As we all spend more time at home these days, you can still take important steps to manage your hearing health without leaving the comfort and safety of your home. According to statistics from the Hearing Health Foundation, an estimated 48 million Americans and nearly 477 million people worldwide experience trouble hearing. A huge percentage of these individuals live with untreated hearing loss and struggle with conversation in many social situations.
If you fall into the mild to moderate hearing loss category, you may be in a position to self-educate, self-assess and self-manage your hearing health. However people with hearing impairment that falls into the more severe category should visit an audiologist or hearing healthcare professional.
There are existing tools you can access from home to help you determine your current state of hearing health. These solutions allow you and family members to take control of your hearing journey and ultimately improve your hearing. Additionally, they are not expensive, time-consuming, inconvenient nor stigmatizing.
Here are some recommended steps for your home-based hearing health journey:
1. Educate yourself on hearing health
Your hearing health is a critical component of your overall well-being. Therefore, Nuheara has published a Hearing Health Guide covering important topics about your hearing health.
This easy to read publication will provide you with useful information on which you can make well-informed decisions about your hearing health. Areas covered include types of hearing loss, signs of hearing loss, degrees of hearing loss, preventive tips and descriptions of other hearing disorders.
2. Do an online hearing test
Understanding the state of your current hearing health is one of the most important stages of your hearing health journey. Nuheara has developed a very simple and quick hearing check on its website.
- The Ear ID Hear-in-Noise Check was developed in conjunction with world leading audiology research organization National Acoustics Laboratories, and is designed for people who have access to a headset or earbud in a quiet environment.
This quick check takes only a few minutes and will give you an easy read on your hearing.
3. Try a Nuheara product
Nuheara has developed a range of sophisticated hearing devices that are affordable and easily accessible on-line. Designed for people who are not quite ready for a hearing aid, Nuheara’s range of IQbuds personalize your hearing (Nuheara is not designed to be an alternative to all day wear hearing aid.) These smart earbuds customize how you hear in different environments and for different use cases. For example, they can elevate speech in noisy social environments, enhance TV listening, or block background noise when traveling.
Nuheara’s advanced hearing products come with a 30-day guarantee so you can try and return them all from the comfort of your home.
4. Do your Ear ID hearing assessment
Both IQbuds BOOST and IQbuds2 MAX come with a proprietary personalization system called Ear ID that allows you to self-fit, self-assess and auto-calibrate your buds to your personal hearing profile. Developed in partnership with world-renowned audiology research organization National Acoustics Laboratories, the IQbuds use the NAL-NL2 calibration algorithm which is used by audiologists around the globe to calibrate high-end hearing aids.
The first step in this journey is to do your own 8-minute Ear ID hearing assessment accessed from within the IQbuds app. It’s easy, convenient and can be done in any quiet room of your home.
5. Create your own clinically certified Ear ID personal hearing profile
After you have completed your hearing assessment, Ear ID analyzes your hearing thresholds for both ears. The application subsequently generates a personal Ear ID hearing profile, showing the relative strength or weakness of your hearing at various frequencies.
6. Automatically calibrate your IQbuds to your personal hearing profile
After Ear ID has calculated your personal hearing profile, it then automatically adjusts the settings of your Nuheara hearing buds. Additionally, this process uses a clinically-validated NAL-NL2 self-fit formula to fit your own personal hearing profile.
7. Hear better with your IQbuds
Immediately you will notice a difference in how you hear. Try out IQbuds in different auditory environments (watching TV, socializing in a cafe or restaurant, during exercise, etc.). After that, use the World Volume, Focus, SINC, and World EQ settings in the application to further fine-tune your hearing.
8. Redo your Ear ID every 3-6 months
The beauty of Ear ID is that you don’t have to visit an audiologist to re-assess your hearing health. We recommend you redo your Ear ID process every 3 -6 months. As has been noted, this test is quick, easy, and can be done from the comfort of your home.
What if IQbuds are not right for me?
Not happy with your Nuheara experience? You can return your products with no questions asked for up to 30 days. Alternatively, if you have any questions regarding your hearing health process, please reach out to discuss your personal situation with a Nuheara Hearologist.
