Top New Hearing Aids - Updated Sept 2021

[UPDATED SEPT 2021]

Today's hearing aids are beginning to attract a younger, more tech-savvy audience with features including artificial intelligence, Bluetooth, lithium-ion rechargeability, and more discreet designs. With these more sophisticated models now on the market, 2021 is shaping up to be the best year ever for hearing technology, with users poised to benefit.

Let's take a look at some of the best hearing aids out this year.

Widex Moment

The SoundSense Learn technology of the Widex Moment modifies hearing aid settings using artificial intelligence in two ways. First, by evaluating settings and leading them through a series of A-B comparisons, the hearing aid learns how users prefer to hear in their environment. Second, it helps personalize the listening experience by drawing from the individual preferences of millions of user settings from Widex hearing aid users worldwide.

The WIDEX MOMENT also features ZeroDelay technology to reduce the average sound delay from 7-10 milliseconds to 0.5 milliseconds, delivering a much more natural sound than comparable hearing aids.

Widex's latest hearing aid model has already drawn praise from industry insiders - it was recently picked as an honoree in the CES 2021 Innovation Awards Health & Wellness and Wearable Technologies categories.

The Resound One

The ReSound ONE represents an entirely new type of hearing aid. Known as Microphone and Receiver-in-the-ear (M&RIE), two microphones are mounted behind the ear in line with conventional hearing aids. With the Resound ONE, however, the company adds a third microphone at the opening to the ear canal, enhancing the wearer's ability to determine the direction from which sound is coming from. This makes hearing clearer than ever.

The ReSound ONE is appropriate for those who have mild to severe hearing loss. It runs on ReSound’s fastest and most efficient C6 Chip Platform. Its main features include:

• All Access Directionality: Automatically adapts directional microphone patterns to enable you to easily engage with people and the noises around you as you go about your daily listening routine.
• Ultra focus: a microphone directional mode that puts a laser-like focus on the speaker in front of you. 
• Direct streaming for iOS and Android 
• Rechargeable batteries that  last up to 30 hours
• Smartphone app control
• Remote fine-tuning

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The ReSound ONE provides many other useful features, including simple Bluetooth communication and access to remote on-demand hearing services.

Oticon More

Following the popularity of Oticon's previous flagship model (the Opn), the company is back with the Oticon More.

Oticon More scans and analyzes the sound scene around you 500 times a second and collects and processes all this sound information with clarity and balance.

The Oticon More features a deep neural network, which is trained on 12 million real-life sounds to interpret speech much as the human brain does in noise, providing the brain with more knowledge required to hear the subtleties of the sounds around us.

This deep neural network technology allows the new hearing aid to help increase speech comprehension, reduce the effort needed to hear, and let users recall more of what is being said, even when surrounded by background noise.

The Oticon More takes the Open Sound Navigator concept from earlier Oticon hearing aids and pushes it further by using a deep neural network. The user has 30 percent more access to sounds and 15 percent better speech interpretation with less listening effort. The deep neural network's output is said to offer a more realistic representation of all sounds, allowing you to hear more than what is directly in front of you.

Phonak Paradise

The Phonak Audéo Paradise builds on Phonak's previous flagship model's runaway success, the Audéo Marvel, making a range of improvements.

A new operating system, AutoSense 4.0, is included in the Phonak Paradise, which boasts built-in artificial intelligence technology to understand and adapt to various sound environments automatically. The Audéo Paradise also benefits from enhanced Bluetooth communication, acoustic motion sensors, and a new feature called air tap control, enabling wearers to control their hearing aids with only a tap to the ear.

The Paradise is equipped with Adaptive Phonak Digital 2.0 ( APD), a revolutionary gain processing method with adaptive compression benefits. APD 2.0 is based on a new precalculated processing algorithm that can reduce reverberation and listening strain in noisy conditions. It's designed to strike a balance between audibility, volume, and sound quality and create a more natural sound. The RIC-style Audéo Paradise is available in a rechargeable or non-rechargeable version, and with or without a telecoil.

Signia Styletto X

The Styletto X has been designed to appeal to those who would not otherwise consider wearing hearing aids with its slim, rounded shape and striking color combinations. This seems to be working - a recent study by Signia found the eye-catching Styletto form factor was favored by 8 out of 10 hearing aid wearers. The Styletto X is the first hearing aid model to implement Qi wireless charging technology, allowing users to conveniently place the model on a charging pad instead of plugging it into a charging port.

Signia also included some game-changing developments with the Styletto X that solve the hearing and health-related problems raised by the COVID-19 pandemic. There is now a mask setting, which makes it easier to understand people wearing a mask. Another critical development is the introduction of Signia Remote Care, which allows the user to access hearing health care from the comfort of their own home, including live hearing aid reprogramming.

We hope you are as excited as we are when it comes to hearing aids in 2021. If you're looking to upgrade your hearing aid technology this year, contact us to set up an appointment.

Further research: See the Phonak Paradise compared to Oticon More.

Starkey Evolv AI (replaces Starkey Livio)

This groundbreaking new hearing aid is the latest offering from Starkey and builds on their previous AI-powered hearing aid, the Livio AI. 

Starkey Sound, a ground-breaking technology created by years of refining Starkey's research and science-based algorithms to power high-fidelity audio, is the foundation of The new Evolv AI. Starkey Sound, like the brain, is meant to automatically eliminate background noise and boost speech audibility and intelligibility with machine learning technology.

The Evolv AI has the following capabilities:

• A 40% reduction in noise compared to previous models.
• A new and updated Edge Mode
• Fall Alert and Voice Reminders.
• Enhancements to the Thrive App usability
  

Bluetooth connectivity is available across the Evolv AI line, from the solid behind-the-ear devices to the nearly invisible, totally in-the-ear canal ones. The new Thrive app, currently available for Apple devices and 38 Android smartphones, connects them all. It also now has a more user-friendly fitness tracking system and quicker access to streaming devices.

Signia Active Pro

Signia wants to serve a new type of hearing aid wearer with the Active Pro: those who want hearing aids that look like earbuds and improve their hearing without the stigma. Signia Active meets this demand by offering users a gadget that is as attractive as it is functional.

The Active Pro hearing aids from Signia bridge the gap between hearing aids and earbuds, incorporating more than a century of research and development into a new and groundbreaking form factor.

One of the most challenging obstacles for folks who develop hearing aids is hearing in noisy environments. The Signia Active addresses these issues using Signia Xperience technology's "true-to-life sound" and Dynamic Soundscape Processing, which helps deliver better sound and speech clarity in any environment, including when moving. With Rechargeability, iPhone streaming and an all-day battery. The Active Pro could be precisely what you've been looking for.

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