Tech
These Headphones Help Hard Of Hearing Watch TV
So much of what we recommend at We Know Products comes from things that we have found useful in our daily lives. Today, I want to share a product that has changed not my life, but that of my grandfather. It is this Avantree wireless headphones set. The way he talks about it, this product is a veritable miracle worker.
My grandfather suffers from major hearing loss, and he has worn hearing aids for as long as I can remember. Whenever we visited our grandparents’ house as kids, the TV’s closed captioning would always be turned on. It was something my siblings and I became accustomed to, although we were never sure if it was done purely for our benefit: When we weren’t there, could my grandfather hear the television at max volume? This question was answered when he started to live alone, and we would drop by unannounced. Instead of having the sound cranked up, he watched it with the volume completely off. He relied entirely on the closed captions. He could not hear the television at all.
I was surprised, then, when I visited him recently and found the TV on with no captions. When I asked what that was all about, he motioned to the Avantree headphone set, which he had on its charging dock. “Check this out!” he said, handing them to me. I put on the headphones, and although I had to turn down the volume immediately, I heard what was going on onscreen. Then I saw my grandfather say something to me, but I did not hear him.
I took off the headphones. He explained that this headphone set allowed him to hear the TV for the first time in two decades. Not only does it amplify the sound to the necessary decibels, but it blocks out all the surrounding noise and isolates only the desired noise. That cleared the biggest hurdle.
I was very impressed. The only downside I could see was that if he had the headphones on, no sound would come out of the TV, so we would not be able to watch it together. However, after doing some more research on the product, these fears were allayed. According to Avantree, you can pair up to 100 different headphone sets, and then each person can listen at whatever volume suits his or her needs.
The Avantree wireless headphone set only costs $100, which is wild considering it practically cures deafness. It is easy to set up (which is important, considering technophobic seniors are its target audience). The headphones pair automatically once you plug the charging dock/transmitter into the TV.