love these things!

I'd been wearing an expensive audiologist supplied hearing aid in one ear for several years and was pretty happy with it. It was a Bluetooth compatible device with an app that let you make adjustments to the aid which was great while it worked.That feature failed after a year or so and was the only way to make adjustments.

After a few years we moved about 6 hours away from the audiologist so I could no longer get free adjustments. A new audiogram showed that the hearing in my bad ear had gotten worse, plus the good ear was going downhill. I took the aid to an audiologist who carried the same brand and got some adjustments but they were entitled to a fee for adjusting an aid that they hadn't sold and that was pretty costly. This wasn't going to work for the long term.

I started doing some online looking. I tried two different non prescription hearing amplifiers which amplified alright, but they amplified all noise as well as what I wanted to hear. In many situations they made my hearing worse. They were also bulky and uncomfortable to wear.

Somewhere along the way I came across the iHear devices online. Hearing aids that I could program myself? I had to know more. I had a ton of questions and I bombarded the customer service people with them, pretty much making myself a pain in the butt. Nonetheless they patiently answered all of my questions patiently and fully. I sent them a copy of my most recent audiogram and they frankly told me that their devices could likely help my hearing, but not completely and perfectly due to the severe high frequency loss in my right ear. They made clear that they wouldn't help my right ear tinnitus, which I already knew. The iHear return policy is good, and I would surely know if the aids suited me within that time. I ordered the pair of iHear Max, the hearing test, and the programming kit,all for less money than my single audiologist hearing aid. The iHear techs programmed them as best they could based on my audiogram.

When everything arrived I was super impressed as soon as I opened the boxes. The devices are really tiny- smaller than my expensive model, and they look and feel just as well made.The packaging and printed materials are totally professionally done and are very informative and easy to understand. I put in some batteries and fired them up. Amazing! Know the feeling and sound when you have water in your ears and then it finally comes out?That's what this was like. I realized for the first time how much I was missing from my good ear. As the iHear people had told me, my bad ear did not show as dramatic an improvement but it was still pretty impressive. Easily as good as my high priced model. With both in place I was hearing things I hadn't heard in years. Over the next several days I wore them in many different environments: a noisy restaurant, a dinner theater show, outdoors, driving in the car,listening to music, a live Celtic music concert, etc. Between the four different settings of the hearing aids I was able to find a setting for just about any situation.I decided to wear them as is for the time being.

After about a week I took the hearing test which is necessary before you use the programmer. The kit comes with a calibrated set of earphones and works like a simplified online version of an audiologist's test-a series of beeps and tweets of different frequencies and volumes played in each ear. Then I was able to attach my hearing aids to the programming device and the programming app programmed each hearing aid to best match the hearing test results. After that, they worked even better for me. The programmer lets the user control the levels of various frequency bands which are labeled in layman's terms like “womans soft voice”, “man's voice,loud”etc. These can then be programmed into the aids.I will probably go back into the programmer again and play around with some of these levels, since I like to tinker, but just as they are programmed right now, they suit my needs very well.

A great many people who need hearing aids are older folks on a fixed income,as I am. Custom audiologist supplied hearing aids are a huge investment and quite out of the reach of many people,especially seniors. The whole kit and caboodle from iHear cost less than half what the cheapest professionally fitted hearing aids would cost(Costco). If you or anyone you know is in the situation I was in, I'd strongly suggest that you consider these fine hearing aids from iHear. I don't think you can go wrong.