How to make a hearing aid

Enter our invention: FASHION.

For people who wear behind-the-ear (BTE) hearing aids, choosing the appropriate model is often about finding something with suitable power. Size is often a secondary consideration. The FASHION behind-the-ear hearing aid delivers both. The hearing aids are both powerful and tiny. In fact, they are much smaller than conventional behind-the-ear hearing aids.

By changing the placement of the hearing aid’s receiver (where the sound comes into the hearing aid), Widex engineers have been able to make FASHION considerably smaller while retaining all the technology that makes it sound incredible. For people with hearing loss, this means more sound with less visibility.

Just ask Niels Christian Damgaard Jakobsen – He’s one of the guys who designed it.

Niels, a Widex mechanical design engineer, says “the main idea for FASHION was to make the perfect behind-the-ear hearing aid package. That means the right balance between functionality and size.”

In the FASHION behind-the-ear hearing aid, all areas and designs were squeezed down, says Niels. “The microphone, receiver and telecoil – even the microphone cover has been moulded down to only a quarter of a millimetre in thickness, which has never been done before.”

Usability

For some, the way a hearing aid looks is as important as the way it sounds. That’s why particular attention was paid to the physical design of FASHION hearing aids. Still, it was important that its small size didn’t mean difficulty for users to operate it.

• The volume control is placed within easy reach
• To change programs you simply hold a button down
• The design also took into consideration the user’s sense of touch.

“Another thing that reduced size and increased usability was the use of tactile switches,” says Niels. “The volume and program buttons on FASHION give the users a ‘click feeling’ – so that the response they get is not only audio but also tactile, as in a feeling in their fingers.”

A FASHION-able sound

Like other members of the DREAM family, FASHION hearing aids deliver outstanding sound. FASHION has also been proven to help people with hearing loss to better recognise speech. A recent test of hearing aid users revealed that those who tried DREAM experienced a marked improvement.

Other benefits? Well, FASHION hearing aids are super-efficient and use less power - so users can enjoy great sound for longer. It is also protected against the elements with the nano-coated Weather Cover specifically designed for hearing aids. This also reduces wind noise.

And for the fashion-conscious, the FASHION behind-the-ear hearing aid comes in fourteen different colors.