The History of Hearing Aids

By brittanythreadgill

  • ear trumpets

  • 1st hearing aid created

    it was called a Akouphone

  • Siemes was one of the first manufacturers of the electronically amplified hearing aid.

  • The first vacuum-tube hearing aid was patented by a Naval engineer Earl Hanson in 1920

    It was called the Vactuphone and used the telephone transmitter to turn speech into electrical signals. After the signal was converted, it would be amplified when it moved to the receiver. The hearing aid weighed seven pounds, which made it light enough to be carried.

  • Marconi in England and Western Electric in the US began marketing vacuum tube hearing aids in 1923

  • in 1948 transistor hearing aids were developed

  • digital hearing aid production begins

  • the microprocessor was created

  • daniel graupe invented the six-channel hearing aid in 1975.

  • In 1979, electro-acoustic features of hearing aids were able to be changed by a simple button.

  • In 1982, at the City University of New York, the first real-time all digital hearing aid was created

  • The first commercial digital hearing aid was created in 1987 by the Nicolet Corporation

    The hearing aid contained a body-worn processor that had a hardwire connection with an ear mounted transducer. While the Nicolet Corporation’s hearing aid was not publicly successful and the company shortly folded, it was able to start a competition between companies to create more effective hearing aids.

  • by 1988, chips were being produced in hearing aids.

  • The Oticon Company developed the first digital hearing aid in 1995, but it was only distributed to audiological research centers for research on digital technology in the realm of acoustic amplification

  • The Senso was the first commercially successful, all-digital hearing aid, and was created by Widex in 1996.

  • the behind-the-ear (BTE) digital hearing aid was launched.

    1989

  • Today, the digital hearing aid is now become programmable.

    By making the hearing aid programmable, it has allowed hearing aids to be capable of regulating sound on their own, without using a separate control. The hearing aid can now adjust itself depending on what environment it is in and often does not even need a physical volume control button.