When you think of hearing aids, you probably don’t think of exciting advances in technology, but, actually, these little pieces of plastic and wire have been through some major changes in the past few decades. The original hearing aid was actually a very large piece that fit over the ear and was attached by a wire to a box that was the size of a deck of cards. Now, though, these things are actually pretty wonderful, and they’re a whole lot smaller. Besides their reduced size and increased power, though, today’s aids have lots of interesting new technology.

Today’s hearing aids are highly sophisticated pieces of machinery that can actually analyze and respond to their surroundings. One new feature is a directional microphone. With an old hearing aid, you would pick up sounds behind you and to your side almost as well as you’d pick up sounds in front of you. This is a major problem when you’re trying to have a face-to-face conversation, since background noise can drown out the speaker’s voice. These new microphones actually help you focus on the person in front of you. Some very advanced aids actually switch between directed microphones and typical microphones that will let you hear noises coming from all directions automatically.

Some hearing aids have this interesting feature called transposing. If you still have decent hearing of low frequency sounds, a hearing aid can take higher frequency sounds and turn them into lower frequency sounds that you can actually hear well. These types of hearing aids are often smaller, which is nice, since you may not need a huge hearing aid to help you hear every single thing.

One of the coolest things that you can do with an aid like these today is hook it up to your cell phone. You can actually use Bluetooth technology to wirelessly transmit the noises from your cell phone directly to your hearing aid. This is a huge benefit because even hearing aids with telephone adaptors don’t actually work with cell phones because the cell phones aren’t compatible with the adaptors on the aid. You can use your phone just like your normally would, except that you don’t have to worry about trying to hear the person on the phone through interference or background noises like you sometimes have to do with phones.

Another basic advance in the area of hearing aids is that they can actually decide which noise to pick up on. This is where the smart aspect of this technology comes in. They can actually sort through all the noises that they’re receiving and decide which ones you need to hear most. Some will do this automatically, and some will have different settings that you can switch between manually. You’ll have settings for things like one-on-one conversations, telephone conversations, crowded rooms, and super-loud settings.

With all the advances in hearing aid technology, it’s interesting to think about what they could come up with next. Maybe they’ll make a hearing aid that drowns out all by one voice at a time!