Major Innovation – Auditory Environment Recognition
Thanks to technological progress, hearing aids offer increasingly sophisticated features and can automatically adapt to various listening situations.
One of these innovations is the environment recognition, meaning the hearing aid detects the acoustic environment of the user and adjusts its settings accordingly.
How does it work?
The sound entering the hearing aids is analyzed for various characteristics and classified as a specific type of auditory environment. This enables the hearing aid to recognize whether you are in a calm area, possibly watching TV at home, or in a noisy restaurant.
Once the environment has been recognized, the hearing aid automatically adjusts its settings, such as microphone direction, noise reduction and so forth, depending on the actual listening situation.
Auditory environment and technology level
Hearing aids classify the sound environment to different degrees of precision depending on the level of technology. Advanced technologies can detect a wider range of environments and offer more fine-tuned automatic adjustments.
So the better the environmental recognition, the less manual hearing aid adjustment needed to help you hear better.
Data logging
Another advantage of this feature is that your hearing aids actually record the time spent in each type of listening environment. Your audioprosthetist can then assess whether the model and the technologies selected are truly suitable for your needs.
For example, if your hearing aids recognize that you spend a good deal of time in noisy environments, the audioprosthetist may suggest the use of a specific technology that will fit your needs better.
The environmental classifier in hearing aids is pivotal in improving the hearing of people with hearing loss. With hearing aids that can detect various listening environments and then adapt to them, users will be able to understand better and hear more easily without having to make manual adjustments.
For more details, make an appointment with your hearing care professional, who will be happy to explain the advantages of hearing aids with sound environment recognition technology.
BY Marilyn Beauregard, Audioprosthetist, Groupe Forget
