Thursday, FCC has been confirmed new regulations requiring all phone manufacturers to make their phones compatible hearing aids. Americans are expected to be 65 and older in number about 50 percent balloons By 2050, regulations will ensure that people with hearing loss don’t have to worry about which phones will work with their hearing aids.
“Under the new rules, post-transition Americans with hearing loss will no longer be limited in their choice of technologies, features and prices available in the cell phone market,” the FCC wrote in a press release.
On the other hand, the FCC also passed a requirement for hearing aid manufacturers that effectively prohibits proprietary Bluetooth connectivity standards in assistive devices. So phones should be compatible with hearing aids and vice versa. The rule applies even to recently approved ones over the counter hearing aidsnow included AirPods Pro 2.
Other changes include the fact that all new cell phones sold in the United States allow users to increase the volume without distortion. In addition, the FCC is now mandating that cell phone point-of-sale labels clarify hearing aid compatibility and whether the phones meet Bluetooth or telecoil connectivity requirements.
The FCC worked with a consortium of mobile carriers, phone manufacturers and researchers to draft and adopt the rules. “Setting the 100% hearing aid compatibility requirement for all mobile phones was made possible by the collaborative efforts of members of the Hearing Aid Compatibility Task Force, an independent organization of hearing aid advocates from wireless service providers, phone manufacturers, research institutes and hearing loss advocates. “, the Commission wrote. “Members of the Task Force worked together for several years to reach consensus on how the Commission could achieve its goal of requiring 100% of all mobile phones to be hearing aid compatible.”
