Hearing Aids: A Brief History Lesson

Hearing aids today are small, compact and technologically advanced. Using new technologies such as Bluetooth, help to integrate these devices into our increasingly technology-based lives.

But hearing aids weren’t always this advanced! Considering the humble beginnings of hearing aids help us to appreciate just how far they have come – and how much they are able to treat hearing loss.

Cupping a hand behind your ear – the earliest attempt at amplification – may seem a simple solution, but rest assured that modern hearing aids will greatly improve your hearing by comparison!

Attempts to treat hearing loss have gone back hundreds of years. The first real ‘devices’ to try and amplify hearing were ear trumpets. People began using these horn-like trumpets in the early 1800s (NY Times).

Although they did not use electricity, the trumpets’ shape and size would determine the level of amplification and their overall effectiveness (London Science Museum). These trumpets were aimed at sound and they were pretty big. Trumpet-like, in fact! They were nothing like the small behind-the-ear devices that are available today.

Telephones were invented at the end of the 19th century, which provided the technology to produce the first electronic hearing aid, which was created in 1898 using a carbon transmitter.

This idea was developed for mass production from 1913, but the first hearing aids were not particularly practical. They were made to sit on desktops – not exactly portable devices!

Portable hearing aids, known as ‘vacuum tube’ hearing aids, were created not long after in 1920. These devices used telephone transmitters to convert speech into electric signals, which could then be amplified. Over the next two decades, these devices grew smaller and more popular.

Technology developed during World War II helped to improve hearing aids even further, as the ability to miniaturize components made hearing aids easier to use and gave them a wider mass appeal.

You may remember transistor radios. Transistors can control the movement of electricity and were also used in hearing aids! By replacing vacuum tubes with transistors, this meant that hearing aids could better control sound. They also had the benefit of not producing as much heat and an extended battery life. There were some difficulties in production at first – for instance, transistors cannot get wet, and it took a while for people to realise that body heat was actually causing the hearing aids to fail!

Silicon transistors were finally put on the market in 1954, followed by the integrated circuit in 1958. Hearing aids continued to improve throughout the next 20 years (Wikipedia).

Modern hearing aids were made possible through the use of digital technology. The first commercially available digital hearing aid was introduced in 1987 using high-speed digital array processors, which made it much easier to reduce the size and weight of hearing aids.

The use of digital technology also meant that audio signals could be separated into frequency bands to customize amplification according to a person’s hearing loss needs.

New digital technologies now allow hearing aids to respond to your environment. Use of technology such as Bluetooth allows you to integrate your hearing aid into your phone calls and when you listen to music. Induction loop systems allow you to link up with events in public places, such as cinemas, airports and at concerts.

Hearing aids have come a long way since use of the ear trumpets, and they are only going to get better, smaller and more accurate as hearing aid technology becomes more advanced and sophisticated!