The Food and Drug Administration has established a new “over-the-counter” category for hearing aids. It lets adults with perceived mild-to-moderate hearing loss buy hearing aids from general retailers and online. In the past, these devices were strictly controlled and required a visit to an audiologist.
Air-conduction hearing aids are currently the most common type of hearing aid. When you think of a hearing aid, you’re probably picturing an air-conduction model. They use little microphones to pick up sound, an amplifier to adjust the sound, and a receiver to deliver the sound into your ear. OTC hearing aids will have limits on how much they can amplify sound.
People typically can’t assess their degree of hearing loss, and they’re no better at assessing the cause. Problems that cause hearing loss range in severity from excessive earwax to benign tumors. Trying to fix those problems with OTC hearing aids will solve nothing, and worse, it will likely delay treatment. The FDA considers these risks small and rare enough to be borne by the consumer.
Personally, I suggest at least calling an audiologist. Audiometry exams can be surprisingly affordable, and at least then you’ll actually know what kind of hearing loss you have. Speech-enhanced hearables? Now that the FDA has loosened the regulations, you can expect the whole concept of what is — and isn’t — a hearing aid to become a little fuzzier. You will start to see more and more companies that you’re already familiar with from the headphone and earbud audio world start to make inroads under the banner of “speech-enhanced hearables,” a category of product that uses hearing aid tech, but is marketed to help people with no hearing problems at all.
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