Jan 24, 2018  I would like explain to you the reasons why hearing aid wearers should program your own hearing aids. First, I program my own hearing aids, so I speak from experience. Trust me, I am far happier with my own choices about my hearing aid. To many hearing aid owners, self-programming feels like a great idea. It can be empowering to control your own hearing and your own property. Self-programming also gives you a measure of independence, since you won’t need to rely on your audiologist to make changes to your hearing aids for you.

Have you ever thought of programming your own digital hearing aids? It is very doable if you have the will and are not afraid of trying new things. There are several advantages of doing it yourself instead of going to an audiologist:

• You can fine tune your hearing aid until you are completely happy. You can make some adjustments, try it out for a few days and adjust again. You will not be able to do this with an audiologist. 'If you want it done right, do it yourself.'
• If your hearing level changes, you can make the adjustment yourself without relying on others.
• You have the satisfaction of a job well done.
• You save money and learn something.

Self-programming a hearing aid is not difficult; however you have to know what you are doing and have the right tools. Over-amplification is the biggest concern; always use the lowest possible gain for a given environment. Prolong exposure to loud noises can further damage your hearing. Beware. Also get advice from your doctor to make sure that hearing aid is the solution to your hearing loss.

Follow the steps below to begin your journey to program your hearing aids.

• Background Information: Get some background knowledge on hearing loss and hearing aid. You can start by reading these articles: Hearing aids, How to buy hearing aid - do it yourself, and Audiogram.
• Hardware: Besides your hearing aid and a PC, you will need a hearing aid programmer, a cable for connecting your hearing aid to the programmer, and another cable (usually USB or serial) for connecting the programmer to the computer. Read the owner's manual for the hearing aid programmer.
• Software: A hearing aid fitting software is needed to manage the entire hearing test and to adjust your hearing aid. A driver is also needed for your hearing aid. Read the instruction manuals for the software.
• Setup: Connect the hearing aid programmer to your PC and your hearing aid to the programmer. Newer hearing aid programmers all use the PC USB port. Install the hearing aid testing software and driver according to the manufacturer's instruction.
• Tuning: Start the hearing aid testing program and play with the software until you are comfortable. Depending on what you want to do (basic fitting, fine tuning), the software will guide you through multiple steps in programming your hearing aid. Be sure to read the instructions carefully and refer back to the owner's manual. The process is very similar to those performed by an audiologist. You will listen to a sequence of sounds and provide your feedback.

Without the software, you still can do this by trial and error if your hearing aid does not require any special tools to make adjustments. Listen to tunes of various frequencies (50hz to 15khz) and make adjustments until you find a setting that is best for you. This is essentially what the software is trying to do.

Some hearing aids come with programming software and hardware. You can just use them; otherwise, you will need to build your own system, which can be difficult unless you know someone in the hearing professional field. We will cover this in the next article Tools for Hearing Aid Programming.

Looking to buy a new hearing aid? They are sold in a few different ways these days, here’s a description of each:

The buy-everything way

This is the most common way that a hearing aid is sold. If you go to a high-street or independent retailer then this is how you will be sold an aid. Basically, you pay one lump-sum for everything: the hearing aid itself, the audiologist’s time, the hearing test, the fitting, the programming and the after care.

Typically the price you will pay will be from $1000 / £600 upwards. This is many times more than the hearing aid itself costs but remember that you are paying for everything here, the service as well. Top of the range aids using cutting edge technology will cost around the $3000 / £2000 mark.

The Self-programmed way

Some companies are selling hearing aids (mostly on the Internet) that allow you to use computer software to programme them yourself.

The idea here is that you either get a hearing test from an audiologist or perform a telephone-based hearing test to assess your hearing loss, send the results of these to the company and they send to you a hearing aid programmed to your hearing loss and computer software so that you can change things about your hearing aid yourself to suit your needs.

Current UK prices are around £600 for an aid and £300 for the programmer. In the US prices tend to be around $600 and up.

The Pre-programmed way

This is probably the cheapest way to buy a hearing aid, but not necessarily the best. This is similar to the self-programmed purchase except that you do not get a programmer. You may in some cases be able to submit your hearing aid test results to get the aid programmed for you, in other cases you will simply buy a hearing aid that is programmed for the most common type of hearing loss.

UK prices start from £99.

The service-led way

One company in the States is taking a unique approach to hearing aid sales. I love this. You pay a one-off fee for the hearing aid, which is sold at or near to the manufacturers price. You then pay for the audiologist’s time as and when you need it. This means you get all of the service that you would get with the buy everything way but you do not have to pay a massive fee up front – you pay for what you need.

The company that is doing this is called Barika.

What’s the best option for buying a hearing aid?

In my opinion, a combination of the service led way and the self-programmed way should be the future of hearing aid sales.

Anyone who has bought, or is looking to buy, a hearing aid knows that they are very expensive. It’s common knowledge that many of the retailers using the buy-everything way sales model are selling hearing aids at many, many times more than the cost to make them. It’s easy to say this is greed and that hearing aids should be cheaper, but the key thing is that when you buy a hearing aid you absolutely need a professional to fit and programme the aids for you in order to get the best performance from them – this is especially true for first-time buyers. I do think that the buy-everything way is too expensive and could be cheaper, but do be aware the the audiologist is key to you hearing properly.

Having said that, visiting the audiologist is a problem for many people, simply because they don’t live nearby or that can’t fit visits around work, etc. That’s why I think the self-programmed way is also very important. People should be able to tinker with their aid’s performance a little bit to get the sound that they want.

The pre-programmed way is important as it helps to get more aids into more people’s ears at an affordable price. It’s important to note though that a £99 pre-programmed aid is not going to work as well as a £2000 one that has been professionally fitted for you. I think, though, that pre-programmed aids will help a lot of people hear more and that’s a great thing. Also, prices for pre-programmed aids do start very low but you can buy higher-end aids pro-programmed too – you get what you pay for.

A combination of the service led way and the self-programmed way would give you everything you need to hear as well as possible: a reasonable price, professional fitting, as much after care as you need and the ability to change your aid as you see fit.