In the September issue of Hearing Products Report, Clarity's Chris Dutton was featured in "Ringing in the New", a panel discussion on new technologies and products in the assistive listening category.
In the article, Dutton discusses the factors that users with a moderate-to-severe hearing loss should consider when looking for telephony solutions:
There are several factors to consider for those with moderate to severe hearing loss, and new technology is making a significant difference. "It's not just about the volume, not just about the gain," Dutton says. "If you're making a bad call loud, it's still a bad call. That's where the technology becomes so critically important." This means investing in features such as sound processing through a computer chip that allows users to reduce background noise, cancel side-tone echoes, and have active noise reduction.
Telephone products for the hard of hearing also feature improved designs that are both more modern looking and functional. This month, Clarity launches the Clarity Professional C4230, a 5.8 GHz cordless telephone with up to 50 dB of amplification. The phone design was inspired by the look and feel of an ice cream scoop. The idea is to make it easier for older users to hold the phone, while the scoop-shaped ear piece molds around the ear and accommodates hearing-aid users better. "It helps give it a depth of sound, a nice richness to the sound, all while looking very cool," Dutton says. The phone also features a speakerphone capability and the option to play back messages at a slower speed.
As technology evolves, Dutton says that even more exciting features will emerge on the market. "We used to have capacitors and diodes in our phones, and now you're talking about a single chip that can process 50 million instructions per second—and that's amazing," he says. "That's what people are gong to expect now. They're going to expect phones that not only look great but also sound great."
Also discussed is the issue of standardization within the amplified telephone industry:
...many amplified telephones advertise 30 dB of gain, but it is not always clear whether this includes the 12 to 18 dBs required for normal telephones. In some cases, customers receive only twice the normal level of gain instead of the full 30 dB increase.
"If two phones are on the shelf, and they both say 30 dB, which one actually has a full 30 dB of gain?" Dutton says. "It's a very immature market right now, and there's no real regulation in place that says what a phone does in relation to any kind of standard set in the industry."
As more companies enter the market, Dutton expects to see more efforts from government agencies to regulate these types of discrepancies. "It's exciting because we can really work to set those types of regulations so that the community as a whole benefits," he says.
Click here to read the full text of "Ringing in the New"...
Posted by John Hawbaker, Clarity
Technorati tags: Hearing Loss, Amplified Telephones, Baby Boomers, Clarity Professional C4230, Clarity