Assistive listening devices are used by people who are hard of hearing to help improve hearing ability in a variety of situations, such as noisy restaurants, reverberant rooms, telephone use and watching TV.
Assistive listening devices usually work by capturing sound with a microphone and transmitting the sound to a receiver, which in turn amplifies and transmits sound to speakers.
Personal Amplifiers
Personal amplifiers have a microphone(s) that picks up and increases sounds levels, and transmits the sound to a receiver that the listener is wearing such as a headset or earbuds.
TV Listening Devices
TV Listening Devices are devices that are specifically designed to connect to a TV and transmit audio to a receiver such as a headset or hearing aids. Audio is streamed directly from the TV to your ears and you can control the TV volume without affecting the preferred listening volume of those sitting around you. They can be used with or without hearing aids.
FM Systems
FM Systems are Wireless systems that can be used with or without hearing aids, or cochlear implants. A transmitter (microphone) picks up sound and transmits it to the listener that is wearing s receiver (hearing aid boots, neck loop, headphones) or an external speaker. FM systems are especially used in very noisy environments, large reverberant rooms, and over large distances.
Amplified Telephones
Amplified telephones are wired or wireless telephones that output volumes at ranges 20dB to 40dB than a typical telephone. These are ideal for persons that are having difficulty hearing over the telephone.
Alerting Devices
Alerting devices, such as doorbells, smoke alarms, telephones, and wake-up alarms, emit loud sounds, blinking lights and/or vibrate to let someone with hearing loss know that an event is happening.