One of the biggest advantages of private hearing aids from an audiologist is cramming sophisticated systems into an exceptionally tiny form.
This size is a hugely important aspect of ensuring that hearing aids are worn anytime they are needed for as long as they are needed. The more you wear your hearing aids, the more comfortable they will be and the greater the benefits.
A large part of this comfort comes from hearing aids being small enough to comfortably fit in or around the ear without looking conspicuous or being so heavy as to cause discomfort, and it took a very long time for hearing aids to get small enough to reach that level.
From The Pocket To The Ear
The earliest hearing aids were designed to be portable and integrated into headbands and spectacles, but the inherent limitations of the ear trumpet meant that it had to be a certain size and weight in order to be functional.
When electronic hearing aids became possible in the wake of Miller Reese Hutchison’s Akouphone in 1898, the vast majority of models were portable in a sense, but in practice, this meant that they were electronic boxes that were bulky but not so bulky that they could not be carried around.
Many hearing aids were integrated into suitcases and purses for this very reason, and by the 1920s, these hearing aids were about the size of a cigar box and could be carried around in a relatively large pocket.
By 1949, models such as the Zenith Miniature 75 had managed to reduce the size of the hearing aid to roughly the size of a large matchbox, but the inherent limitation of using vacuum tubes to power the system means that there is an inherent limit to how small they can get without a radical change.
This radical change came with the development of the transistor, a critical component of modern electronics by the 1970s, but one that appeared in hearing aids as early as 1952.
Even in the early days of transistor technology, they were better in every single respect than vacuum tubes; they were smaller, less fragile, more reliable and extended battery life, allowing for smaller hearing aids to be made and mounted to other objects like glasses.
The goal was laudable, but in a rush to move to transitions, there were major flaws that transistor companies failed to recognise due to a lack of testing.
Raytheon, one of the first companies to mass-produce transistors and amongst the first to make a transistor hearing aid, found out that the devices they were selling would die after just a few weeks, meaning that someone who needed a hearing aid would have to go through the fitting process every month at huge expense.
It turned out that transistors could get damp thanks to body heat and body humidity and needed a protective coating to stop moisture from destroying the circuit.
Manufacturers quickly found workarounds and by 1953, the Maico Model 0 “Transit-Ear” was on the market and whilst it was still a body-worn hearing aid, it was significantly smaller than others that were available, and paved the way for hearing aids to be worn in and on the ear.
