Ear protection is a common sight these days at concerts. And yet in spite of the proliferation of ear protection, chances are that you’ve known at least one of the nearly 5 million people in the country who wear hearing aids. Ear protection and hearing aid technology have both grown leaps and bounds over the past few decades, from noise-canceling headphones to Bluetooth enabled hearing aids. But one thing that seemingly hasn’t changed is their design. Until now.
Hearing Protection as a Fashion Statement
Hearing protection is definitely in. Still, it never hurts to look good while you’re taking good care of yourself. Here are just two of the hearing protection companies making hearing protection fashionable.
The creators of Loop spent a lot of time going clubbing and realized they had two choices: suffer hearing loss from the loud music or use uncomfortable, unfashionable hearing protection that distorted the music. Instead, they chose a third option: they created ear protection that looks good and allows people to safely listen to music in loud settings.
Knops is another company that dove into the untapped earplugs-as-fashion space. The company takes inspiration from sunglasses. Originally meant to only protect the wearer’s eyes from bright sunlight, sunglasses are now seen as a valuable fashion statement. They still provide the same protection, but at the same time, they’re also a desirable accessory that completes just about any ensemble. Knops thinks the same thing will happen with hearing protection, which in turn will help more people prevent hearing damage simply because they want to look fashionable.
Hearing Aids Can Be Functional and Fashionable
As noted above, hearing aid technology has advanced quite a bit from the days of our grandparents. Most modern hearing aids now can automatically adjust the sound they pick up, such as focusing on conversations instead of background noise, as well as cancel out wind noise and link directly to TVs, tablets, and mobile phones. Now that the technology is in a good place, hearing aid manufacturers have decided to up their game on hearing aid fashion sense.
There are several different designs out there to appeal to a wide audience of hearing aid users. There are now hearing aids that look like gauged earrings, Bluetooth earpieces, eyeglasses, and jewelry – not to mention hearing aids that are so small, they’re barely noticeable. Max Julian Fischer, the founder of Incluse and a new entrant into the hearing aid space, worked with some of the world’s top hearing aid companies, like Siemens, along with the jewelry design program at Germany’s University of Pforzheim to create a fashionable, functional hearing aid. His reasoning for creating such a hearing aid was simple: so much time and effort are put into making headphones – which are known to cause hearing damage – into a fashion accessory, yet very little resources were being spent to make hearing aids more attractive. This is a problem, especially when it comes to convincing younger people to take advantage of hearing aids.
Studies have shown that hearing is loss starting to impact younger generations at an alarming rate. Consideration has to be given to the fact that younger people want more out of their hearing aids – otherwise, they may just tough it out and risk damaging their hearing even more. This is the same age group that wants Warby Parker glasses and Beats by Dre headphones. If they have the option to get the Cadillac Escalade of hearing aids, you’d better believe they’ll spring for it.
Ready to check out fashionable hearing aids or ear protection? Contact a hearing specialist near you and schedule a consultation today to find out what you can do to hear better and look good doing it.
