Hacker News Reader

Comment by Jedd | Hacker News Reader

> The Hearphones have a 10 hour battery life and don't have replaceable batteries. My hearing aids have a 3 day battery life and have replaceable batteries I can carry around on my keychain.

What's the cost of your hearing aids?

How many 'hearphones' could you have for, say, 50% of that cost.

10 hour of hearing seems close enough to a day's usage, perhaps a bit shy but probably not by much. Certainly two recharged pairs should see you through a day.

How much charge do they need - or rather, what's the size of a recharge battery pack, and how would you compare the cap-ex of your hearing aids versus the cost /convenience trade-offs of an alternative?

View on HN

Unlike a phone, I wouldn’t say “close to a day’s usage” is acceptable for a product that allows a user to hear.

No one's suggesting that people should be forced to go without.

Rather, the problem is that people are currently going without because hearing aids can cost as much as a used car. And the batteries - which do last longer, yes - are one-time-use instead of rechargeable.

Given the choice between recharging something in the middle of the day that costs $20 to a few hundred dollars, or theoretically having multi-day battery life with hearing aids that you can't afford, the former is an easy sacrifice to make.

Around-the-ear hearing aid can optionally have rechargeable batteries.

> Unlike a phone, I wouldn’t say “close to a day’s usage” is acceptable for a product that allows a user to hear.

I wasn't suggesting that people only be allowed to hear for ten hours out of every twenty-four.

As noted in the sentence that followed that one you reacted to, I went on to write:

"Certainly two recharged pairs should see you through a day."

TFA, and parent, is about how danged expensive hearing aids <tm> are -- while parent is all about the alternative of 'hearphones' that are around US$500 (about 1/6th of what hearing aids cost in Australia).

Yeah, the price makes a huge difference. My grandmother was last quoted $10,000 for hearing aids in Australia, whereas at US $500 & no medical visits I could maybe buy one as a gift, if I could be convinced it would be moderately helpful & get semi-frequent use.

(I worry that the smartphone / bluetooth connectivity is too complicated for tech-averse elderly, and that the inline volume controls are too small for arthritic hands. But I like the idea and I love my own QC25s.)

I have a friend who uses the bose headphones but when we go out to busy restaurants or other noisy places she tends to speak much to quiet for me to hear her...go figure the person without hearing loss ends up being the one having a hard time understanding!

I've got some passive noise isolating earbuds for concerts. I wore them to Gamescom and my wife kept asking me to speak up because I had the exact same problem your friend did. I could understand her speech perfectly, but felt like I became the person yelling and making all the noise.

Please can you tell me what they are called? I think I'd find them very useful.

I use 3M ClearE-A-R (UF01021), they're transparent and cost about 3€ for a reusable, washable pair on Amazon Germany. It does change the sound but I think that's inevitable (EDIT: for this price range, at least)

I would not say it's inevitable. As a musician, I use Elacin filters with custom moulds, and these are great. There is no noticeable change in the sound itself, you just hear the sound at lower volume and more clearly, without most of the echoes.

These are pricey though (around 200 EUR), but definitely cheaper than hearing loss.

I've also used he Etymotic "ETY Plugs" which are more expensive (about $12/pair) but are designed for flat frequency pass-through. They give moderate sound reduction without changing the sound.

I think the key word on the low-ish end is "High Fidelity"; these run appx. $15:

Etymotic https://amzn.com/dp/B0015WJQ7A

Hearos https://amzn.com/dp/B000V9PKZA

These are the earplugs I used. I'm not sure if there are better or worse out there. The price point was low enough that I just bought them without a lot of research and they worked perfectly.

https://www.amazon.de/gp/product/B00LENN4P0/

Great. Now I have to carry around another pair of these relatively huge, bulky earphones.

The great thing about my hearing aids is I put them in and I can ignore them. Unless I'm swapping batteries, which is infrequent enough, I don't even notice I'm wearing them.

Yeah, my hearing aids were expensive. Yes, insurance doesn't usually pitch in at all for hearing aids unless there's surgery required (BAHA, cochlear, etc). It's worth it. The alternatives are toys that get in the way of just going about your normal life.

Great, now someone has to explain to you that this is not an attack on your freedom to use whatever you product you prefer.

> Unless I'm swapping batteries, which is infrequent enough, I don't even notice I'm wearing them.

Presumably when you're swapping batteries, you're not actually wearing them, no?

Anyway, I think you have missed the points being made. For people who can't afford, or don't have access to the services around, hearing aids, consultancy, replacement batteries, and so on, there's an alternative.

My point: Hearphones may be cheaper, but they aren't a substitute for hearing aids. If people want to use them in lieu of hearing aids, fine. But they're a poor substitute. Other products may be better in the future.

A more exaggerated example: Someone who is nearsighted using their smartphone to look at more distant objects. Sure, it works, but it's not exactly practical.

> Hearphones may be cheaper, but they aren't a substitute for hearing aids.

The fact that they are cheaper means that they are a substitute for hearing aids.

They may not be quite as good right now ... but we've been over the affordability aspect already.

For people without access to USD $5k for hearing aids, a 'poor substitute' may be a perfectly reasonable alternative.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com