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Top 12 best in-the-ear hearing aids of 2022

There are four sub­types of in-the-ear hear­ing aids:

• Deep intra­canal;
• intra­canal;
• duct­ed
• Type “Con­ha”

Best CIC hearing aids (deep in canal hearing aids)

They have an inter­na­tion­al name — CIC (Com­plete­ly-In-Canal). These hear­ing aids are the small­est in size, they are locat­ed deep inside the audi­to­ry canal of a hard of hear­ing per­son on one or both sides, so they are almost invis­i­ble from the out­side. Due to the mod­est size of the device, its func­tion­al­i­ty is lim­it­ed. Most devices usu­al­ly have only one pro­gram (set by the doc­tor) and there is no sig­nal vol­ume con­trol. This hear­ing aid has a low pow­er, can only com­pen­sate for hear­ing loss in the range of 1–2 degrees.

1. Widex Unique 100 CIC‑M

This device has an aver­age pow­er and com­pen­sates for hear­ing up to 2–3 degrees of hear­ing loss. The hear­ing aid is locat­ed inside the audi­to­ry canal, which makes it almost invis­i­ble to oth­ers. The case is made indi­vid­u­al­ly using 3D mod­el­ing, a cast of the patien­t’s ear is pre­lim­i­nar­i­ly tak­en. This allows you to use the device with max­i­mum effi­cien­cy and com­fort. The dimen­sions of the device vary depend­ing on the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the human audi­to­ry canal. To pro­tect the device from sul­fur and mois­ture ingress, spe­cial Nano Care fil­ters are used.

Main characteristics:

Pros and cons

Hear­ing aids for adults

Sud­den hear­ing loss is a real dan­ger

2. Signia Intuis 3 CIC+PBS

This hear­ing aid is man­u­fac­tured by the well-known Siemens com­pa­ny, it is suit­able for mild to mod­er­ate hear­ing loss (1–2 degrees). The case for the device is made indi­vid­u­al­ly, this allows you to make it as com­fort­able as pos­si­ble, to ensure quick get­ting used to it. It is pos­si­ble to con­trol the device from a smart­phone. The device is avail­able in sev­er­al col­ors, equipped with remote con­trol through appli­ca­tions — it’s either touch­Con­trol or miniPock­et.

Main characteristics:

Pros and cons

3 Phonak Virto B30-10

The device is an intra-ear type relat­ed to the econ­o­my class. It has bio­met­ric cal­i­bra­tion tech­nol­o­gy. Allows you to com­pen­sate for hear­ing loss up to severe (1–3 degree of hear­ing loss). It is of high qual­i­ty and enables effec­tive com­mu­ni­ca­tion through the use of mod­ern tech­nolo­gies — an algo­rithm for rec­og­niz­ing the sur­round­ing acoustic envi­ron­ment, a pro­gram to com­bat tin­ni­tus, and set­tings accord­ing to user pref­er­ences. The case is made accord­ing to indi­vid­ual casts of the user’s audi­to­ry canal.

Main characteristics:

Pros and cons

The best ITC hearing aids (in-the-canal hearing aids)

These devices are also called minichan­nel or have the inter­na­tion­al name ITC or CS. Com­pared to the pre­vi­ous type, this device is large and takes up a suf­fi­cient vol­ume of the ear canal. There­fore, the func­tion­al­i­ty of such devices is some­what greater than that of CIC. Most devices have sev­er­al pro­grams for lis­ten­ing, there are but­tons for switch­ing them. How­ev­er, these devices are almost invis­i­ble in the patien­t’s ear. The device has low pow­er, so it com­pen­sates for hear­ing loss with­in 1–2 degrees.

1. Aurica Pixel 440P ITC

This is a smart device that includes all the new tech­nolo­gies in audi­ol­o­gy. The device is minia­ture, insert­ed into the ear canal, adjusts to its fea­tures. He is able to under­stand and ade­quate­ly assess the sur­round­ing audi­to­ry envi­ron­ment, helps in enhanc­ing soft speech and cor­rect­ing loud, harsh sounds. Due to fine adjust­ments, the device itself choos­es the opti­mal oper­at­ing mode. Suit­able for mild to mod­er­ate hear­ing loss (grades 1–2).

Main characteristics:

Pros and cons

2. Widex DREAM D30-XP

This type of hear­ing aid is based on TrueIn­put tech­nol­o­gy, which pro­vides high qual­i­ty incom­ing sig­nals. The device has a wide range of 113 dB, accu­rate­ly repro­duces all the sounds of the envi­ron­ment that enter the device. This allows the patient to obtain com­plete wear­ing com­fort. Sounds repro­duced using True Input tech­nol­o­gy are clear, bright and trans­mit­ted with­out dis­tor­tion. There­fore, the sound sit­u­a­tion is clear­ly eval­u­at­ed even in very noisy envi­ron­ments.

Main characteristics:

Pros and cons

3 Phonak Virto B30-312

Dig­i­tal hear­ing aid for in-ear wear with bio­met­ric cal­i­bra­tion. Helps to com­pen­sate for hear­ing of mild and mod­er­ate sever­i­ty (grade 1–2) and pro­vides the patient with ample oppor­tu­ni­ties for com­mu­ni­ca­tion. It is per­formed on an indi­vid­ual cast of the ear, max­i­mal­ly adapt­ed to the anato­my and func­tion­al needs of a hear­ing-impaired per­son.

Main characteristics:

Pros and cons

Best ITE Hearing Aids (Channel Hearing Aids)

Duct hear­ing aids have the inter­na­tion­al name ITE or CT. The body of the appa­ra­tus is locat­ed in the area of ​​the begin­ning of the audi­to­ry canal up to the tra­gus. With a small body size, it has a fair­ly wide func­tion­al­i­ty. There is a vol­ume con­trol and a pro­gram selec­tion but­ton. This type of hear­ing aid can com­pen­sate for grade 1 to grade 3 hear­ing loss.

1. BERNAFON NEVARA 1ITE

The hear­ing aid of the in-the-ear type is pro­duced in an indi­vid­ual hous­ing (accord­ing to the impres­sion of the patien­t’s ear) and can com­pen­sate for hear­ing loss up to mod­er­ate sever­i­ty (grade 1–2). The mod­el is equipped with a unique Audio Effi­cien­cy tech­nol­o­gy that allows you to com­bine pow­er with effi­cien­cy to get high-qual­i­ty sound in dif­fer­ent sit­u­a­tions. The device elim­i­nates unwant­ed whis­tles and annoy­ing con­stant nois­es, mak­ing it com­fort­able to use.

Main characteristics:

Pros and cons

2. Widex Dream 30 XP

A small in-the-ear hear­ing aid is made indi­vid­u­al­ly, accord­ing to the char­ac­ter­is­tics of the patient, based on a cast of the auri­cle using 3D mod­el­ing. The device uses the TRUE ISP plat­form, True-Input tech­nol­o­gy is used for sound pro­cess­ing. To opti­mize bat­tery con­sump­tion, the Pow­er­Saver sys­tem is used for eco­nom­i­cal ener­gy con­sump­tion. Also, the device uses the WidexLink sys­tem for wire­less com­mu­ni­ca­tion, has a fixed direc­tion­al­i­ty of the sens­ing micro­phones.

Main characteristics:

Pros and cons

3. Phonak Cassia ITE UZ P

The hear­ing aid is minia­ture, almost invis­i­ble when worn, it can be equipped with dif­fer­ent types of receivers depend­ing on the lev­el of hear­ing loss. It can solve hear­ing prob­lems in mild, mod­er­ate and severe forms (from 1 to 3 degrees), the mod­el of the device is pre­pared by a spe­cial­ist (gain strength and pow­er of the device). The hous­ing is made accord­ing to an indi­vid­ual impres­sion of the ear for max­i­mum patient com­fort.

Main characteristics:

Pros and cons

Hear­ing aids for chil­dren

Good hear­ing is the key to full devel­op­ment

The best IT type hearing aids (“Konha”)

Type “Con­ha” or IT — the most notice­able of all devices in this group. “Con­cha” is trans­lat­ed from Latin as a shell. That is, these are devices that are insert­ed into the auri­cle itself. They almost com­plete­ly close it, have almost equal capa­bil­i­ties with a group of behind-the-ear devices, and are suit­able for the most severe degrees of hear­ing loss.

1. INTUIS IT TM + PBS + VC ®

A dig­i­tal device, an in-the-ear hear­ing aid of the “con­ha” type, belong­ing to the mid­dle price cat­e­go­ry. Helps to com­pen­sate for mild, mod­er­ate and severe forms of hear­ing loss (1–3 degrees). It is made accord­ing to indi­vid­ual sizes after tak­ing an impres­sion of the ear, it can work on two types of bat­ter­ies — 13 or 312. The design is equipped with a dou­ble micro­phone, a pro­gram switch but­ton is also placed on the case and there is a sep­a­rate vol­ume con­trol.

Main characteristics:

Pros and cons

2. Phonak Virto Q50 13

The in-the-ear device of the “con­ha” type, cre­at­ed on the basis of the Phonak Quest plat­form, belongs to the “Stan­dard” func­tion­al class. Pow­ered by dig­i­tal tech­nol­o­gy with wire­less func­tions, has a max­i­mum gain of 40 to 70 dB, which solves mild to mod­er­ate hear­ing prob­lems (grade 1–2), uses bat­tery type 13.

Main characteristics:

Pros and cons

3. Siemens Motion 101 IT+TM+VC+PBS®

This is a dig­i­tal hear­ing aid of the “con­ha” type, which is small in size and runs on 13 bat­ter­ies. The device helps to com­pen­sate for mild, mod­er­ate and severe hear­ing loss (1 — 3 degrees). The case has a vol­ume con­trol, is equipped with a but­ton for switch­ing pro­grams and a dual micro­phone.

Main characteristics:

Pros and cons

How to choose an in-the-ear hearing aid

The process of select­ing a hear­ing aid is dif­fer­ent from choos­ing any device, even for med­ical pur­pos­es. And the point here is that it is not enough to know the char­ac­ter­is­tics of each device, such devices should always be select­ed by a doc­tor. For exam­ple, in the pres­ence of a very nar­row ear canal or anatom­i­cal defects, in-the-ear devices may sim­ply not be suit­able.

Pros and cons of in-the-ear types of hearing aids

When using in-the-ear devices for hear­ing cor­rec­tion, there are both undoubt­ed advan­tages and cer­tain dis­ad­van­tages. They need to be care­ful­ly weighed before pur­chas­ing these types of devices, since their cost is quite high.

Among the main advan­tages are:

• The trans­mis­sion of sound from the repro­duc­ing sys­tem to the eardrum takes place with the least loss, since every­thing is locat­ed near­by, there­fore, less pow­er is need­ed for good sound.
• Devices are prac­ti­cal­ly invis­i­ble to oth­ers.
• They are com­fort­able to wear if they are sized strict­ly by the doc­tor.
• Due to the nar­row walls of the ear canal, an addi­tion­al ampli­fi­ca­tion of the sig­nal occurs, so they are more effec­tive than behind-the-ear mod­els.
• The sound is more nat­ur­al than oth­er types of hear­ing aids.

How­ev­er, these mod­els of hear­ing aids have sig­nif­i­cant dis­ad­van­tages. These include:

• Inabil­i­ty to cor­rect severe hear­ing loss (grade 3–4).
• The devices are quite dif­fi­cult to main­tain and oper­ate.
• If con­t­a­m­i­nat­ed with ear­wax, the device may fail.
• Very tiny bat­ter­ies are used, which require fair­ly fre­quent replace­ment.
• The ear canal is less ven­ti­lat­ed due to the tight inser­tion of the device.
• If there are dis­eases of the out­er ear, the device will have to be aban­doned.

Popular questions and answers

We asked otorhi­no­laryn­gol­o­gist, audi­ol­o­gist Alexan­dra Ger­shevskaya to answer our ques­tions about the intri­ca­cies of choos­ing intra-ear hear­ing aids.