Is your loss of hearing causing you to talk less often on the phone? Hearing loss, over time, can make you feel isolated. You don’t need to quit using your phone. It is possible to stay in touch with friends and loved ones.
Communication is The key
With any relationship, communication is an essential aspect and the same goes for your phone. Can anything be done to enhance the situation?
- Have you had a hearing test? Get a good diagnosis because not all loss of hearing is permanent. It may possibly be something as basic as earwax buildup or an ear infection.
- You can consider accessories such as Bluetooth or headphones if the volume is already cranked up. It’s a comparatively inexpensive way to improve the sound quality on the phone, and that may be all you require.
- Do the voices seem too soft? Check to make sure the volume is all the way up on the phone.
You can take a look at more in depth resolutions to get you back on the phone once you rule out the more obvious issues.
You Can Find an App For That
There are actually quite a few potential apps. There are many apps you can download that work to get you, and your phone back on the same page, some of which are pretty cool.
What the other person says can be turned to text with some of these apps. Not all of these apps work perfectly, but they give you some option that could be helpful. Brands to look up include:
You can’t get all voice to text apps for free but the majority won’t cost very much.
Phones For The Hard of Hearing
If you want to find a landline solution, you can find phones for your home that do the same thing as an app. By amplifying the voice an the other end, they make it less difficult to hear. An equalizer makes the high pitched sounds that usually get lost clearer.
There is also the option of getting a captioning phone. The captioning service involves a unique phone which has a screen. Captioning works with a third party operator that either repeats the spoken words so speech recognition software can translate them into text or types them right into the system. From there the words are displayed on the captioning phone’s screen. You will need the internet to use a captioning service.
Text-to-Voice Teletype (TTY) is a traditional phone system that is still available and works similarly to the captioning phone. A separate device to display the text is necessary, however.
Hearing Aids Are The Best Alternative
The times when you would get ear piercing feedback whenever your hearing aids got near a phone are over. You can get hearing aid compatible phones which eliminate background noise and other types of interference to enhance sound quality. Current hearing aid technology is compatible with these phones. Even when you are not on the phone these wireless hearing aids still work.
Compatibility with both landlines and smart-phones is possible with modern, high quality hearing aids. You just hold the phone up to the hearing aid and let the technology to work its magic by streaming the sound from one device to the other.
Most digital hearing aids are also Bluetooth compatible. You pair the phone up with the hearing aids just like you would with wireless headphones or earbuds. When the phone rings, the sound goes directly to your hearing aids.
There is no reason to allow hearing loss ruin a perfectly good relationship. Make up with your phone whatever it takes so you can start talking again. It’s time to schedule an appointment with a hearing specialist to look at the newest hearing aid technology.