I can't believe Apple failed to make its iPhone compatible with either hearing aids or cochlear implants. I'm in the market for a mobile phone again and just discovered the lack of compatibility. Given all the hype surrounding the iPhone launch, I'm surprised there haven't been more complaints, other than the strong objection I just found on Paula Rosenthal's HearingExchange site, some chatter on Apple forums, and a complaint made to the FCC by the Hearing Loss Association of America. HLAA has done the most advocacy for hearing-aid compatibility (HAC) regulations, which now mandate 50 percent of manufacturers' handsets meet minimum M3 compatibility standards. The M3 and M4 ratings mean there's no buzzing when you listen to the phone with your hearing-aid microphone on, and T3 and T4 ratings mean the phone works with the telecoils in your hearing aids. But according to the HLAA complaint: "Apple has now entered the scene and is predicted to shake up the entire wireless industry. Yet they are not, nor have ever been, involved in any discussions regarding HAC requirements." Steve Jobs is known for his arrogance and inflexibility when it comes to the design of his products. Apple's treatment of the hearing-impaired population is a great example. What a disappointment.
Posted by David on Sep 20, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)
Agilent Makes It Easy To Design Hearing-Aid Compatible Cell Phones
Now there's no excuse. Agilent Technologies has come up with a design system enabling manufacturers of mobile phones to easily ensure their handsets meet all the hearing-aid-compatibility (HAC) standards mandated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). The news release and associated product material on the new Antenna Modeling Design System (AMDS) are worth looking at because they give a tutorial on electro-magnetic radition and the shielding technology required to assure your hearing aids are actually able to hear the sounds coming out of your cell phone. "By February 2008, all wireless carriers in the U.S. must ensure that 50 percent of their phones are hearing-aid compatible," says Agilent Product Marketing Manager Erwin De Baetselier. "Today, we are leading the industry by offering HAC compatibility tests in our EM simulation environment, ensuring that designers of wireless devices will be able to meet these important and rigorous specifications." I've written before about the foot-dragging by mobile phone manfacturers unwilling to put the extra effort into designing hearing-aid-compatible phones, and it's good to see a leading supplier of components and design services taking the FCC mandate seriously.
Posted by David on Sep 11, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)
How To Find A Hearing-Aid-Compatible Mobile Phone
Bryan Lockwood has written in with a tip on a site that makes it very easy to find out whether the mobile phone you are shopping for will be compatible with your hearing aids. PhoneScoop.com has a phone finder which lets you search for hearing-aid compatible phones, including their 'M' and 'T' ratings. When you get there, click 'show all options' and then scroll to the middle of the page where you will find a list under the heading Hearing Aid Compatible. Then you can check off the options you need. M3 or greater means your hearing aids microphones won't get interference from the phone; T3 or greater means the phone will be compatible with the telecoils in your hearing aids which, if you have them, transmits the voice signal directly into your aids without distortion by the microphone. I've written a lengthier piece on finding the right mobile phone on the Healthy Hearing web site which gives more advice as well.
Posted by David on Aug 12, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Hatis Assistive Listening Devices Make Hearing Aids Phone- and iPod-Friendly
To listen to an iPod or communicate successfully on the phone, even on my most powerful amplified phone, I need to hear with both ears. I've found the best way to accomplish that trick is with a line of products from Hatis that plug into my iPod and my phones. They have ear hooks that hang behind my ears and transmit directly into my telecoil-equipped hearing aids. Hatis products can plug into your cell phone with a 2.5 mm jack or into your iPod, CD player or other device with a 3.5 mm jack. Their silhouette ear hooks are slim, broad and flat, and their patented technology provides better transmission through the telecoils than any other silhouette product I've tried. These products are a godsend, because without binaural listening assistance in stereo, I can't use the phone, at least not for normal business conversations.
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Posted by David on May 2, 2007 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)
Check Out 'The Mobile Phone Challenge' At Healthy Hearing
Dr. Paul Dybala, who runs two excellent web sites for hard-of-hearing consumers and hearing health professionals -- Healthy Hearing and Audiology Online -- asked me to contribute an article to Healthy Hearing on my experiences shopping for mobile phones that would work with my powerful hearing aids. It was a fun exercise and has driven a lot of traffic to Hearing Mojo. It's entitled 'The Mobile Phone Challenge.' Check it out!
Posted by David on Jul 30, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)
Vortis Cell Phone Antenna Reduces Hearing-Aid Interference
A start-up company based in Glasgow, Scotland, has developed an innovative antenna technology eliminating the electrical interference that can make cell phones impossible to use with hearing aids. Dual-antenna array technology built into the Vortis Technologies Ltd. antenna radiates electrical signals in a figure-eight pattern out and away from the user's head and hearing aids. The result is not only buzz-free reception through the hearing aids but also lower power consumption and longer battery life, because the phone has to work less hard to deliver a clear signal. It has the added benefit of eliminating radiation directed at the head that some still fear may cause long-term health problems. A Silicon Valley telecommunications entrepreneur, James Johnson, began working on the innovative antenna technology in the '90s and located the company in Scotland to address the emerging European Union market for accessible solutions. With the U.S. Federal Communications Commission recently mandating cell phone compatibility with hearing aids, Vortis Technologies has its sights set on a major global market. The Vortis antenna is being sold direct to consumers as an attachment to existing handsets, and the company is talking with major manufacturers about the possibility of building the antenna into their phones.
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Posted by David on Apr 15, 2006 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)
ClearSounds IL40: An In-Line Telephone Amplifer For All Seasons
Usually hotel telephones are a nightmare for me. They almost never work, even with my telecoil setting turned on and my hearing-aid volume set as high as it will go. (And then, insult is added to injury when the first call I want to make is to complain about the closed-captioning on the TV set not working, but I have to schlepp to the front desk in person to complain instead). I have the same problem with phones I try to use at clients, at friends' houses... anywhere other than home, where I can rely on my trusty amplified desktop phone. But on our recent trip to New York, I tried out a ClearSounds IL40 Portable Telephone Amplifier, and now I believe my hotel phone problems may have disappeared forever. When I plugged it into the standard hotel-room phone, all of a sudden I could hear the voice at the front desk as well as if I were calling from home. In no time I was making dinner reservations, calling the parking attendant, and just for fun, calling for the local weather.
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Posted by David on Nov 20, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
Digital Clarity Power From Clarity Products Is Chock-Full Of Digital Signal Processing Performance
Several weeks ago I complained that Clarity Products hadn't adequately explained the enhanced Digital Clarity Power (DCP) technology it was promoting as the latest and greatest innovation for its cordless and amplified telephones. Clarity was quick to answer my questions with comments on the blog post. And now on their website they've unveiled the technical background information they promised. DCP uses a digital signal processing chip and sophisticated algorithms borrowed similar to those found in hearing aids to improve the performance of its amplified phones. DCP has three main features: Multiband Compression, Acoustic Echo Cancellation and Noise Reduction. Multiband compression uses proprietary algorithms to determine what incoming sound is the human voice, then provides more amplification to the voice signals while suppressing other sounds. Acoustic echo cancellation elminates the feedback that happens when amplified signals from the speaker are picked up by the microphone. And noise reduction reduces the hiss, static and background noise found on many connections, which amplified phones often exacerbate. The technology is featured in the company's new amplified Clarity Professional C2210 corded desktop phone and in its new amplified cordless portable phone, the Clarity Professional 4205. Other than the new cordless and corded amplified phones from ClearSounds, I haven't seen any other manufacturers delivering such advanced technology in full-featured office phones for hard-of-hearing consumers. In addition to its updated website, Clarity Products has been turning on the public relations machine. This past week, BusinessWeek magazine featured the Plantronics subsidiary and its new DCP technology in a major feature article.
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Posted by David on Nov 17, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)
A Comment on Amplified Phone Design
You can tell it's an amplified phone by the size of the buttons. A lot of hearing impaired people are old, and a lot of old people also have trouble with their vision. Therefore, most amplified phones are designed with HUGE buttons with ENORMOUS numbers on them. It's great the manufacturers can kill two birds with one stone. But consumers aren't birds. I don't need the big buttons, thank you. I see the small ones just fine. (I feel a little like the two deaf people in the coffee shop: when the waiter sees them conversing in sign language, he very helpfully brings them menus written in Braille). Like a lot of the marketing decisions hearing-assistance manufacturers make, the design of amplified phones is turning off what should be their most attractive target market: consumers in their 30s, 40s or 50s who will only be ordering more hearing assistance gear as time goes on. I think that's why the manufacturers have had such a difficult time appealing to Baby Boomers, especially those who grew up in the 1960s and vowed to never get old.
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Posted by David on Mar 31, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBacks (0)
Bells and Whistles: My Search for the Perfect Amplified Phone
I recently went through a long process acquiring an amplified phone. If you're a phone junkie like I am, you will want all the bells and whistles, even the ones you rarely use. Until recently, there wasn't much to choose from. Perhaps the market for these souped-up devices was just so small, or the technology to make phones work well for hearing-impaired people was so expensive, that most phone manufacturers didn't bother. However, recently we have seen an increasing number of options available, from both traditional and new suppliers. Costs of the technology are coming down. And my guess is that as baby boomers enamored of their cellphones, Walkmen, iPods, and Bluetooth ear pieces lose their resistance to amplified hearing assistance, the market for even slicker devices for the hearing-impaired will really open up.
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Posted by David on Mar 31, 2005 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)
