Technology Levels of Hearing Aids

Levels of Hearing aids technologies

Living with hearing loss means constantly managing the noise.

Electronic chips.

All digital hearing aids have chips just like computers. A chip is a small circuit board with all of the electronics on it. The electronics provide the functions of the hearing aids. 

Most hearing aid manufacturers use one chip for an entire line of products and program them to be an entry-level hearing aid for one client, medium or premium hearing aids, for the other clients. That means they activate and deactivate the features depending on the level of technology the hearing aid will be sold at.  

They perform the same in the most common listening situations, and different in more complicated listening situations with a lot of background noise. The entry and premium levels of hearing aids work the same in a quiet room but different in a restaurant with a lot of noise.

Premium level

• Uses edge-cutting technology reducing noise in a more complex sound situation, like having a party with your friends in a noisy restaurant.
• Deliver the best speech clarity
• Deliver the most natural sound

Mid-Level

As a middle level. It works well in a quiet environment but not the best in a noisy environment. It has basic noise reduction but lets you better adjust sounds in each frequency group.

Entry-Level 

The entry-level cannot manage noise very well. This level of hearing aids is good for communication in a quiet environment. It also works better for people who have the same amount of hearing loss across all frequencies because this technology doesn’t let you adjust individual frequencies, but rather a small group of frequencies together – low, medium and high.  

Technology levels and the difference in advanced features

• Hearing aid amplified sounds based on frequency from 250 to 8000 Hz. The frequencies are divided in groups we call channels. Hearing Aid’s software has handles to control the channels. Depending on the level of hearing aids, we can adjust small or little groups of frequencies.

For example, a 3-channel hearing aid may treat all sounds 250 Hz-1000 Hz as a low-frequency channel: 1000 – 3000 Hz as a mid-frequency channel, and 3000- 8000 Hz as a high-frequency channel. More channels (up to 12) give more precisely identification, processing and adjusting of the sounds.

• Noise reduction (up to three types)
• Directional mic (wide or narrow-angle)
  • Fixed – not alter the sound around but pick up best in front.
  • Adaptive – follows the one loudest noise behind you as it moves
  • Multi-band – follows to multiple sound sources behind you, suppressing them
  • Super Beam forming – form a four-microphone array. Provide maximum pick-up sound in front and maximum suppression behind
• Frequency lowering
• Feedback control
• Own voice detection
• Motion deduction
• Data login
• Wireless connectivity (Android, iPhone, both or none)

Extra comfort

Premium level hearing aids have some features providing extra comfort and make adaptations to  hearing aids much easy and faster.