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Starkey ELI hearing aid takes calls from your Bluetooth cellphone

Starkey ELI hearing aid

For those who use hearing aids, digital cellphones can be a bit of an annoyance as they create electronic interference resulting in buzzing and feedback from the unit. Starkey Laboratories' ELI hearing aid is designed to mitigate some of that by using Bluetooth to actually route the call audio into the hearing aid itself. The $300 device plugs into the bottom of most behind the ear hearing aids and routes calls directly from the phone to the ELI and into the aid. The wearer's side of the conversation is picked up via a small microphone on the end of the ELI. Because only about 30 percent of hearing aids in current use are behind the ear models, a separate version of the device is available for users of in-ear aids, in which the ELI device is actually worn on a necklace and linked to the hearing aid via old fashioned analog wireless. What do we think of all this? Sounds good.