Why Signia has the most natural sound
Signia’s proprietary Xperience technology delivers natural sound processing using acoustic-motion sensors, providing an authentic sound experience. The Signia sensors detect when you’re moving and adjust their processing, recognizing that you hear differently when walking than when you’re sitting.
Signia’s devices are also adept at filtering out background noise and allow you to hear a more authentic version of your own voice. These are features we feel are underrated in hearing aids but make a real difference in your everyday life.
Signia features:
- Bluetooth capabilities: No
- How to adjust: Phone app, remote, or in-person
- Warranty and trial period: 2-year warranty on electric components
Our experience with Signia
We are impressed with the Signia Silk Charge&Go IX, which are completely-in-canal (CIC) rechargeable hearing aids. These small devices combine an invisible fit with a customized hearing experience. The Silk Charge&Go IX is the only Signia hearing aid that sits completely in your ear canal without requiring an in-person fitting. Instead, it uses soft silicone Click Sleeves—these are flexible silicon sleeves that attach to the end of your hearing aids to help position them in your ear canal and provide better acoustics. The sleeves come in different sizes based on the size of your ear canal and the type of your hearing loss. The Silk Charge&Go IX has 48 channels and six customizable programs, giving you plenty of choices to find the right one for your needs.
Signia support
The Signia app allows you to connect with your hearing care professional remotely through your smartphone. You can message your hearing care professional directly or arrange a virtual appointment where you can chat with them via a video call and they can remotely adjust your settings in the call for real-time feedback on what’s working and what’s not.
Additionally, the Signia app also includes the Signia Assistant, an artificial intelligence program that learns your preferences and adjusts your hearing aids to ensure they consistently meet your needs.
Signia models
Signia offers a wide range of hearing aid types and styles to support hearing concerns. Their most popular styles are the BTE Pure Charge&Go and the Silk Charge&Go, which don’t require a custom fitting. Signia also includes custom-mold devices like the Signia Insio, and an earbud-style device called the Signia Active. Signia is very technologically focused, releasing a new processing chip and operating system every two years, on average.
Signia’s devices are pricey, but competitive among prescription hearing aids, ranging from around $1,000 to $5,000 per pair, depending on your chosen style.
Learn more in our Signia hearing aid review.
Why trust Aging in Place
We’ve spent the last four years living and breathing hearing aids. In our research, we’ve:
- Studied 18 brands that make hearing aids
- Surveyed hundreds of hearing aid users
- Tested rechargeable hearing aid models
- Interviewed 5 hearing instrument specialists, 20 audiologists, and tens of real hearing aid users
- Read thousands of verified customer reviews
Read more about how we review hearing aids.
Other brands we tested
We’ve tested over a dozen hearing aids, and the selections above represent the best of the best. However, there are many other brands on the market, and some are still great options, while others are not worth your time or money.
Honorable mentions
Have a friend who raves about their hearing aids but couldn’t find them on our list? Here are the hearing aids we still think are worth considering and why:
- Go Hearing: At $199–$499 per pair, Go Hearing OTC hearing aids made it onto our honorable mentions list for their long battery life and budget-friendly pricing. Go Hearing’s discreet ITE model, the Go Prime, has a battery life of 30 hours and a wireless case capable of fully charging your hearing aids up to six times before requiring its own charge, making it a good strong option for those who are frequently on-the-go.
- Otofonix: Otofonix offers OTC hearing aids from $199–$795 per pair. To get desirable features, like rechargeable batteries and Bluetooth connectivity for wireless adjustments, you’ll want to choose the brand’s more expensive options. While Otofonix’s pricing is competitive, it only offers one BTE style across all six models, while brands like MDHearing offer more versatility at a similar price range.
- Rexton: Rexton’s prescription hearing aids are sold at Costco or through your audiologist, and start at $1,599 per pair. The brand offers all hearing aid styles and 14 different models, with a wide selection of rechargeable devices treating mild to profound hearing loss. While most Rexton hearing aids adapt to your environment to enhance sound and clarify speech, other brands offer more advanced software with similar pricing.
- Unitron: Unitron’s prescription hearing aids are made by the same manufacturer that produces the well-known Phonak hearing aids included in our top picks, Sonova. We like the brand’s varied styles, including RIC, BTE, and ITE options with Bluetooth and rechargeable batteries and a price range of $2,000–$6,000, depending on the model. However, even though Unitron and Phonak devices are similar, Phonak has more accessories and their advanced noise-canceling technology is superior to Unitron.
Buyer beware
Whether you spend $200 or $2000, hearing aids are an investment, and the last thing you need are devices you can’t trust. In our continuous research, we’ve found two brands that get a lot of buzz, but we wouldn’t waste our money on. Here are the hearing aids we don’t recommend:
- Nano: Nano makes rechargeable OTC hearing aids costing $297–$597 per pair. Their devices come in BTE and CIC styles. Only one of Nano’s hearing aids, the Sigma+ ($597), offers Bluetooth connectivity to an app so you can adjust the devices using your phone. While Nano’s prices are lower than most, there’s a reason they’re not on our preferred list: Nano has been sued over false advertising and misleading business practices for “implying its products are approved by the FDA when they are not” and unlawfully marketing its products for children. You can learn more about Nano in Vermont’s Attorney General 2023 press release.
- Nebroo: We were intrigued by Nebroo when we saw their ads popping up everywhere, but when we looked into the brand, we found they lack transparency, and their business practices are. Nebroo is a new company that appears to have just gotten started in March of 2024, and it offers limited information about its products. Additionally, their privacy policy raises concerns about data sharing and marketing tactics, and we’ve heard directly from consumers stating they were unable to return their Nebroo devices. The brand’s limited details and confusing options confirmed that we don’t feel confident in buying their products.
The jury’s still out
We research and test new hearing aids regularly so we can give you all the information you need to make the right choice when buying an over-the-counter or prescription device. We’re currently testing these hearing aids:
- HP
- Linner
- Lucid
- Orka
- Sony
- Zepp Clarity
Can I use Apple AirPods as hearing aids?
While we appreciate the added hearing support and protection provided by Apple’s latest update to the AirPod Pro 2, we don’t feel the devices can replace a hearing aid. Here’s what they can do now, and where they fall short.
The AirPod Pro 2 hearing aid update
In October 2024, Apple rolled out a new update for the AirPod Pro 2, adding a section where users can find three new ways to use their AirPods for hearing support. Under Hearing Health Features, Apple now includes a hearing test, hearing assistance, and hearing protection options. Here’s how they work:
- Hearing test: The AirPod Pro 2 hearing test requires you to find the right domes to fit your ear so it forms a complete seal to provide noise cancellation. Then, you’ll need to answer some:basic questions before completing the audio exam. It plays tones at different volumes and frequencies, and ours was complete within 10 minutes. Your results show the dBHL hearing loss in each ear, and how much hearing loss you have based on the number. You can then turn on Media Assist and allow those test results to adjust your AirPods when you make calls or listen to music, books, or podcasts.
- Hearing assist/Media assist: Apple’s hearing assist features require you to either take their test or upload a professional audiogram before using. It has a default setting, but you can also go into the adjustments section to customize your settings for balance, tone, conversation boost, or other features. One thing we like about this feature is the ability to select different profiles, so if you and a partner both use one set of AirPods, you can shift between hearing assistance profiles.
- Hearing protection: The hearing protection mode allows you to turn on Loud Sound Reduction, reducing your exposure to noisy environments around you while your AirPods are in either Transparency or Adaptive modes. It also includes a headphone safety feature where you can set the decibel level of your AirPods so you don’t unknowingly damage your ears. The decibel level is automatically set to 85 when you turn on this feature, and you can access the number of times you played music over the recommended limit in the past 7 days.
Where AirPods fall short
Part of the appeal of using AirPods to support your hearing is their ability to reduce some of the stigma associated with visible signs of hearing loss, as the devices are used by all ages to stream music, podcasts, and phone calls. Additionally, AirPods’ technology works seamlessly with other Apple devices. However, AirPods cannot provide the nuanced hearing support included with most hearing aids, and our tester didn’t feel they were secure enough to stay in while she was exercising or making big movements. Lastly, the AirPods simply are not comfortable enough for all-day wear.
In summary, while we don’t recommend Apple AirPods as a replacement for hearing aids, we do like them as an option to those who could benefit from hearing support but are reluctant to use a hearing device.
Over-the-counter hearing aids
In October 2022, the FDA established a new category of hearing aids, OTC hearing aids. As a result, consumers can now purchase certain hearing aids directly from pharmacies, stores, and online retailers—with no doctor visit or prescription required.
This has paved the way for more retailers to enter the hearing aid market, which should drive the price down, making them affordable and shortening the wait time before people decide to treat their hearing loss.
Understanding hearing loss
Hearing loss is measured in two main ways: degrees and types. Your degree of hearing loss refers to the amount or severity of hearing loss you have, while your type of hearing loss refers to the types of sounds you have problems hearing.
Degrees of hearing loss
Your degree of hearing loss can impact the style of hearing aid that suits your needs. The CDC outlines four levels, or degrees, of hearing loss based on how loud sounds must be for you to hear and understand them.
- Mild (26 dB to 40 dB): Those with mild hearing loss may struggle with softer sounds, such as consonants like “s,” “f,” “t,” and “th,” as well as certain vowels like “i.”
- Moderate (41 dB to 55 dB): Moderate hearing loss causes you to be unable to hear most speech at a normal level, and sounds like “n,” “e,” and “u” are harder to hear.
- Severe (56 dB to 90 dB): Those with severe hearing loss can only hear some loud sounds and are unable to hear speech at all.
- Profound (91+ dB): Profound hearing loss means you are only able to hear extremely loud sounds.
Common types of hearing loss
Your type of hearing loss also impacts which device will best support your hearing. According to the CDC, these are the most common types of hearing loss:
- High frequency: High-frequency hearing loss means you have trouble hearing sounds in the 2,000–8,000 hertz (Hz) range, which are often used in speech (most people with age-related hearing loss have problems hearing high frequencies). Women’s and children’s voices often fall in this range.
- Low frequency: Low-frequency hearing loss is difficulty hearing sound frequencies of 2,000 Hz or lower. Men’s voices tend to fall in this range.
- Sensorineural: Sensorineural is the most common type of age-related hearing loss resulting from damage to the inner ear’s auditory nerve or hair cells.
- Conductive: Conducive hearing loss is caused by a problem with sound traveling through the outer or middle ear.
- Mixed: A combination of sensorineural and conductive hearing loss
New to hearing aids?
Hearing aids improve your hearing by magnifying sound frequencies entering the ear, so you can hear those sounds louder and clearer. They come in different styles, but all have a piece designed to fit snugly in your ear canal. You can learn more about hearing loss and hearing aids here:
Types of hearing aids
The six main types of hearing aids—behind-the-ear, receiver-in-canal, in-the-ear, in-the-canal, completely-in-canal, and invisible-in-canal— have pros and cons. The right one for you depends on your degree of hearing loss and the types of features you want to prioritize:
- More severe levels of hearing loss require greater amplification and a larger receiver, which may not fit in the ear canal. Severe or profound hearing loss could limit you to a BTE hearing aid.
- Advanced technology usually means more microchips or sensors, which require space. Bluetooth streaming and hands-free calling are considered advanced technology features and are more common in RIC or BTE models because the microchip can sit in the casing behind the ear.
- Directional microphones don’t work well on CIC hearing aids because the microphone can only point outside the ear canal. Therefore, hearing aids that help you focus on a conversation partner are more likely to be ITE, RIC, and BTE styles.