Resound have launched the Mini-Microphone to work in unison with their wireless compatible ‘Alera’ hearing aids.
(Understand what ‘wireless compatible’ means – click here)
Recent research by students for speech recognition scores (SRS) in noise showed that at 1.8m distance from a speaker they could achieve 95% SRS, but this decreased to 60% at 7.3m distance. For people with a hearing loss this can be even worse.
The problem with distance is that sound levels drop 6dB every doubling of distance, but more importantly the clarity of speech is lost more so, as these represent the quieter parts of speech and high frequency waves do not travel as far.
FM systems have been used for a number of years to help with this is large classroom situations for example, but are notoriously expensive as add-on’s to hearing aids.
The advent of Bluetooth and wireless connectivity allows us to introduce new accessories that help to overcome noise and distance problems for speech recognition.
We already have TV and telephone adaptors which transit the signal direct into the hearing aid (dependent on model and style of aids). Two companies, namely Oticon and GN Resound, have now launched a mini-microphone which can be worn by a speaker and transmitted to the person with hearing aids, thus getting the speech signal into the hearing aids with less intrusion. The one downside being that if there are many speakers it may not be so suitable – but they can’t cater for every problem! A good example for use would be when driving and the outside noise makes it difficult to listen to the passenger whilst driving.
The mini-mic features:
Smaller size
Volume Control
Over 100 users can use same mic.
Range of 7 metres.
Charge time = 3hrs
Use time = 8.5 hrs
More information on the Resound hearing selection can be found here
The price of the Resound Mini-Microphone is to be confirmed. Likely £200 plus VAT – nothings cheap in hearing aids unfortunately!
