There’s nothing like being outside on a gloriously sunny day to lift your mood. Whether it’s a walk along the promenade by the sea, strolling through a woodland park or a round of golf with friends, it has been demonstrated that the exercise and social interaction we gain through outdoor activities are good for our overall wellbeing. But for hearing aid wearers, these moments can be made more challenging by the wind. In this article we ask the question: Wind noise in hearing aids – is it a thing of the past?

Wind noise in hearing aids used to mask out speech

When wind blows across hearing aid microphones, particularly for models that sit behind the ear, it results in the wearer hearing, unsurprisingly, the wind blowing, but at quite a high level which masks out other sounds including speech. Fluctuating wind noise can be very irritating and many wearers may take their hearing aids out in these conditions.

Noise management strategies

Hearing aid manufacturers have built noise management strategies into their hearing aids for many years. These wind noise management features effectively reduced the volume of the wind noise but also reduced the volume of speech too so while this made the sound more comfortable it affected the ability to join in conversations resulting in a trade off between comfort and intelligibility…..but not any more!

Wind noise is now filtered out

New advances in processing mean that wind noise can now be effectively managed while still preserving speech information. Unwanted wind noise can be separated from the conversations that we want to hear. Wearers experience good sound quality and clarity, allowing them to continue to participate in conversations without any uncomfortable wind noise and most importantly keep wearing their hearing aids, even in windy situations.

Wind management algorithm

Wind noise management is an automatic feature so there is no need to change to a different program or make any adjustments. The hearing aid continually analyses the environment and as soon as it detects wind, it applies its wind management algorithm until the wind stops blowing across the microphones.

Wind noise in hearing aids – where to find out more

For a trial of the latest wind management technologies, please contact us for an appointment. 

We partner with most of the leading hearing aid manufacturers, find out more on our Hearing Aid Partners page.