Hearing loss can make everyday activities more challenging. You might sleep through the alarm in the morning, or have a hard time following conversations. Hearing loss also makes it harder to listen to music, talk on the phone, and even watch TV. Have you been turning up the volume on the TV until other members of the family complain it’s way too loud? If this sounds all too familiar, you’ll be thrilled to know that hearing aids make it easy to watch TV.
Don’t Crank up the Volume!
When you can’t hear the TV, it’s tempting to reach for the remote and turn up the volume. This is actually a very bad idea for a few reasons.
- Damage your hearing: Turning up the volume on the TV might seem like a good solution to help you hear, but when you increase the volume, you could actually damage your hearing. Turning up the volume can put the sound over the safe listening limit, and you might actually be making your hearing loss worse.
- Poor sound quality: When you turn up the volume on the TV, sounds do get louder. But that doesn’t necessarily make it easier to hear. Increasing the volume can distort the sound and make it even harder to hear your favorite show.
- Uncomfortable for your family: Are you loved ones complaining that the TV is far too loud? Do they leave the room whenever you turn on the TV? Turning up the volume on the TV can be uncomfortable for your family, and you won’t be able to watch TV together.
Watching TV with Hearing Aids
There’s another solution to watching TV: hearing aids! Modern hearing technology is designed to help you hear when you need it the most. Hearing aids have programs that help you follow conversations, that block out background noise, and that make it easy to localize sounds. There are also hearing aid programs that help you watch TV.
One great solution for watching TV is to wear Bluetooth enabled hearing aids. These devices can wirelessly connect to the technology you use every day, like your phone, your computer, and you guessed it, your TV. When you connect your hearing aids to your TV, all the audio from the TV will stream right into your ears. It will also block out distracting sounds, making it even easier to hear the TV. With hearing aids, you’ll be able hear every word, and even get back to watching TV with your loved ones!
Assistive Listening Devices
Do you have hearing aids that aren’t Bluetooth enabled? Don’t worry, you can still connect to the TV. An assistive listening device can help you connect to the TV and hear the audio in your hearing aids. These devices plug into your TV, and can transmit sounds to your hearing aids.
Assistive listening devices that send audio to your hearing aids will improve the sound quality of the TV audio so you’ll have an easier time hearing. They will also block out distracting noises from the house, helping you focus on the sounds you want to hear. Finally, you’ll be able to control the volume to your hearing aids so that your family members will be able to set the volume to a comfortable level.
TV Headphones
Another option for TV watching is wearing a pair of TV headphones. This assistive listening device has two parts. One part of the device plugs into the headphone jack of your TV, and the other part is a pair of headphones you can easily wear over your hearing aids. The audio from the TV will stream directly to the headphones, so you’ll be able to hear every word of the morning news.
Tips for TV Watching
Along with finding the right hearing aids or assistive listening devices, we have a few tips for TV watching:
- Turn off any background noise, like the radio or any other audio
- Turn on closed captioning on the TV so that you can read what’s being said on screen
- Get quality speakers for the TV to improve the sound quality