These days, the mobile phone network is a lot more dependable (and there’s a lot less static involved). But that doesn’t mean everybody can hear you all the time. As a matter of fact, there’s one group for whom using a phone isn’t always a positive experience: those who have hearing loss.
There must be a simple solution for that, right? Can’t you make use of some hearing aids to help you hear phone conversations better? Actually, it doesn’t work exactly that way. In reality, while hearing aids can make in person conversations a lot easier to manage, there are some difficulties related to phone-based conversations. But there are definitely a few things you can do to make your phone conversations more successful.
Phone calls and hearing aids don’t always work effectively together – here’s why
Hearing loss typically isn’t immediate. It’s not like somebody just turns down the general volume on your ears. You have a tendency to lose bits and pieces at a time. It’s likely that you won’t even notice you have hearing loss and your brain will attempt to use contextual and visual clues to compensate.
So when you get on the phone, all of that contextual info is gone. Your Brain doesn’t have the information it needs to fill in the blanks. You only hear parts and pieces of the other person’s voice which sounds muffled and distorted.
How hearing aids can be helpful
Hearing aids will help with this. They’ll especially help your ears fill in a lot of those missing pieces. But talking on the phone while wearing hearing aids can introduce some accessibility problems.
For instance, placing your hearing aids close to a phone speaker can create some harsh speaker-to-speaker interference. This can make things difficult to hear and uncomfortable.
Tips to enhance the phone call experience
So, what can you do to manage the difficulties of using a phone with hearing aids? the majority of hearing specialists will suggest several tips:
- Be truthful with the person you’re talking to on the phone: It’s okay to admit if you’re having difficulty! You might simply need to be a little extra patient, or you might want to consider switching to text, email, or video chat.
- You can use your Bluetooth function on your hearing aid to stream to your phone. Hold on, can hearing aids stream to smartphones? Yes, they can! This means you’ll be able to stream phone calls right to your hearing aids (if your hearing aids are Bluetooth enabled). This can get rid of feedback and make your phone calls a bit more private, so it’s a practical place to begin if you’re having difficulty on your phone.
- Download a video call app: You may have an easier time distinguishing phone conversations on a video call. The sound won’t be louder or more clear, but at least you’ll have that visual information back. And this can help you put context to what’s being said.
- Make use of other assistive hearing devices: Devices, including numerous text-to-type services, are available to help you hear better when you’re having phone conversations.
- Try utilizing speakerphone to carry out the majority of your phone conversations: Most feedback can be averted this way. Your phone calls might not be very private, but even though there still might be a little distortion, you should be able to better understand the voice on the other end. Knowing how to hold the phone better with hearing aids (that is, away from your ears) is crucial, and speakerphone is how you accomplish this!
- Try to take your phone calls in a quiet location. It will be a lot easier to hear the voice on the other end if there’s less noise. If you lessen background noise during phone calls your hearing aids will work so much better.
Finding the right set of solutions will depend on what you use the phone for, how often you’re on the phone, and what your general communication requirements are like. Your ability to once more enjoy phone conversations will be made possible with the correct approach.
Call us for some help and advice on how to best utilize your phone and hearing aids at the same time.