[shariqm]

Yeah, the OTC (over-the-counter) hearing aid act passed in 2017 [1]. It says the FDA has to release reduced regulations for the sale of hearing aids OTC by August 2020. There will be a bunch of new players, e.g. Bose HearPhones and maybe even Apple (checkout Live Listen).

The challenge will be how to fit a hearing aid without an audiologists help. This will be especially difficult for older people.

Hopefully it will bring down the price of hearing aids substantially though.

[1] https://www.warren.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/bipart...

[Uhrheber]

That's actually not a bad idea, a lot of people already have headphones with integrated microphones and processors.

Noise cancellation headphones could be easily transformed into hearing aids with a change of the firmware. In fact, they could be excellent hearing aids, because they probably have more computing power than the average professional hearing aid.

[sannee]

Bose apparently already does something like this. See Bose Hear.