Hearing assistance

[MacInWin]

My wife has been complaining for about a year that my hearing is shot. So, to prove her wrong, I scheduled a hearing test and now am the proud owner of a new set of Jabra Hearing Aids, designed to work with the iPhone. (Yeah, she was right, again, as usual.)

I've been doing some searching on how best to coordinate with the iPhone, but thought I'd ask here to see if anybody is using the Jabra Enhance Pro PM aids with their iPhone. I have the Jabra app installed, and sort-of understand it. I did try to let the music from the iPhone stream to the Jabra's, but the results were very, very tinny and not very good, so I just let it play as normal, either through my BT Bose speakers or just from the iPhone.

Phone calls were also a bit tinny and hollow, so I haven't paired that either.

My hearing loss is high frequency, probably from being around jet engines (or getting old, or maybe both), so I understand that the "profile" is pushing the higher frequencies, but by "tinny" I'm talking worse than the early days of transistor radios, with a 1.5" speaker. No base at all.

In normal use the sound I hear isn't tinny, so I think it's a setting somewhere.

Any hints here? I'm going to keep looking around to see if there is a site with "experts" on this subject, too, but have struck out so far.

 

[chscag]

Hi Jake:

I hope you find something but I just wanted to mention that most of my Air Force friends who worked around or flew on jet aircraft are all wearing hearing aids.

I flew on C-130s quite a bit and they are without a doubt one of the noisiest aircraft that I can remember flying on. Fortunately my hearing is still acceptable. At least my wife is not shouting at me. LOL.

Charlie

 

[MacInWin]

I did a lot of trips in the C-130 and it was definitely noisy. But then again, just about any military aircraft is that way. Even in the cockpit of the A-6 the noise was pretty high. A good helmet fit helped a lot, but it was still noisy.

Flight decks are not quiet places. In my early years I was the Line Division officer, so when I wasn't flying I'd spend time with the guys on the deck. Jets running, afterburners on Phantoms, then Tomcats, on the catapults, props on E-2's, big fan jets on S-3s, not to mention the A-6's and A-7's. Then when I was more senior, I was the Safety officer, again spent a lot of time on the deck. Always wore the right gear, but I guess it caught up with me. Occupational hazard.

The good news is that I can now hear the turn signal in my car! No more riding around with it blinking and me oblivious to it. Silver linings...

 

[Kenney]

Have you asked your Audiologist ( where you got your aids) for help? Mine loaded the app and showed me how to use it. They are a different brand but I would think they would help you after spending that much money.

 

[MacInWin]

I have a follow up appt with the audiologist in two weeks, will ask then. He did demonstrate the software but we didn't get into details. It was a quick overview. And it was all new, so I didn't know what to ask. But now I do, and I will. Thanks!

 

[badshoehabit]

Try You Tube https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pair+jabra+hearing+aids+with+iphone

 

[MacInWin]

Sue, thanks for that. They are paired, that wasn't much of an issue at all. What I cannot find is anything on how to optimize the sound. The app lets me set environments like restaurant, crowds, etc, and that works pretty well. But what is not working well is when I set the audio from the iPhone, like phone calls, streaming audio/video, music, etc, to go directly to the Jabra units, the sound is terrible. No base, very hollow and tinny. So for now I've disabled that function. I can stream to the iPhone as usual, and then listen just as before, but with the Jabra in my ear so I hear the highs better.

It's not a horrendous problem, and I definitely hear better with them in. Maybe I'm asking more of them than they are capable. I guess I expected something better, like my Beats earbuds produce. And for the Beats, I have adjusted the EQ on the iphone to emphasize the treble, so they are pretty good when I use them. They are mostly for the noise cancellation. I used them when I last used my snow blower to muffle the noise from it, and they, combined with earmuff attenuators, pretty much eliminated the sound and let me listen to music as I worked.

 

[badshoehabit]

Not familiar with sophisticated hearing aids. I have a bog standard free one from our NHS (free batteries etc, too) which has made an immense dfference. On, off, back microphone off and that's it.

 

[MacInWin]

Yeah, this Jabra has all sorts of bells and whistles. Nice, though. It even has a sort of beam-forming where I can have it focus on a narrow band in front of me and diminish the rest. It worked great in a noisy restaurant last night, I could hear my wife across the table, but the kids behind me making a lot of noise were suppressed. Sweet!

And it has a sort-of equalizer. It's programmed with the profile my audiologist determined I need for my particular loss profile, but within that I can manipulate it a little. The idea is to get it set for any particular environment, save the profile and then when you go back there again, reuse the profile. It even ties to the location to allow it to automatically move to the profile when you get there, if you let it. Technology certainly has moved on since my MIL had her aids and it was on/off and little else.

 

[badshoehabit]

WOW!

 

[MacInWin]

If you want to play with it, the Jabra app (Enhance Pro) is in the app store and has a demo mode that doesn't need the aids to learn how to use it.

 

[Slydude]

he idea is to get it set for any particular environment, save the profile and then when you go back there again, reuse the profile. It even ties to the location to allow it to automatically move to the profile when you get there, if you let it. Technology certainly has moved on since my MIL had her aids and it was on/off and little else.

Even without the need for a hearing aid, I would find that feature exciting and potentially useful

 

[IWT]

I could hear my wife across the table, but the kids behind me making a lot of noise were suppressed.

That alone justifies the cost!

Of course, having a temporary wife-suppressant could be useful on occasions - so I'm told.

Ian

 

[MacInWin]

Ian, apparently all I need to do for wife-suppressant is turn them off...

 

[pm-r]

I scheduled a hearing test and now am the proud owner of a new set of Jabra Hearing Aids, designed to work with the iPhone.

Welcome to the hearing aid users Club Jake, but I chose not to use the ReSound brand direct connection to an iPhone and iDevices model because I figured the hearing aids themselves should be able to do what they were designed to do on their own.

Good luck finding a decent forum on hearing aids and to get your questions answered properly as it didn't take me long to give up on the ones that I did connect with.


- Patrick
=======

 

[MacInWin]

Patrick, there are a couple of ways to go with the Jabra. I could just let the audiologist set them and leave them, or I can use the app to get more out of them. I chose the latter. The audiologist set up the basic profile and the app lets me customize for my surroundings and circumstances. Plus, there a a "find" function in the app if I misplace one.

I have my iPhone with me pretty much all of the time, so it's not difficult to use the features that come through that interface.

Sad to hear not many forum areas available. I didn't find anything useful beyond "here is how to pair with your iDevice."

 

[pm-r]

Sad to hear not many forum areas available. I didn't find anything useful beyond "here is how to pair with your iDevice."

I should say I never tried searching any Jabra hearing aid forums and some decent ones may actually exist, I was more interested in the ReSound brand and some of their features.

Actually ReSound was one of the first hearing aid companies to release an iPhone compatible integrated compatible product, but that probably doesn't affect you one way or the other, except for the fact that GN ReSound also manufacturer and market the Jabra brand hearing aida, so you might be able to find some overlap at some of the hearing aid forums.


- Patrick
=======

 

[AirBear]

Hi Jake:

I hope you find something but I just wanted to mention that most of my Air Force friends who worked around or flew on jet aircraft are all wearing hearing aids.

I flew on C-130s quite a bit and they are without a doubt one of the noisiest aircraft that I can remember flying on. Fortunately my hearing is still acceptable. At least my wife is not shouting at me. LOL.

Charlie

I'm 65 and have 15,000 hours of flying time, 2700 on the C-130 and surprisingly I'm still OK without hearing aids. My wife thinks I have a hearing problem but it's more of a "selective" hearing issue

 

[MacInWin]

I could hear when I was 65, too, AirBear. My hearing started to decline just a couple of years ago. I'm 76, so let's call it 74-ish. Not saying it's coming for you, but that's how it hit me. I don't know if the exposure in the Navy was a proximal cause, but it probably did contribute. When the F-4's and F-14's used full afterburner for launch you could feel the intense pressure of the sound in your gut anywhere on the flight deck. Good fitting Mickey Mouse ears and ear plugs would help, but I'm sure at least some of that drove right through.

 

[rainbowcat]

My wife has been complaining for about a year that my hearing is shot. So, to prove her wrong, I scheduled a hearing test and now am the proud owner of a new set of Jabra Hearing Aids, designed to work with the iPhone. (Yeah, she was right, again, as usual.)

I've been doing some searching on how best to coordinate with the iPhone, but thought I'd ask here to see if anybody is using the Jabra Enhance Pro PM aids with their iPhone. I have the Jabra app installed, and sort-of understand it. I did try to let the music from the iPhone stream to the Jabra's, but the results were very, very tinny and not very good, so I just let it play as normal, either through my BT Bose speakers or just from the iPhone.

Phone calls were also a bit tinny and hollow, so I haven't paired that either.

My hearing loss is high frequency, probably from being around jet engines (or getting old, or maybe both), so I understand that the "profile" is pushing the higher frequencies, but by "tinny" I'm talking worse than the early days of transistor radios, with a 1.5" speaker. No base at all.

In normal use the sound I hear isn't tinny, so I think it's a setting somewhere.

Any hints here? I'm going to keep looking around to see if there is a site with "experts" on this subject, too, but have struck out so far.

If your hearing aids are properly adjusted, you should be able to hear on your phone without streaming. I have Phonak hearing aids, high frequency loss too, and yes, it's very tinny and weird when you pair. Depends on the sound you like better!