Wireless Hearing Aids - A Challenge Between Technology and expectation

Wireless hearing aids have become a hot topic in the world of hearing amplification. Most manufacturers are bringing up this feature in their medium and premium products. Technology is expanding tremendously with years, but speaking about compressing sophisticated technology into miniature device, is rather a challenge! Bluetooth receiver chips ain't small in size! The truth is this wireless capacity needs extra space and power consuming. Therefore, bringing up a discreet product with wireless feature itself is already a good attempt.


Wireless feature is not only limited to input signal to overcome the effect of noise, distance and reverberation such as in supporting direct communication with cell phone and television. It also enables data exchange between two hearing aids, worn on both sides of the ear. This function is viewed as a key towards binaural processing in emphasizing on natural hearing experience.

Current market offers several wireless technology. For example :

- e2e wireless technology by Siemens.

- 2.4 GHz wireless technology by Beltone (True hearing aid) and GN Resound (Alera hearing aid)

- InterEar wireless solution by Widex (Clear hearing aid)

- CORE (Communication Optimized Real-audio Engine) technology by Phonak (iCom interface)

- RISE technology by Oticon (ConnectLine interface, EarStream for binaural connection)

- IRIS wireless technology by Starkey (Surflink interface)

- Unifi wireless system by Unitron

Despite of the challenges, manufacturers are trying to produce tiny hearing aids with excellent sound quality, low power consumption,broad connectivity and no ruining interference from other wireless devices. Beltone's product manager had mentioned that higher the frequency-based wireless transmission enables larger data transmission and so helping in improving the sound quality.