Auracast - Audiologist Review
It's taken me a while to review Auracast, but now I am here and I am in love with it!
To understand why, you have to have been present for the early days of assistive listening devices (or skip to here):
The remote microphone attached to your tutor, which not only marks you out as Other but has a delay which turns the lecture into a bad Japanese kung fu lip synch. Confusing for lipreaders.
The Loop (telecoil) system which is dull, distorted and usually only in one ear, unless you cock your head to 45%. Maybe. And they don't switch it on. Or its too low compared to everything else.
Early mobile solutions which meant you had a big 'look at me I am deaf' device hanging round your neck.
These devices are proprietary and expensive, and they need changing when you change your aids.
Of course, this was better than nothing, but in many places you had nothing. Train stations, for example. The train to BRZZRG is now departing from platform ZXTWU. Is it indeed? Great.
Auracast
Compare that with what I am currently doing, which is listening to Pearl Jam in both my hearing aids, in perfect sync. I have an Auracast dongle (~£40 from Amazon) plugged into the USB port of my laptop (circled in yellow below). It creates an Auracast broadcast of the audio from my laptop. My Vivia 9 hearing aids are Auracast enabled, and the Resound app on my phone completes the system.
Laptop -> dongle -> phone app -> both hearing aids simultaneously
The phone app, made by the manufacturer of your hearing aids, acts as an assistant to find broadcasts and list them for you to choose from. In my case I only have one broadcast, and that's the one from my dongle.
There's more. In my app, I can change the balance between the Auracast broadcast and the surrounding sound coming in through the aids' mics. So I can listen to my music or my webinar and still hear the doorbell/child/dog etc. I can change the volume level of either of those things for comfort, relative to each other. This is fabulous!
Cost wise, a single dongle should be all I need for TV, laptop, whatever I can plug it into. Because it's a third-party accessory that works with any aid, the cost is lower. There's only one me, I can only listen to one device at once, so I only need one. Contrast that with the lapel microphone, TV device etc we used to have to get. This is a money saver for those of us at the severe/profound end of hearing loss.
Phone calls coming in will pause the Auracast, or I can go on 'do not disturb' if I was not wanting to be disturbed - eg theatre screening.
I have not used a public Auracast broadcast yet, and I am intrigued to find one. Last time we went to the theatre we left after 20 minutes because we just couldn't make out a word. It should be clear at any distance, because your mobile is picking up the data over the air. Once it has it, the phone only needs to be within Bluetooth range of your hearing aids to give you a clear signal. Technically that's 6 feet but if I were relying on it for train platform changes I would have a chest pocket for my phone.
GIGO Rules: as with everything, garbage in = garbage out. The quality will be as good as the original audio. We can cut out the distortion and loss from echoing rooms, but if the broadcast is a cheap/noisy recording it will be terrible when it gets to us.
Bottom line: I am seriously impressed, and this has the potential to really equalise society for deaf/hard of hearing people. If places invest in it and advertise it, and of course audiologists promote it.
NB: I'm using the Avantree C82 Aura_90 with Resound Vivia 9 hearing aids.
NB: Auracast enabled aids are all out in force now. Bernafon Encanta, Widex Allure, Resound Vivia, Signia MaX, Starkey Edge AI, Phonak Eon. Anyone who bought Receiver in Canal aids in the past 12m or so will likely have it already, the rest will get it on their next upgrade.
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