Lyric Invisible Hearing Aid
Wear it 24/7 for months at a time
Lyric – the world’s first 100% invisible hearing aid
The Lyric hearing aid is a true innovation in hearing solutions. The device is hidden inside the ear canal, utilising its natural shape to capture sound and offer users a highly discreet hearing aid. Maintaining hearing shouldn’t be hard work, and with Lyric you might even forget you are wearing a hearing aid. It’s water resistant and exclusive battery technology means it can perform 24/7 for up to 120 days at a time.
Invisible Hearing Aids
The Lyric hearing aid device is located in the ear canal and uses the natural shape of the ear canal to funnel and carry sound through the ear to the ear drum. Because of its location, it is an invisible hearing aid, and cannot be seen by anyone else, even if they are standing very close. Our specially trained Audiologists will be able to insert Lyric Hearing Aids, which are designed to be worn for up to 4 months without the need for it to be removed or the replacement of expensive batteries. Lyric invisible hearing aids are worn 24 hours for all activities To find out more about Lyric invisible hearing aids, please read our blog article “Lyric Invisible Hearing Aids – Frequently Asked Questions“. Listen to a radio interview where Pat Kenny, the Irish radio presenter, talks to a Lyric hearing aid wearer and a Dublin audiologist about how the Lyric can help and how it works.
How Lyric Works
The exterior of the Lyric Hearing Aid is made with a soft foam material that is specifically designed to contour to your ear canal and the proprietary coating technology protects the device from moisture and ear wax. The battery is also designed to last for up to 120 days. All of this means that the Lyric hearing aid device can be placed deep in the ear canal and sit close to your ear drum for months at a time. Giving a 100% invisible solution that can be worn 24 hours a day 7 days a week, even while sleeping and exercising. The deep canal placement of the Lyric hearing aid also has significant sound benefits, which include:
- Improved Directionality and Localisation (ability to tell where sounds are coming from)
- Minimized Occlusion Effect (blocked feeling in the ear canal)
- Reduced Feedback (whistling sound hearing aids can make)
- High-Frequency Gain (ability to hear high pitched sounds)
- Reduction of wind noises
- Ability to use ear-level listening devices, such as a telephone, headphones, or stethoscope, with little to no feedback
Lyric Features
Lyric is positioned completely inside the ear canal so that it provides natural sound quality while staying out of sight. It design includes:
- Biocompatible soft foam seals engineered to contour to the ear canal; safe to wear 24/7, months at a time*
- Mechanical and coating technology to protect the device from moisture and earwax
- Battery designed to last up to 120 days – no need to change and buy hearing aid batteries
- Allows for both microphone and receiver placement in the ear canal.
See How Lyrics Work
How do you find out more?
Once you are wearing the Lyric hearing aid, you just return to us as needed at Help in Hearing as approved Lyric Hearing Healthcare Professionals to obtain replacement devices. So why not book your appointment today to discover the benefits of the Lyric digital hearing aid for yourself.
How do Lyrics sound? Your questions answered
Compared to other digital hearing aids you can expect an exceptionally natural sound quality from the Lyric hearing aid, due to the way it is fitted. Also as the device includes both the receiver and the microphone and these are positioned deep inside the ear canal, issues such as whistling and nuisance wind noise on microphones are a thing of the past. In fact 95% of people wearing the Lyric hearing aid prefer the Lyric sound quality to their previous digital hearing aid.**
Will I recognise the sound source?
Distinguishing where sounds are coming from, called localisation, is one of the main problems of hearing loss. Poor localisation can make it difficult for people to hear in groups especially where speech is changing between people and some hearing healthcare professionals believe that poor localisation is one of the two main difficulties caused by hearing loss (Ref 1). Localisation is enhanced with the Lyric hearing aid because of where it is placed in the ear as it takes full advantage of your natural outer ear. The function of your ear is to collect sounds and funnel them into the middle ear. The way the sound is reflected off the folds on your ear, helps you to distinguish where sounds are coming from. As the Lyric hearing aid is placed beyond the folds of your ear, localisation is still possible and people report that they can localise where sounds are coming from much better with Lyric. If you find it difficult to hear in group situations you may want to take our online hearing test or book an appointment to see a Lyric hearing aid practitioner.
What about hearing on the telephone?
Hearing on the telephone can be an issue for people with a hearing loss. Firstly because every one of us lip reads to a certain extent, and we get a lot of information from looking at a person’s facial expressions when they are speaking. Of course, when we are speaking with someone on the phone, this aspect of communication is taken away from us. But secondly for traditional digital hearing aid wearers the hearing aid can often interfere with the phone signal, and because of where you wear your hearing aid it can be uncomfortable to hold the phone against your ear. With the Lyric hearing aid you can use the phone in exactly the same way as someone without a hearing loss as because of the placement of Lyric you can hold the phone directly to your ear and the signal will not be affected by the phone. The same can be said for headphones, so that you can listen to your favourite music or radio station without the added complication of using extra gadgets. So long as you use normal headphones which do not extend far down into the ear canal, you will be able to use headphones with your Lyric hearing aid in place.
Will my ears feel blocked?
People who wear a digital hearing aid often complain that their ear feels blocked up and that sounds, their own voice in particular, are echoey and unnatural. This is known as occlusion. When you speak, vibrations from your vocal cords vibrate the bones in your skull and jaw, which can cause this strange effect to your own voice. Normally when there is nothing blocking the ear, these vibrations escape with no issue. But because the Lyric hearing aid is placed so deep in the ear canal, these vibrations are absorbed by the device so most people find that they have little or no occlusion issues when they are wearing a Lyric hearing aid.
Will they whistle?
Another common complaint of digital hearing aid users is whistling, which can be both distracting and embarrassing for the person who is wearing them. This whistling noise is called feedback. Feedback happens when sound coming out of the hearing aids receiver gets back into the microphone and is reprocessed. This sound goes around in a loop and gets louder causing a whistling sound. As the Lyric hearing aid is placed in the ear canal and sealed against the canal walls, the amount of sound that can escape is reduced – meaning whistling is a thing of the past.
** Figures based on three studies involving 87 clients who had worn a Lyric hearing aid for at least 30 days. Ref 1: Kapteyn. T.S. (1977) Satisfaction with fitted hearing aids II. An investigation into the influence of psycho-social factors. Scand Audiol, 6:171-177