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A comment on The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without a prescription. Parent comment

Re:The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without... by jleyank on Tuesday October 19, 2021 @08:00PM (#28925252)
2+ microphones, signal processing chip, audiophile+ miniature speaker, multi-octave equalizer, intercommunication between ears/dynamic adjustment, multiple profile, remote mic, bluetooth to phone. I think the top-end in-ear musician speakers are comparable, certainly in terms of sound quality. Maybe better as they have (far) more speakers/frequency response as their users are far more critical. They're not magical but they're good when there's not a lot of echo.
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Re:The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without... by TaylorAlexander on Tuesday October 19, 2021 @10:39PM (#28926159)
How does the actual hardware compare to a $180 pair of AirPods? I wonder if basically Apple and Samsung should be making these instead of smaller medical device companies.
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Re:The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without... by jleyank on Wednesday October 20, 2021 @08:55AM (#28930060)
I suspect there’s nowhere enough money for apple or Samsung to enter the medical devices field for real. I would think the headphones have a Bluetooth receiver, a d/a converter and a speaker. They rely on the associated device to handle “adjustments”. Might be noise reduceing, but that only adds a mic and a phase inverter. Much simpler device. Getting medical approval takes time and $$… Easier to put fine print that the things does not treat or cure anything.
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Re:The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without... by TaylorAlexander on Wednesday October 20, 2021 @03:38PM (#28935160)
Looking over their marketing materials, the Airpods seem to have much more power than that onboard. They use their own custom silicon chip onboard and it seems to be pretty capable. I wonder if (doubt?) medical device manufacturers are designing custom processors for their hearing aids.

"...the new AirPods feature Adaptive EQ that tunes sound in real time based on how AirPods fit in the user’s ear. An inward-facing microphone monitors for sound, and then Adaptive EQ, powered by computational audio, tunes the low and mid frequencies to account for what may be lost due to variances in fit. "

"To help with sound clarity, beamforming microphones block out ambient noise and focus on the user’s voice, while users can also enjoy a hands-free experience by simply saying 'Hey Siri' for requests."

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/10/introducing-the-next-...

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Re:The FDA wants you to be able to buy a hearing aid without... by gramie on Wednesday October 20, 2021 @07:03PM (#28937989)
One of the issues is that Apple can take their time processing the sound, but hearing aids have a very small window of time (< 15ms, if I remember correctly) before there is a noticeable lag between sight and sound.
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