Hearing Aid Accessories & Assistive Listening Devices

Hearing aids are sophisticated pieces of technology. They have a variety of features and benefits to improve your hearing. Hearing aid accessories are devices that are meant to complement or add additional features and abilities to your hearing aids.  

There are a variety of accessories that may enhance your experience with hearing aids. You can pick and choose which accessories you want depending on your preferences. Some accessories are complimentary when you purchase hearing aids. You may also choose not to get any accessories.  

Types of Hearing Aid Accessories

If you’re new to hearing aids and don’t know what kind of accessories you can choose, here is a quick list of the most common types: 

• Remote controls 

• TV audio streamers 

• Phone streamers 

• Bluetooth device streamers 

• Cleaning and maintenance accessories 

• FM and telecoil decoders 

• Remote service link devices 

Most hearing aid manufacturers make products for all of these types of accessories. However, you will find some differences in terms of functionality and style that can better suit your needs. Your hearing care professional will recommend a few accessories to you depending on your individual needs.

Widex Hearing Aid Accessories

If you have a Widex hearing aid, there is a large selection of accessories from which to choose. They can also be tailored to suit your individual hearing needs. You can contact your local clinic and your clinician if you have any questions. Here is a list of the currently available Widex hearing aid accessories:

The Remote Link device is the accessory required to have service appointments through WIDEX REMOTE CARE™. With Remote Link, reliable internet connection, and a smartphone, you can connect with your clinician for a remote appointment. Our clinician can make tuning adjustments to your hearing aids and speak with you face-to-face from their office.  

This accessory is very useful when you need minor help with your hearing aids. It's great if you’re traveling, sick, or feel unsafe going out because of the pandemic.

The PerfectDry Lux is a hearing aid dryer that works with all hearing aid brands and models. That makes it one of the more useful and versatile hearing aid cleaning accessories you can find. 

The calling card is how easy the PerfectDry Lux is to use. You place the hearing aids in the device, press the button, and 45 minutes later your hearing aids are clean and dry. 

The UV light technology is completely safe and hygienic.

The RC-DEX is Widex’s remote control accessory that allows you to adjust the settings on your hearing aids without having to take them out of your ears. It is a small device that you can attach to a keychain so you don’t lose it, and can carry it with you more easily.  

The design is simple, giving you access to basic controls like switching programs and adjusting volume. The buttons are large and intuitively placed and labeled so it is easy to use, even for seniors with dexterity issues.

The Widex TV-DEX is another hearing aid accessory for television streaming. The audio it streams is free of any distortion or echo, giving you a high-quality audio stream from your TV right to your hearing aids.  

It has a unique feature for TV accessories, which is its “room off” function that turns off your hearing aid microphone. That way you can hear the TV sound without background interference from your environment.

The Widex COM-DEX is a hands-free streaming device that you wear around your neck. It is one of the best Bluetooth hearing aid accessories you will find. It allows you to stream sound from any Bluetooth-enabled device to your Widex hearing aids. It is cordless, with a battery that lasts for up to 8 hours of constant streaming. 

You can connect it to two devices at once. You can control the volume of the microphone using the Widex app.

WIDEX TV PLAY™ is one of the most advanced hearing aid accessories for TV use. It has a sleek design that easily connects to your television. It then streams the audio from the TV to your hearing aids. However, it still plays normal audio for anyone else watching the same program so you can share the same shows together. 

You can control the volume of the audio streamed to your hearing aids with the ear-level push buttons on your hearing aids, or the Widex Smartphone App.

If you have a landline phone, Widex also has an accessory to stream the call audio to your hearing aids with the PHONE-DEX 2. This is a full landline phone on its own, but is engineered by Widex to work with any of their hearing aid models. The PHONE-DEX 2 comes with the following features: 

• Amplified sound 

• SOS button 

• 25-minutes of voicemail capacity 

• Alarm function 

The Widex FM+DEX accessory is a multi-functional streaming device that streams audio from an FM receiver, telecoil, and line in signals. It offers up to ten hours of streaming, and is built to be easy to use for people of all ages.  

It has a simple toggle button to switch between your programs and volume settings. It is made for people who need audio streaming in classrooms, lectures, concerts, and other larger rooms with specific sources of sound.

Signia StreamLine TV is Signia’s television audio streamer. You connect it to your television, and the audio is sent directly to your hearing aids without affecting the sound for non-hearing aid users. It comes with a great “multiple listeners” support feature, where it can stream to multiple Signia hearing aid users at once.  

With the device, you can use the Signia App to turn your TV on and off, and adjust the volume for more convenience.

The Signia StreamLine Mic turns your hearing aids into a hands-free mobile headset, wireless headphones, remote microphone, and Bluetooth audio streamer. You can connect it to your smartphone, computer, laptop, tablet, or smart home device such as Alexa or Siri.  

You can use it to answer phone calls to your connected phone without needing to touch the phone at all, and the audio streaming sends high quality sound to your hearing aids.

The Signia miniPocket remote control accessory is small, discreet and easy to use. It makes adjusting your hearing aids much easier, without needing to take your hearing aids out. It is small enough to connect to your keychain, so you can take it with you wherever you go. 

It allows you to adjust all the essential features of your hearing aids. With it, you can adjust your hearing aids without taking them out of your ear.

The Inductive Charger II comes with a charger lid to protect the hearing aids. Its smart design also accommodates custom molds. A fast charging option, a drying function via inductive charging, and intuitive left and right LEDs for status information complete this next generation charger. 

The charger’s lid protects hearing aids while they are charging and makes it a smart carrying case.

What Are Assistive Listening Devices?

Assistive Listening Devices are devices that share a lot of similarities with hearing aids and accessories. Each ALD is usually designed to help with specific situations. What makes them unique from hearing aid accessories is that they work without hearing aids being involved.  

Generally speaking, they work by amplifying sound. However, they are not as sophisticated as hearing aids and do not amplify specific sounds you want to hear. Instead, they amplify all sound to a greater volume. They are not powerful or sophisticated enough to replace hearing aids, but can be very helpful for various situations. 

Even people with hearing aids will experience issues hearing various types of alerts if they aren’t wearing their hearing aids. This can be a bigger issue when they are sleeping. That’s why there are a few types of ALDs you can get with alert systems so you do not miss them. 

• Alarm clocks 

• Doorbells 

• Smoke detectors 

• Phone ringers

Pocketalkers act as microphones that send amplified sound to headphones that you wear, instead of to hearing aids.

They are great for students, church-goers and people in a conference. They basically act like microphones that amplify sound from a specific area, and feed the sound to your headphones. These work like remote hearing aid microphone streamers.

A wide variety of devices and technology exists that can help people who are hard of hearing. If you wear hearing aids, the accessories work by sending sound from other devices (phones, TV, microphones, etc.) to your hearing aids. With these, the sound is cleaned up and amplified so you hear high quality sound directly in your ears. 

Assistive Listening Devices are made for the same purpose as many of the hearing aid accessory devices. Instead of sending sound to hearing aids, they often amplify sound through speakers or regular headphones. They work for people with severe to profound hearing loss, or people who do not currently wear hearing aids.  

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