Hacker News Reader

Comment by elliekelly | Hacker News Reader

Do most elderly people even have the dexterity to use the teeny hearing aids on the market today?

You may not have meant to, but your question just reinforces the fallacy that hearing aids are for old people. Yes, hearing loss does occur with age for many, but it's not as uncommon as you might think for those not deemed "elderly".

I've personally worn them since my mid 20's. I'm glad that I ignored the perceived stigma of wearing hearing aids and got them. They are like glasses for my ears.

Not just elderly people. Rechargable devices would be a boon.

I wear hearing aides every day. SMALLER would be better and mine have BT5 and rechargeable. they are NOT cheap about $6k pair with 3 year complete warranty included. Again having options is the best thing, making them larger for me would mean they are more easily dislodged when I bend over to pick something up or are wearing them when working in shop. Having some that have better weather or fully waterproof would be great. I normal take them off when working outside or in the shop. The sweat makes them mostly useless because of the "noise" the sweat makes against the mics. Then the sweat also makes them slick and they will not stay in place. Having options is ideal and affordable options would be great. I don't know why these things are $6k pair when they share a lot of tech with modern in ear options from bose/apple/ect.

Agreed, it seems like $6k/pair is an astonishing cost for what is not unreasonable tech in 2021 for an over-the-counter product at much less.

I stopped wearing my Oticon Opn S hearing aid when running because they don’t seem happy with sweat on a long run. That and wind noise can still be an issue. Also only having hearing loss in one ear means that they’re not really good for streaming audio but I do love being able to take phone calls with my hearing aid.

I’m ok with the cost since it’s effectively half for me and really $3K six or seven years would be fine considering the quality of life improvement. Being in large group meetings with multiple teams discussing project planning could be painful for me. And it helps with your relationship. When there’s a background noise source like road noise or AC or a running faucet your brain will fill in based on the frequencies it can hear and you will hear completely different words.

Did insurance pay for them at all? Part of it is going to be the whole "medical equipment" thing, the other is where they play games with the price because they know insurance will step in.

> I don't know why these things are $6k pair when they share a lot of tech with modern in ear options from bose/apple/ect.

It's because they can only be sold with a prescription which means a lot of overhead and the expectation of large margins for everybody.

Get rid of that requirement and those will be be $600 hearing aids.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com