At Resonance Hearing Clinic we often get asked “What is the best hearing aid?”. The core purpose of a hearing aid is to make soft sounds audible, conversational sounds comfortable and keep loud sounds loud but not uncomfortably so, in the tones where there is hearing loss. This can usually be accomplished with a relatively low cost, entry level hearing aid and can provide significant benefit to the user.

Today’s most advanced hearing aids have many more additional features and benefits. Some use artificial intelligence and learn how to cut out background noise based on your preferences. Others use highly sophisticated processing to automatically cut out background noise and increase speech sounds. Some are super small, invisible and fit deeply in the ear. Others sit behind the ear, are rechargeable and leave the ear unoccluded. Some measure your heart rate and the steps you take, others have special programs to relieve tinnitus. Some are so small that they have no space available for buttons to adjust, others can be adjusted with buttons, remote controls or one’s cell phone. Some have bright colours, some are made of titanium, others are waterproof and can be worn in the shower. Some hearing aids will detect when/if you fall down and automatically email your loved ones. With other hearing aids you can ask ‘Siri’, ‘Echo’ or ‘Alexa’ a question and get an answer with just a tap of the ear. Still others will translate a different language and send this to your ears.

As you can see, there are many different attributes that a hearing aid can have and there are almost always tradeoffs – there is no single hearing aid that has all the features mentioned in this article. The best hearing aid for you depends on what is most important to you. It depends on your ears and your hearing loss, your budget and your lifestyle. At Resonance, we take the time to find the best hearing aid – for you.