- Today we're here to review
the MDHearingAid Core. Behind the ear hearing aids. A pair of these hearing
aids is sold for a $1000 that has our attention. But I wanna make sure we do our research. And I wanna make sure you
have all the information to decide whether these hearing aids are of good quality, of good value. And if they're going to actually treat and improve your hearing ability. (upbeat music) Hey guys and welcome to HearWeb
on this YouTube channel. We review the most up-to-date
hearing aid technology including online hearing aids. And hearing aids you can buy in person from an audiologist. The purpose of our YouTube channel is to give you more information. So that you can make a better decision about which hearing
aids are right for you. Make sure to subscribe by pressing that red button below to stay up to date with our newest videos. Today we're going to
review the core product from MDHearingAid. This is a Bluetooth behind the ear device. So let's start with the look
and feel of the hearing aid and see how it looks. Inside of the case for
the MDHearingAid CORE. You get two of these
behind the ear hearing aids with a slim tube. This is the color of the
hearing aid it's beige. You can see here there's
the volume control. Up for louder and down for softer. This is also how you change the programs from one to the other. The top of the hearing aid, it goes into this slim tube, which goes into this
plastic tip in the ear its called a comfort tip. It comes in different sizes. This little plastic hook goes into the bowl part of your ear. In order to keep the whole
hearing aid secure and in place. Underneath here there's the battery door. So these hearing aids use
a standard size 312 battery just looks like that. To turn the hearing aid off, you open this door. And to turn the hearing aid on, you close this door
that's pretty standard. It comes with an extra comfort tip there of a different size as well as a brush in
order to clean the device. This is the app manual. You would use this manual to set it up. Your hearing aids also come
with a quick start guide encouraging you to download the app. The hearing aids come
with three of these boxes. This is a box of batteries. There's 40 batteries. The hearing aids go in
this case like that. Those are the MDHearingAid core. Now let me show you how
this looks on the ear. When I put this piece
up and behind my ear. I then put this small
slim tube and rubber tip, into my ear canal like that. And then there's this little plastic hook. I take that plastic hook and I put it in the bowl part of my ear. And I push that rubber tip in tucking it back. That's how it looked from behind. And then there's the hearing
aid on the side of my ear. Overall it fits my ear well. If you have a hearing loss that's in the mild to moderate range then these hearing aids would probably be appropriate for you. However, if your hearing
loss is in the severe range, then these hearing aids
likely do not have the gain or the amplification sufficient to give you the best hearing possible. There's two ways to get
these hearing aids set up. The first way is if you
just buy them online and then adjust the volume yourself you're gonna notice some benefit. The second way is if you
buy the hearing aids online and then connect them to your smartphone through the MDHearingAid app. You can take a hearing test. And then that hearing test through the hearing aids
will adjust the levels of the amplification in your ears. That is not as valid as
a legitimate hearing test inside of a clinic with an audiologist. But overall their online hearing test is an okay fair representation about overall how well you hear. And that's likely going
to be more personalized than if you just put the hearing aids on and adjusted the volume in the programs without doing this hearing test. These hearing aids only
have this rubber tip. If you have a severe hearing loss you would need an actual ear mold, a customed shape ear mold of your ear by a local audiologist. So let's talk about the
price of these hearing aids. They're listed online to be sold at $1,000 for the pair. If you're considering buying
these hearing aids online. And if you go on MDHearingAids website be cautious because they
have some misleading numbers with the actual cost of the hearing aids. First, they say there's $1,600, and then they say that
they're giving them to you at a discount for a $ 1,000. Now every time I've been on their website they always make this claim. So just be aware with that. The smartphone app for these hearing aids is called MDHearingAid app. And you can find in an App Store or in the Google Play Android Store overall the app has great reviews. It has an average four-star
rating of over 700 users. And that's pretty good for an app. My own personal experiences connecting the hearing aids to the app was that the app really was excellent. It was very easy and seamless to connect the hearing aids to my phone. Using the volume control
through the app was excellent, as well as changing the programs. It was all very intuitive. Even if you don't think you're
that good with smartphones, I would say the MDHearingAid
app was very easy to use. It's not necessary to use the app to get benefit from the hearing aids. But if you'd prefer to use the app to control the quality of sound and the loudness of sound. You can do so either via the buttons on the hearing aid
itself or through the app which connects Bluetooth
to your smartphone. The smartphone app allows
Institute audiometry to create a personalized
program for your hearing aids. It also has an equalizer to control basements in trouble and also has a button for noise reduction. And then finally, you can request some
adjustments to the hearing aids through telehealth through the app. When we're working with hearing aids there's typically different programs. And if you change to a certain program that means that the sound
quality will be different depending on that environment. The four programs in the MDHearingAid core are quiet, conversation,
restaurant and automatic. So the four different programs change the hearing aid settings. And I actually verified
this in a hearing clinic with technical equipment that the different sound settings did change when I did change
for the different programs. And that's what I would expect. When I ran the noise reduction for different speakers talking at the same time. The hearing aid did
significantly turn down the sound of the voices behind me. And it kept clear the
voices in front of me. Now this was done in a test box with technical audiology equipment. So that was good to see
that the hearing aids were reducing sounds from the back and focusing on sounds from the front. So it passed that noise reduction test. These are Bluetooth hearing aids. They do connect to iPhone and Android so that's great. They do use a disposable battery, so they are not rechargeable. Although the company does have
another rechargeable model. I didn't see any tinnitus features inside of this hearing aid. So there wasn't any
integrated sound therapy. But if they are connected to Bluetooth and they're able to stream then you could play sound
therapy for tinnitus through the streaming of the phone. If you've made it this far
thank you for being with us. And we're about to get to
the really exciting part. Which is the pros and
cons of this hearing aid. For the MDHearingAid core. The first pro is that these hearing aids have a great price. For a pair of Bluetooth
behind the ear hearing aids. They cost $1,000. That's a great price. When we compare other hearing aids that you would buy in person, usually costing upwards of $2,000. So that definitely has our attention. And that's the first pro is the actual price of these devices. The second major pro is
that the MDHearingAid core connects to the MDHearingAid app. And through Bluetooth
that app is outstanding. It's one of the better hearing aid apps I've used through a smartphone. So if you're someone who is tech savvy or if you're someone who
uses their phone constantly then having those
adjustments through the phone is gonna be a big upgrade whether you're considering trying hearing aids for the first time, or if you're considering
different models of hearing aids, having good Bluetooth connection to a smartphone is important. And sometimes the app itself, that the company uses is a big factor for how
well your experiences. Now let's get into the cons. The cons things that I
want you to look out for. Things to be cautious about if you're considering these hearing aids. The first con is that the company does not accept previous
audiogram for programming. You have to rely on the
MDHearingAid apps hearing test or you have to take the
hearing screening online to determine how to set
up the hearing aids. Now although that might help you somewhat, it's not as valid and reliable
as a real hearing test inside of a hearing booth. As an audiologist I
know how important it is to make sure that the
hearing test is accurate, before we fit hearing aids. The second con for the MDHearingAid Core is the color correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe they only
offer this beige color. If you have beige color skin and you're trying to match
this hearing aid to your skin, then it should do okay. But as an audiologist
I know most people try to match the hearing
aid to their hair color. This is designed to match the skin of someone with white skin. So if you have black skin,
if you have dark skin, if you have very tan skin. This hearing aid wouldn't
blend in that well. And again if you're trying to match it to the color of your hair. Most people have Brown, black, white hair. This also wouldn't match the hair. So that's a con. The third con here is the risk of an error when you're trying to fit these yourselves by taking the online hearing test. Put them in your ear, making sure they're set up properly. A common mistake when you're
setting hearing is up yourself is that if they're half
hanging out of your ear, you think they're working properly but you're missing out on 30% of sounds 'cause it's not in the proper position. When it's like that it
might start whistling and it just creates a
really bad experience. So whenever you're doing
online hearing aids, there's a risk of a self fitting error. And certainly with these
hearing aids that's a risk. That said they do have a call center. They do have some support. So if you do get into trouble you can contact someone from their company and they will be able to
help you to some degree. The last con here is
that these hearing aids have a disposable battery. That's not a horrible thing. But the best hearing aids today have rechargeable batteries. Think about electronics in general. The best electronics today have a rechargeable battery that you charge every night. And then it lasts you
the next day in full. Modern hearing aids that are the best hearing aids out there, they have rechargeable batteries. Even MDHearingAid themselves has another rechargeable battery. Hearing aid that we did
another review video on this channel on. So that's a con is to have to worry and fuss with those small
hearing aid batteries. When there are products out there that have rechargeable
batteries to help you. Now you've made it through this video. So how's it been so far? I wanted to now move on to explain some other different kinds of hearing aids that we talk about and review on this
YouTube channel HearWeb, to help you decide about MDHearingAid core versus other online hearing aids. And which products make
the most sense for you. The first product I wanna compare
with the MDHearingAid core is the MDHearingAid VOLT This is MDHearingAid is
rechargeable hearing aid. It's not Bluetooth. It's much larger than the
core, but it is cheaper. So it's about $600 for the pair. And that's something that
we did a full video on. You can check that out. If you're looking for
a cheaper hearing aid through MDHearingAid that
one is something to consider. The MDHearingAid core
overall is much better. It's a much better experience
than the MDHearingAid VOLT. Another hearing aid to check out which we also did a full video review on is the Lexie Lumen hearing aid. This one is definitely one you
wanna consider checking out. They have a great balance between the actual sound,
the style, the app. It's not rechargeable. It's similar to the core. The Lexie Lumen hearing aid costs $800. Make sure to check out
that full review video. If you're interested in the
Lexie Lumen hearing aid. Additionally, we have the
Audicus Wave hearing aids. We did another video review, a full video review of the Audicus Wave. The Audicus Wave hearing aids
cost $1,800 for the pair. They are Bluetooth behind
the ear hearing aids. Little different style, a little
more modern style to them, with different colors. The Audicus Wave also
comes with a rechargeable. And that's $2,100. Now at HearWeb we don't
sell these hearing aids. What we do is review them to help you make a better decision, about what's right for you. So if you've enjoyed this
video make sure to subscribe to the YouTube channel HearWeb. Give this video a thumbs up if you've learned something. And I'm going to now recommend you check out another video here. Additionally feel free to go
to hearweb.com to learn more about the most up-to-date coupons and discounts on these hearing aids. To my side, there's another
video you can check out, which will give you
another detailed review of some hearing aids. Thank you so much for watching this video. (chuckles)I've really enjoyed it. I'll talk to you later.
Goodbye.
