect many users may not go beyond these.

Noise filtration cuts down very significantly on the sounds I don’t want amplified (think wind noise outdoors or in the car with the sunroof open or window down). To this I will add the following that it doesn’t overwhelm with – appliance operation (dishwasher being unloaded, microwave door closing, cupboard doors closing, footsteps…

Speech quality vs noise filter is not as black and white as it appears, however when you try aids without that noise filter option, you will appreciate it more.

After I uploaded my audiology report, within an hour they sent me an updated profile to apply and try out – worked great, and can always be undone if you don’t like it.

Being able to provide feedback to the Jabra care team, I’ve asked for a couple of enhancements (one being a “can you make the amplification volume higher) and getting an updated profile delivered directly to the hearing aids immediately is a huge bonus.

Jabra’s app offers a lot of help, contact the care team options and customisation of your hearing aid sound quality – and that for me is a very large plus feature!

Widex

Like the Jabra, getting started was simple – download the Widex app, use the Accessibility settings to pair (had to “forget” the Jabra first) and off we go.

Out of the box, the thing I noticed the most is the amplification they offer. Here, as I did with the Jabra, I used the default sound profile (universal in Widex terms). Watching a TV program, I would have the volume at 50%. With the Widex, I could hear the dialogue at about 30% just as comfortably. At this point, the Jabra’s needed 40%, however I emailed the care team and got an OTA adjustment and both were performing at about the same level.

However in almost every one of the environment settings within the Widex app, I noticed that it wasn’t just the stuff I needed to listen to that I could hear, but that everything was amplified, including:

• the dishwasher being loaded/unloaded, the wheels of my office chair on the floor, footsteps, opening/closing doors/drawers
• when streaming a podcast directly to the headphones, ambient noise, such as tap water running, tends to overwhelm it
• with no noise isolation or ambient sound cancelation or filtration options many soundscapes became this “tower of Babel”
• sound is often bright and has a “tinny” quality” with a degree of built in echo…

Initial Conclusions

Bottom line, everything heard through the Widex is amplified whether you like it or not. More often I found myself becoming frustrated with them and have been cutting my time with them short because they fail in so many situations to isolate the sounds I don’t need and failing to enhance the ones I do need.

So, the Jabra’s the clear winner? Well not exactly but I think it has the most potential to be the right tech in the right place for me now. Just earlier this evening, it had me convinced that my left ear had become blocked as sound coming in was almost 90% reduced and I had to resort to giving up an activity because I could not reliably hear anything. Fortunately, a pair of Bose headphones allowed me to continue listening to something and tomorrow I’ll report the anomaly to Jabra.