How to choose the correct hearing aid for you online.

By Karen and edited by Kim

We know how to help you find the right sound in our clinic really well. We have actually perfected the protocol with some extra time, effort and listening. Now the question is, how does one do it if they can’t take out the aids for a “demonstration” or a test ride so to speak.

We believe trying to buy a hearing aid completely online could be overwhelming.

There are so many makes and models of hearing aids, how do you know which one is right for you? Where do you start?  If you want to buy from Hears Hearing & Hearables with our support, we want to try to streamline the process for you for our online store.

When someone comes into the clinic thinking they need hearing aids, we ask a series of questions after doing the hearing test.

Some questions are easy: Have you worn a hearing aid before? What kind of cell phone do you have? Where are you having difficulty hearing now?

Some questions are not so easy: what is your hearing loss; mild, moderate, severe and do you have a high frequency or low frequency? Of course, they have no idea what the answers are so we do hearing tests and dive deeper in finding the answers.

Other questions may not have occurred to you.

• Do you want a hearing aid that recharges, or do you want one with batteries?
• Do you want one that will allow you to stream music and phone calls?
• Where do you want to hear better: in an office, a courtroom, on the telephone, or your living room?
• What size hearing aid do you want: one that is in-the-ear (ITE or CIC) and so is nearly invisible or one that sits behind the ear (BTE)?

And will they even work with your size canals and degree of hearing loss?

Yet other questions maybe even more than a bit more difficult and obscure.

• What kind of sound do you want?
• Are you looking for crisp, clear hearing?
• Do you want to hear everything around you?
• What level of technology do you want?
• Do you want one with a T-coil for a hearing loop?
• You don’t even know what a Hearing Loop is but maybe?

Let’s look at several categories and then we will add a list of hearing aids that have these characteristics. We have years of experience and this table is not based on any research but simply on experience in the latest technology in 2020-present (2021).