App-powered hearing aid

[projekktor id=’16160′]

Elise Copps has the health and lifestyle report.

And we’re asking the question: Do you ever have trouble hearing? How about your family members?

If you do you’re not alone — about one in five people experiences hearing loss.

But most never correct the problem, often because they don’t want anyone to know they wear hearing aids.

As baby boomers age, this problem is becoming more common. But one company believes they have the solution. A hearing aid you can control with your iPhone.

Loud background noise can make it tough to understand what people are saying, even when you wear a hearing aid.

Ira Spiegel, Audiologist: “When you get into a noisy environment, you want to make an adjustment to eliminate some of the noise and amplify the high frequencies which give you the clarity.”

Different settings work for different environments, but switching between them can draw attention to your ear piece. The Beltone first offers an alternative by wirelessly connecting to an iPhone or iPad.

Frank Skubski, General Manager, Beltone Canada: “Now you’re basically looking like you’re just texting. But actually you could be controlling your hearing aid at the same time.”

You can program different settings to match the acoustics of your favourite places.

Bill Castor uses Beltone: “If I go into my favourite eatery, and we have one that’s extremely noisy, it dims everything down and I can concentrate on just my table where we are.”

Google Maps records the location and the hear plus app automatically remembers your settings.

Frank Skubski: “The iPhone will basically ask you, ‘Hey, I’ve realized that you’ve come back to this location again. Would you like your hearing aid the way it was the last time you were here?’, and you can say ‘yes’.”

A bonus of the map feature — you can track a lost hearing aid.

The app also connects to your music library. Essentially turning your hearing aids into headphones.

A lot of people whose hearing is poor but not terrible never bother to have it tested. But hearing aid technology has come a long way in the past decade. And it’s possible the excuses you’ve been making no longer exist.