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NEW Signia AX Hearing Aids!

Hi, I’m Dr. Egan from Now Hear This®, and today I’m going to tell you about some exciting new hearing aid updates from a company called Signia. 

Several years ago, they came out with the AX platform and it was really exciting at the time. They came out with Silk hearing aids, which were tiny, little hearing aids which were battery-operated, and they looked like this. You open and close the battery door every couple of days, and they were much more discreet.

 Most recently, they came out with the IX platform, which has quite a few new exciting updates that they built upon the AX platform. First, I’m going to tell you about their behind-the-ear hearing aid, which looks like this. One of the exciting new things about this is that they now have an IP-68 water rating, meaning the hearing aid, the body of the hearing aid can be left in water up to a meter deep for up to an hour and it will still function okay. Now, it does damage the wire, but that can be easily switched out in clinic. The really nice thing about that, once a hearing aid is IP-68 rated, it means it doesn’t have to go off to the manufacturer for a 2 or 3-week repair. It comes into the clinic, we swap out the receiver, and it should be working normally. We also have an industrial water reduction system, which you can learn about in our other video on that ReDux system, so I would still recommend that we run the hearing aid through that. It’s nice to know that hearing aids are becoming more and more water-proof and durable because life is messy, and sometimes, we get pushed into the pool, and we can’t help it! 

The other big update is from their in-the-ear Silk hearing aid, and that’s what the old one looks like. It has that disposable battery. Now they have a rechargeable model! This is what the charger looks like. A really nice thing about the charger is that it can charge on the go. If you fell asleep wearing your hearing aids on the couch last night, you woke up at 7 a.m., and you have an important meeting or doctor’s appointment.  You can stick them in the charger and put them in your pocket. It will charge while you drive to your event, and then you’ll have a little bit of juice to get through whatever you have next, and I think that’s really nice. The other nice thing about that is that if you’re flying somewhere, you can stick them in the charger while you’re on the flight. You don’t have to hear all that loud engine and wind noise and all those other things in the airplane, and then you know you have juice when you land for the first day of your trip. The other thing that I like is that it doesn’t have to change the tiny, little battery door. There isn’t one anymore, and instead, there’s a little gold contact that clips directly into the charger. Just like that! And it’s lighting up green to tell you it’s charging, which is great. The charge for these hearing aids is over 28 hours of battery life, which is awesome. So, if you’re someone who’s up all day and maybe struggles to remember to plug things in, you’re going to have a lot better success. I’ve already fit several of these on quite a few patients in our clinic, and we’ve had really good results because it’s nice to not have to change a tiny, little battery every couple of days. So, the move to this in-the-ear Signia rechargeable Silk IX has just been huge, and we are really excited to see how it goes with our future patients. 

I hope you learned something from this video. If you enjoyed it and want to learn more, feel free to like and subscribe to all our other educational updates on hearing aids and audiology, and of course, have a wonderful rest of your day!