AirPods are a bit too pricey for my taste, and I actually don't care about headphone cables that much.
But from a purely technical point-of-view, I cannot deny that these are a somewhat impressive feat of technology, especially miniaturisation and power efficiency. It's the rare product where I would have guessed another decade or so of progress needs to pass to make it feasible.
Is hearing aid design going to be moving to match the appearance of wireless consumer earphones, like the AirPods?
Given the general acceptance of individual impairments in an inclusive society, and given the design language of hearing aids made in the past to "hide" the impairment (i.e. being skin-tone), I think that that this will be the case in the next 10-20 years.
I make the prediction that there will no difference in appearance and design of devices made for medical use and casual consumer use in that timeframe.
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[ 3.5 ms ] story [ 21.3 ms ] threadBut from a purely technical point-of-view, I cannot deny that these are a somewhat impressive feat of technology, especially miniaturisation and power efficiency. It's the rare product where I would have guessed another decade or so of progress needs to pass to make it feasible.
Given the general acceptance of individual impairments in an inclusive society, and given the design language of hearing aids made in the past to "hide" the impairment (i.e. being skin-tone), I think that that this will be the case in the next 10-20 years.
I make the prediction that there will no difference in appearance and design of devices made for medical use and casual consumer use in that timeframe.