Signia. COURTESY
It’s no secret many adults suffer from at least some loss of hearing. In the US, the rate is about 15 percent overall and much higher for men. For those for whom hearing loss is a significant problem, hearing aids are an obvious solution. For those of us who only have minor issues — often age-related high-frequency loss — it’s a tradeoff between simply living with it and dealing with the cost, ergonomics, and often perceived stigma of wearing hearing aids.
Signia has introduced a new line of Active hearing aids in an earbud form factor, with the goal of reaching a new audience for their hearing aids. Their target is people who aren’t comfortable wearing traditional form-factor devices but are familiar and comfortable with earbuds. I’ve been working with a pair of Signia Active Pros for a few weeks now, and they’re definitely novel, with some unique strength and a few drawbacks.
Like most hearing aid companies, unfortunately, Signia doesn’t release pricing. But I’d expect to pay between $1,500 and $3,000 to get a pair, fitting, and ongoing customization and service from an authorized audiologist. That prices them below the very top models when purchased from a traditional audiologist, and in the same ballpark as high-quality hearing aids purchased from a Costco hearing center.
Signia offers a range of products in its new Active family of hearing aids. The Actives give you all the hardware, with built-in machine learning that works to adapt to each situation. The Pro version adds a lot more customization options. Unfortunately, without pricing, it is a bit hard to compare them. From what I can tell, the premiere experience of the Pro version costs about 50 percent more. If you can afford it, I think that makes a lot of sense. If you can’t, then it might be worth thinking twice about what you’re getting and what else is out there.
In addition to the amazing amount of tech medical-grade hearing aids pack into a very small package, the primary selling point is the customization in fit and function provided by an audiologist. Historically, thanks to legal regulation, they had the market mostly to themselves. Now that it’s becoming easier for hearing devices over the counter, often for much less, the value of those services is an increasing part of the sales proposition for hearing aids approved as medical devices.
Signia works hard to make that case for its Active earbuds. As part of purchasing them, you work with an audiologist who can load up a number of customized programs that are also tuned to the results of your hearing test. They can also tweak the devices’ most powerful “Universal” program to help tweak it to your liking. As a simple example, when I’m streaming music, I don’t want to hear the outside world any more than necessary, so the audiologist I worked with turned off the external microphones for that situation.
You definitely don’t want to skimp on this process, as it can make all the difference in the world to the quality of your experience. As another example, I’m often in front of a computer and found that the fan noise was getting amplified in some modes. Via the Telecare capability built-in to the Signia app, I was able to work live with an audiologist while I sat at my computer and she reduced the volume of the distracting noise.
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