OK, so here is an idea in progress… but I think it could be the future of HAs, and we should want this feature. Let me know what you think?
Imagine if with a button push sequence, either on the devices or in the app - the aids would record any sound present . The benefits to this are manyfold:
You could replay what you missed - playing it louder, or with EQ.
The recorded audio, could be analyzed later… by our AuD so as to achieve a clearer and better result!
And in a sense it would be like having a digital audio recorder in your aids!
The media ( chip size ) needed, could absolutely fit within the hearing aid.
There is some RAM there already probably… it just needs to be a tiny bit larger or set aside for that. Figure about one minute audio per MB. Even a few minute would be a major help… but conceivably it could record many hours.
So - what you think ?
What about battery life requirements. People already complain that hearing aids are too large, battery size is always a big issue to think about. Don’t get me wrong I like your idea, but as a retired IT professional and software engineer I see more that just the positive, I see the negative too.
Well, I don’t think that the DAT will use much power, when not recording.
And you could have it set up three ways.
Manual implementation… meaning that you want to record starting NOW.
You could specify the length or the default duration… say 5 minutes.
Or it could be set up as always on…Sony used to have something called the Bucket Brigade its even in video cameras and phones now… so that it records a loop, but only saves the prior x amount when you tell it to record.
I don’t have any idea of electrical current drain… but it is constantly processing sound… recording would need to power the RAM chip… that’s it. The other stuff it is doing anyway.
As a Sphere user, I find the batteries have ample power…
To lose even 20% on the occasion one is doing this… in preparation to visit the AuD.
Or realizing that one is missing some vital sound… possibly that others could hear…
I just think if nothing else, this would open up a world of better AuD fitting potential!
Oh, yeah… I have recorder on my iPhone 12 Pro… but the HAs I think would make the sound instantly available to the AuD via the fitting software. Also, it is important that the sound be recorded from the HA microphones I would think… same perspective and acoustics we were hearing.
The power consumption of actually recording data to a chip is much more than what you are thinking. Once the data is stored it doesn’t use any extra power, but erasing that data and recording more data is a big draw on the batteries. Have you been to your audiologist and had firmware updates, have you noticed the amount of the battery life that used?
Yes! Right, I forgot about the power needed to flip each bit.
So even five minutes I think could be priceless to fitting help.
Imagine, being able to play and replay the same exact problematic sounds, each time tweaking the instruments!
So if we could record a 60 second sample with each battery charge, limited to when aids are greater than 50% charged, and a total memory of say five minutes we could have 5-10 sound samples to help shape adjustments.
What could be a more useful feature?
Eventually HAs will be charged via the sun, or motion, or heat.
This is just temporary phase… till then… so OK to be limited to five minutes total in up to 60 seconds for each recording.
I have been wearing aids for 20 years. But over the ladt 7 years I have had my best adjusted aids. I first met my current audiologist in November of 2018, hebis a professor of audiology and my VA audiologist. He has taken the time to teach me about my hearing loss and about hearing aids. He has taught me how to explain my hearing needs and how to explain what I am hearing and even what I am not hearing. He has gotten me therapy to help me understand speech better. Over about a 2 year period I was in therapy, had monthly appointments with him and about 15 different adjustments, 3 different hearing aids, and 3 different receivers and 4 different custom ear molds, all to find what worked gor my very complicated hearing loss. Now if it wasn’t for the fact that I am a veteran with military service related hearing loss and have a disability rating of 50% as well as being retired I wouldn’t have been able to afford all the effort that my audiologist put into my hearing needs. But not only did he go for beyond normal duty to me I had to prove to him I was also dedicated to making it happen. My audiologist is a professor at the State University Medical School and i have actually set through his classes and been a case study for his students. Two of his students now work for the VA clinic that I go to and sn untold number of is students are now audiologist for different VA clinics across this states and surrounding states. What i am getting at is that for some of us hearing loss solutions is a full time vocation. I fo volunteer work at the clinic and in a lot of cases set with the audiologist and veteran through the hearing exam process.
What so many hard of hearing expect is having someone prescribe hearing aids for them like an eye doctor prescribes glasses, I hear that all the time, and even my own wife still has issues understanding that aids are so much more difficult to adjust than glasses. There are an infinite number of variables with hearing loss.
Like you, @cvkemp, I also disagree with that adage. Glasses are prescribed mainly for CONDUCTIVE vision disturbances, not “sensorineural” (i.e. retinal).
In contrast, hearing aids are prescribed mostly for SENSORINEURAL disturbances (i.e., cochlear), which makes things incomparably more complicated, because they are dependent on microscopic pathological changes in the cochlea.
Yours is a unique perspective. A credit to your perseverance as well as your service and the AuD’s dedication to actually helping patience. Wonder what percentage of AuD’s have both his skills, and his sentiments? What percentage - maybe 3% ? And too there is the environment that he is in - academia - that also is a huge benefit to your ability to be exposed to valuable insights.
I didn’t find my audiologist he found me. I moved out of state and had to wait for the VA audiology clinic to open up. My audiologist already know a lot about my hearing loss because of the way the VA system has access to our medical records. Regardless if it is my audiologist, my physician or my eye doctor they all have access to all of my medical records. My audiologist has even made suggestions about my blood pressure medication so it doesn’t effect my tinnitus and hearing, as has my eye doctor so it doesn’t effect my vision. It is a wonderful thing.
Here I get to truck any hearing tests in that ihave. And my hearing aids.
My doctor knows nothing about my hearing. I said I was having trouble with my hearing. She said,”no one likes hearing aids”
She’s a great doc. She saved my life realizing I needed a stress test. Got me in to see 3 cardiologists.
My Brother is schizophrenic. Cancer survivor. I took him into hospital for his breast removal. Asked the doc if he knew my brother was schizophrenic. He didn’t
You’ve found someone who is passionate about his work. As are the Pros here who help us so much
I don’t think it’s a crazy idea, but maybe not practical. It would be perfect for a spy that needed to record a conversation and their phone was confiscated. Nothing like thinking outside the box.
Seems to me that you are just asking for a Bluetooth digital recorder. Those are available now so why would incorporating this into hearing aids be better than just engineering those recorders smaller and more memory with voice activation? Don’t see advantages in the HAs doing that.
I used to take Ibuprofen or Naproxen for osteoarthritis in my neck and shoulder and realized that my tinnitus was really active after taking either of those drugs. More recently I stopped those and take Celebrex and my tinnitus is mostly gone or not very annoying or noticeable.
Drug effects are definitely a real thing with tinnitus.
Yes, it is a helpful feature, unfortunately it may land you in prison because you may record someone without their knowledge and consent. That is one of the main complaints against Google glasses and they fell in disfavor
