![]() This combination of lower pricing, excellent extended customer service, and a long trial period makes a Lively 2 Plus or Lively 2 Pro pair an ideal place to start if you’ve never used hearing aids before. In addition, with a three-year warranty and three years of included follow-up care, these hearing aids can adjust to meet your needs for a good long while. (To make calls with the Plus, you have to use the microphone in your phone.) Lively’s generous 100-day return policy gives you ample time to acclimate to your hearing-aid pair and to determine whether it’s a good match. Both the Plus and the Pro can play back sound from devices like smartphones and tablets via Bluetooth, but only the Pro has the ability to transmit your voice for full headset-style capabilities. The traditional, behind-the-ear design stays in place comfortably and is especially water resistant and dust resistant, with an IP68 rating. ![]() The situational sound modes (such as restaurant and outdoor modes) were actually helpful for reducing background noise while amplifying conversation (which was not the case with the cheaper devices we tested). Our panelists loved how easy these sets of hearing aids were to set up, customize, and use. Why it’s great: If you’ve never used a hearing aid before and want a device that’s relatively affordable and packed with useful features, the Lively 2 Plus and Lively 2 Pro are both excellent choices. ![]() And still other devices, such as PSAPs or “hearables,” are less sophisticated hearing-augmentation options-they have less precise tuning abilities, and the amount of gain (how much they can amplify sounds) is limited by law. Other devices are (for now) available only in specific states that allow for non-FDA-approved devices to be sold if such devices are based on FDA-approved technology. Some of the devices we tested (for example, the Jabra Enhance Plus) are currently available for sale only through audiologists, but the intent is to make them available directly to buyers once the FDA guidelines take effect (provided they meet said guidelines). As we explain there, a lot of devices being sold and marketed as hearing aids right now aren’t legally permitted to call themselves hearing aids. You can read about the complex legislative journey of over-the-counter hearing aids in this article. ![]() Technically speaking, though, “over-the-counter hearing aids” don’t exist yet, since the recently published FDA guidelines that officially define and govern the sale of these devices don’t take effect until October of this year. ![]()
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