Where Oh Where Did the Mute Button Go?
May 25, 2023
Where Oh Where Did the Mute Button Go?
Hearing aids can be programmed for better and for worse.
Imagine you are walking down the street and you could tone down the intensely piercing siren, or keep the hot rod ghetto blaster from ripping your head off.
For me, one of the most immediately effective controls on my old hearing aids is the mute button. A quick press on the mute button is how I survive the assaults of city life, the approaching siren, the blaring, jacked-up, “look at me” aggression emitting from some idiot’s car. The mute button is also how I can concentrate reading or writing when there is ongoing ambient distraction.
Last summer, one of my hearing aids was rendered inoperable when the connection between the element behind the ear and the element in the ear was severed. I was traveling at the time, but luckily found an audiologist who was able to repair it.
The daunting experience of trying to function with only one hearing aid when I need two, combined with the awareness that the hearing aids I have are old and getting older by the minute, and my assumption that seven years worth of technological development might yield a new and improved product that is worth the cost of an upgrade, all led me to book a session with my audiologist back home and purchase new hearing aids. Top-of-the-line, leader-of-the-pack, latest and greatest….
But guess what. No mute button. So right there, they are not the greatest.
What happened to the mute button? Where did it go? WHY did it go?
I could only guess some smartypants must’ve thought, “Let’s just put everything into an app!” Need to mute your hearing aid? Use your smartphone!
Aside from the fact that not everybody has a smartphone, consider, please, what that means, even if you do. Imagine you are walking down the street, a screaming siren is fast approaching and you do not want your hearing aids to amplify that sound.
You must have your smartphone in hand or quickly available.
Your smartphone must be on.
You urgently identify and tap the hearing aid app.
Once the app is open, you urgently tap the icon for “mute.”
Oh— and this only works if Bluetooth is connected.
The Bluetooth Conundrum: In order for your smartphone app to communicate with your hearing aid, Bluetooth must be turned on in Settings. If you use your smartphone for anything else, Bluetooth randomly disconnects. You are not aware that the connection has been dropped until you want to adjust your hearing aid and you open the app and get the dreaded message, “Connection to your hearing aids failed!” Now you have to go to Settings to turn Bluetooth on again, and wait several beats for it to ‘find’ your hearing aids. Only once Bluetooth is engaged, the app can function. Alas, I’ve discovered that Bluetooth drains the battery on my phone so severely I started leaving Bluetooth off, except when I am actively using it.
After some research it turned out that indeed the hearing aids can be programmed to include a functioning mute button. Even though I believe my audiologist is knowledgeable and patient-oriented, it took a lot of pushback on my part for her to get beyond the company marketing literature and whatever else to find that, yes, indeed, the hearing aids can be programmed to include a mute button, independent of the app.
So the lesson is this:
You know best what you need. You have to assert yourself to get it.
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image: screenshot of hearing aid iPhone app