App Maker: Apple Earbuds can work as low-tech Amplifiers

A free app called Fennex can turn Apple’s AirPods wireless earbuds into audio amplifiers, according to the Switzerland-based company behind the app. It says the app "functions like a 'cheap hearing aid'" which "tests your hearing in each ear and uses those results to act as a personalized, adjustable amplifier." And while a traditional hearing aid will differentiate between sounds and amplify them based on their particular characteristics, Fennex only does this in a rudimentary way. MIT Technology Review has more here and the company's website is here.

What Do Cochlear Implants And Hearing Aids Sound Like?

Science Friday has posted a lesson for middle schools students about how hearing aids and cochlear implants including sample recordings of..

"what it’s like to hear sound through a hearing aid and a cochlear implant. Unless you wear one of these devices, it is impossible to know exactly what it is like to experience sound through them. In fact, people who have normal hearing in one ear but wear a cochlear implant in the other ear say that these simulations sound very different from how they hear sounds with their implant."

The sample sounds are posted here.

Hearing Aids Given to deaf Syrian children

A team of audiologists from the Chicago-based "Deaf Planet Soul” charity are on a two-week mission to help deaf Syrian children in clinics around Lebanon. A spokesman tells the Associated Press, "When people think of refugees, they think of cut-off limbs and brain injuries, and all these visible things. They don’t think about the invisible results of war. They don’t think that this kid who can’t hear really needs help.” Read the full story here.

Getting to Know... Hearing Tests

Here's what won't happen during a hearing test: No one will use a needle and there will be no request to strip off your clothes.

 Here's what WILL happen: An audiologist will check to make sure you don’t have a build up of wax in your ears before taking you into an acoustic testing chamber that cuts out outside noise.

You’ll put on headphones that cover your ears and listen to tones.

You’ll indicate when you first hear the tone.

 He’ll start with a low tone at a very soft level and gradually increase the volume.

The same process will be used through ten different tones.

 A second test involves placing a want behind your ear. This test how well you can hear sounds coming through your skull and not through your ears.

 The results are indicated on what’s called an audiogram. It looks like a graph.

If you have some hearing loss – whether mild or significant, your audiologist may include speech recognition tests.

 Using the headphones again, you repeat a word or sentence that you hear. The results should give the audiologist enough information to decide to recommend a hearing aid.

Getting to Know... Hearing Loops

When you see a blue sign of a human ear that's a cue to hearing aid users that they can press a tiny button to hear a special broadcast sent directly to their device. This is called a hearing loop, a thin copper wire that radiates electromagnetic signals in a room. A tiny receiver called a telecoil built into most hearing aids and cochlear implants picks up the signal. With the flip of a switch on the device, sound comes through with greater clarity than can be heard by someone with normal hearing. This might be music, sound from a movie, a or a speaker. Hearing loops are better known in Europe than in the US, where only about a thousand have been installed in museums, stores, theaters, airports, and sports arenas.


The sign should have a "T" symbol in the lower right hand corner of the ear symbol if there is an induction loop installed. If there is solely an ear with a slash in the middle of the ear, than the sign indicates there is some sort of hearing access but good luck trying to figure out what the site has. If there are dots/slashes running through the ear then the sign indicates that an assistive listening system is present but it could be an FM or Infrared system and headsets and/or neck loops may be available.