accessibility features Tag

cellphone technology

Cell Phones and Hearing Aids

In 2023, cell phones, Bluetooth, and other technology are a big part of our daily lives. Updates to Bluetooth and the latest hearing aid chips have made these everyday used devices even more functional and convenient for hearing aid users. The future is bright with direct Bluetooth hearing aid compatibility now available for iPhone and some Android phones. In this blog, we'll break down some of the latest features for both Apple and Android devices. Features making cell phones and hearing aids more useful than ever before. Cell phones, in general All cell phones will come with a Hearing Aid Compatability (HAC) rating regardless of make and model. From 1 to 4, these ratings indicate how well a phone will work with two hearing aid factors: T and M. T stands for Telecoil or a particular coupling feature in the hearing aids. M is the measurement of immunity to radio frequency interference for hearing aid without a telecoil.  The higher the rating of these two factors, the better the two devices' compatibility. For example, the iPhone 14 rates at M3, T4, the Google Pixel 3a M3, T3, etc. You generally want something with a minimum rating of 2 to work well with your hearing aids. Additionally, any cell phone bought in the last ten years has Bluetooth capabilities. With updates in the last few years, direct connectivity between Bluetooth devices became much easier. Made for iPhone hearing aids have had this ability for years. But for Android users, a secondary device...

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