Signia Active IX: prescription grade earbuds
On the 9th September 2024, Signia announced the launch of the new Signia Active IX hearing aid which imitates an earbud headphone. They believe these types of hearing aids will be desirable for those that are not attracted to the conventional hearing aid design and will bridge the gap between conventional earbuds and prescription hearing aids.
Signia Active IX Features
The Signia Active IX hosts a wide range of advanced features including RealTime Conversation Enhancement, Touch Control, Rechargeability and Bluetooth Connectivity.
RealTime Conversation Enhancement
RealTime Conversation Enhancement is Signia’s approach to analyse, augment and adapt to any given sound environment. They state that the devices consider nearly 200,000 data points per second of the environment to understand the situation you may be in, such as a restaurant, and then it locks on to and boosts the voices of all the people you are talking to, helping you hear them clearer against the background noise. It then adapts thousands of times per second to ensure you are always a part of the action.
Touch Control Features
With a simple tap of the device, you can answer and reject a phone call as well as adjust volume. Currently, the use of Siri or other voice assistants is not available with these devices. This is not really an issue currently as my experience is even when the feature is available, it is under utilised and I’m often asked to disable it due to accidental activation which can interrupt a conversation.
Rechargeability and Battery Life
The Signia Active IX hearing aids are rechargeable, and offer up to 29 hours of listening time, which includes 5 hours of streaming. The charger is also portable meaning you can go up to 3 days without having to plug them in to a wall. Ideal for weekends away.
Bluetooth Connectivity
Signia Active IX offers connectivity through the iPhone, Android and also the latest Bluetooth LE Audio codec (Auracast).
As ‘Auracast’ Bluetooth becomes more mainstream, it is going to revolutionise the way that people can connect their earbuds / hearing aids to everyday accessories like TV’s and public announcement systems (e.g. train stations).
Signia Active IX Design
Charging Case
It goes without saying that earbuds need to be rechargeable. Signia do this well with the Active IX earbuds. The magnetic charging and truly portable charger mean that they are easy to use whilst maintaining a modern, stylish design.
The charger can give you up to 3 days of additional charge without the need to plug in the wall. Great for a weekend hotel break when plug sockets are limited.
Prominent right and left labels
Identifying the left from the right earbud can be an issue at times, but the Signia Active IX devices have nice clear labelling to help the wearer identify the difference between the two. They have also improved the tactile design of the devices which make them easier to identify via touch.
Wide range of colours
The biggest limitation of the first-generation Signia Active hearing aids was the colour choice. However, they are updating this to include a wider range of colours which should increase appeal.
I feel they have done this because in the first platform they were breaking a mould and wanted something that fully imitated an earbud.
The issue with imitating earbuds is that it can send out a unconscious signal to people that you are ‘in the zone’ and do not want to be disturbed. It does the opposite of what we want, it adds a barrier to communication.
However, with this latest colour range, which imitates more conventional hearing aid colours, this should help to improve adoption.
Other Updates
As well as the launch of the Signia IX hearing aid they announced an update to their app to improve functionality.
AI assistant
One thing that sets the Signia app apart from the rest is the AI assistant; I love it. It allows individuals to make real-time adjustments to their hearing aid by messaging the the AI bot. It is a powerful fine-tuning tool and significantly improves patient outcomes when used appropriately.
Telecare
Finally, Signia have improved their telecare feature. Telecare is a feature that allows the audiologist to remotely adjust the hearing aids through the phone app. This is useful for people that live a busy life or struggle to get to the clinic.
It offers several ways of connecting including asynchronous (send the settings through as a package) or synchronous (adjusting the hearing aid live on a call). Due to these improvements, we have decided to offer our own unique remote only package exclusively for the Signia Active IX hearing aid
Premium care from anywhere
As a result of the fantastic updates, Whitstable Hearing are now able to offer a remote hearing service so you can access premium care from the comfort of your home, at work or on the go.
As long as you are a suitable candidate, we can send out the hearing aid fully programmed and ready to use.
Click the button below to find out more about our remote hearing care packages.
