About 28.8 million people in the U.S. could benefit from using hearing aids. If you’re one of them and you’re considering hearing aids, you’re probably finding that you have a lot of choices: size, style, brand, features and accessories abound. You want to make an informed decision that fits your hearing loss and your lifestyle, so let’s break down one hearing aid feature you might be taking into consideration: the microphone.
Omnidirectional Microphone
This type of microphone has traditionally been the default option on most hearing aids. It picks up sounds from all sides and directions equally.
The Pros
Omnidirectional microphones are great if you want to hear everything around you. Since they pick up sound from every direction, they can generally (in certain settings) be linked to better situational awareness: you have less chance of someone unwittingly sneaking up on you or a pet on the floor startling you.
The Cons
The big drawback to omnidirectional microphones is their performance in noisy settings, like parties or restaurants. This is a widespread complaint among hearing aid users. Omnidirectional microphones treat background noise with the same importance as your conversation, leading to frustration, communication struggles and sensory overload.
Directional Microphone
Directional microphones are a newer technology developed to address the issues with omnidirectional microphones in crowded, noisy places. They amplify sound from one specific direction—typically from right in front of you—and reduce noise coming from other directions.
The Pros
Directionality really helps with focusing on what you’re listening to, be it the person you’re talking to in a loud restaurant or the television, and reducing background noise. Conversations become clearer and easier to follow.
The Cons
A directional microphone focuses on only one direction, so you may experience some hearing “blind spots.” You are also at the mercy of what the microphone decides is important. If someone next to you is speaking to you, the hearing aid might treat them like background noise. To address these drawbacks, hearing aids can come equipped with both a directional and an omnidirectional microphone.
Adaptive Directional Microphone
Adaptive directional microphones are an upgrade to the directional microphone. They pick up sound from a single direction, but they can change the direction of their focus automatically. It will amplify all environmental sounds equally, like an omnidirectional microphone, until you enter an environment where speech is present, in which case it will switch its focus to the person speaking.
The Pros
This gives you the pros of both directional and omnidirectional microphones, in addition to having more flexibility in which direction your microphone is focusing. If you’re in a car, for example, an adaptive directional microphone will know to listen to someone next to you or behind you, instead of only listening to in front of you.
The Cons
Adaptive directional microphones automatically focus on speech, so sometimes it can get overactive in crowded environments where many people are speaking, focusing on all speakers.
What Microphone Should I Choose?
Every microphone has its advantages and disadvantages, so there is no one-size-fits-all answer for which microphone you should equip your hearing aid with. (If there were a one-size-fits-all answer, we wouldn’t have multiple options available in the first place.) But we hope that the information covered here helps you consider which microphone would best suit your hearing loss and your lifestyle. Your hearing aids are a tool to get you connected to the world, and technology continues to improve to help you do so. Call Aaron's Hearing Aid & Audiology Center today to learn more or make an appointment for a hearing aid consultation.