A Technophile's Signia Active Pro Hearing Aids Review
These hearing aids will easily pass as earbuds. But the Signia Active Pro can do a lot more. Not only can they stream audio, they'll also support your hearing with AI-powered high-end sound processing. And if you're suffering from tinnitus, ask your care provider for one of the tinnitus hearing programs.
- Brand: Signia
- Battery Life: up to 26 hours
- Presets: up to six programs
- Connectivity: Bluetooth, MFi, coded high-frequency sound
- Volume Adjustment: via Signia app or StreamLine Mic
- Noise Cancellation: no
- Additional Tips: yes
- Long battery life
- Compact charging case doubles as carrying case
- Snug and comfortable fit
- Small, light, and easy to handle
- Optional sound-based app controls
- TeleCare hearing diary and support in the Signia app
- No separate volume control for left and right unit
- Streaming from non-iOS devices only via StreamLine Mic
- Signia app assistant doesn't work offline
It's not just you. Hearing loss increasingly affects a younger demographic. But the stigma of sporting a traditional hearing aid remains real. Now here's a new style of undercover hearing aid to save you.
The Signia Active and Active Pro hearing aids look and work much like earbuds, except they'll also elevate your hearing. Powered by machine learning and artificial intelligence, they promise to help you hear better than normal hearing in noisy situations.
We had the chance to test the Active Pro. Did we still love them after taking them for a spin in the real world? Let's find out.
What's in the Box
Signia sent us two boxes; one for the Active Pro hearing aids and one for the StreamLine Mic.
The Active Pro come as a set of two hearing aids in a charging case with a USB-C charging cable and wall charger. Also included in our box were click sleeves from Connexx, a small cleaning brush, a cleaning tissue, and safety and instruction manuals. Presently, you can only purchase a complete pair of Active Pro hearing aids, though Signia said they might offer individual units in the future.
The StreamLine Mic comes with a microUSB power supply, a carrying case, two lanyards, a quick start guide, and a user guide. While iOS users can pair the Active Pro hearing aids directly with their device, everyone else has to use the StreamLine Mic to make phone calls or stream audio from their phone, tablet, computer, or other device.
Signia Hearing Aid and StreamLine Mic Specs
We reviewed the Active Pro, Signia's premium model for mild to moderate hearing loss.
- Design: in-ear hearing aids
- Colors: snow-white/rose gold, black, or black/silver
- Connectivity
- Active Pro: Bluetooth, MFi (made-for-iPhone) standard, coded high-frequency sound
- Charging case: USB-C and Qi wireless charging
- StreamLine Mic: Bluetooth and microUSB charging
- Weight
- Hearing aids: 2 x 0.071 ounces (2 grams)
- Charging case: 1.98 ounces (56 grams)
- Battery Life
- Active Pro, per charge: up to 26 hours, or 23 hours + 2 hours of streaming
- Charging case: three full charges, i.e. up to 78 hours of listening
- StreamLine Mic: 6 hours with continuous streaming
- Charging Time
- Active Pro: 4 hours
- Fast charging: 30 minutes will yield 5 hours of listening or 3 hours of streaming
- Charging case: 3 hours via USB-C or 5 hours using Qi wireless
- StreamLineMic: 2 hours
- Hearing Programs: up to 6
- Tinnitus Therapies: yes
- Other optional accessories:
- StreamLine TV for feeding TV sound in stereo directly into the hearing aids.
- miniPocket to discreetly control the hearing aids with a key-fob-shaped remote control that hooks onto your purse or keychain.
In addition to the premium Active Pro hearing aids, Signia also offers a starter model designed for people who need a hearing boost in noisy environments. The Signia Active only carry up to four programs and lack the TinnitusNoiser option.
Signia hearing aids, including the Active and Active Pro, are available through your hearing aid professional. Since you'll purchase your hearing aids with additional services from your care provider, Signia was not able to give us a price point. However, you can expect costs to be well in the four digits, which, at the very least, should include an audiogram and a fitting.
Our Signia Remote Fitting Experience
Signia's technology supports remote fittings. However, you'll still need an in-person visit with an audiologist to obtain an audiogram, i.e. a professional measurement of our hearing ability.
Disclaimer: Signia offered us a remote fitting, but we could not provide them with an audiogram. Consequently, the fitting equaled a mock demonstration and couldn't result in an optimal fit.
For the remote fitting, we installed the Signia app [Android | iOS] and connected our hearing aids to our phone via Bluetooth. Next, Signia's audiologist provided us with a six-digit code that we entered into the app to pair with them as our TeleCare provider. This allowed them to initiate a video chat through the app and remotely tune our hearing aids. It also unlocked additional features, including hearing lessons, ways to connect with our TeleCare provider (professional), and satisfaction ratings.
While the hearing aid professional is connected to the app, they can adjust each hearing aid's settings and programs. This is typically done based on data from an audiogram. In our mock fitting, Signia's audiologist guesstimated the best settings and relied on our verbal feedback to adjust the volume and other settings of each unit.
How the Signia App Works
When you first open the app and after connecting your hearing aids, you'll see a volume control. At the bottom of the app, you can switch to sound balance, streaming, and directional hearing. The latter is only available in the default universal program. Likewise, the mask feature, which helps you with understanding muffled speech through a mask, is a universal-only option.
You can switch between hearing programs by tapping the current program. During our remote fitting, Signia set us up with the maximum of six programs, including:
- Universal: the default that will automatically adapt to your environment
- Noisy Environment: for particularly challening situations
- Reverberant Rooms: to hear better in echoey rooms
- Recorded Music: for listening to music through speakers
- Tinnitus (1): custom program with a steady speech noise
- Tinnitus (2): custom program with a wave sound
Signia also offers a noise therapy program, which can help the brain tune out tinnitus. We didn't have access to this option because it requires matching the pitch of the tinnitus. The idea, however, is that the brain will try to inhibit the constant signal from the Tinnitus Noiser through a neurological process called lateral inhibition. This works best for high-frequency sounds.
Tap the Bluetooth or battery symbol in the top left to see the status of your hearing aids.
Note: The app can communicate with your hearing aids using coded (and audible) high-frequency sound, meaning you can control your hearing aids even when they're not connected through Bluetooth.
Tapping the (unmasked) face in the top right will bring on the Signia Assistant, a cloud-powered tool that will help you customize your hearing aid's settings through simple questions. Should you be unhappy with the result, tap Settings in the top right to start a new chat or revert to your hearing care professional's settings.
Note: The Signia Assistant requires internet.
After your remote fitting, you'll have access to additional features in the main menu. Tap the hamburger icon in the top left to access hearing lessons, connect with your care professional, or rate your satisfaction.
The Signia Active Design and Technology
Most hearing aids have a battery unit that sits behind the ear and a receiver that reaches deep into the ear canal. Signia took a different approach and designed hearing aids that look and function much like earbuds. Signia took the best features from standard earbuds, including the form factor and a Qi wireless charging case, and merged it with modern hearing aid technology.
The Active and Active Pro run on Signia's Xperience platform. Powered by machine learning and artificial intelligence, these hearing aids can filter out and amplify selective sounds whether they're in front of you, surrounding you, or happening while you're in motion. How does this work?
Signia's technology breaks up the bandwidth of sound into areas of adjustments. The Signia Active Pro feature 48 frequency channels and 20 compression controls. This means that, across the audible bandwidth, these hearing aids can isolate 48 different frequency ranges and either amplify or silence them. This helps the Signia Active Pro carve out speech, while muting noise at the same time.
Our Signia Active Pro Experience
We tested the Signia Active Pro hearing aids for almost three weeks. We wore them during windy walks, watching movies at night, riding our bike, catching a Lyft, at an exhibition, while listening to music from external speakers, and as a sleep aid. Here's how we liked them.
Active Pro Comfort
The intuitive and elegant design made using our Signia Active Pro hearing aids a pure joy. They're tiny, light, and absolutely comfortable. The included click sleeves were easy to switch out and provided a snug and secure fit.
We used our demo unit to fall asleep a few times and absolutely loved it. The hearing aids were comfortable and didn't fall out. In that space, the Signia Active Pro blow the Amazfit ZenBuds or the Kokoon Sleep Headphones out of the water. However, the price doesn't justify buying them for this purpose alone.
If we had an iPhone, these hearing aids would probably be our favorite earphones. While streaming through the StreamLine Mic works perfectly fine, it's an additional device to carry around and charge, which makes it less convenient.
Active Pro Sound
We tested various settings, locations, and noise levels. Due to our incomplete fitting, we can't credibly vouch for the hearing aid technology. As you would expect, however, we found that wearing one unit on our weak ear did help us pick up significantly more sounds on that ear.
Unlike with other hearing aids, we never had to correct sound artifacts, such as wind or echo. We had the impression that the Universal program did a fine job with auto-adjusting to our environment.
The Signia App
The app was easy to use, though we didn't feel like we depended on it.
The TeleCare feature is brilliant. Once enabled, the Satisfaction option lets you record instant feedback through guided questionnaires. This will help you record issues as they come up, making it easier to address them during a follow-up call with your hearing aid professional. Moreover, the app provides a direct connetion to your care provider.
We were impressed when we discovered that the app doesn't require a Bluetooth connection to change settings on the hearing aids or give you feedback on the battery life. The coded high-frequency sound control option is a nice touch, though it might freak out your pets. On our phone (OnePlus 5t), it was definitely audible to middle-aged human ears as well.
We regret that it's not possible to change the volume for each unit individually. We would also have appreciated the option to use the Assistant without internet.
Active Pro Hearing Aid Battery Life
You might wonder how these tiny hearing aids achieve 26 hours of battery life, when larger earbuds barely manage more than 10. Keep in mind that the hearing aids themselves don't pack much technology; no touch controls, no buttons, no noise-cancelling, and only limited storage for their programming.
What surprised us was that continuous streaming didn't seem to bring the battery life down. In our tests, the fully charged hearing aids dropped to 80% battery life after more than five hours of continuous streaming. The StreamLine Mic only supports six streaming hours, but you can charge and use it at the same time.
Overall, we were more than satisfied with the battery life. The compact charging case, which packs an additional three full charges, was always in arm's reach.
Note: The only way to turn the hearing aids off, other than draining the battery (not recommended), is to return them to the charging case.
Our Signia Active Pro Verdict
If you're on the fence about hearing aids, but deep down know you need them, try the Signia Active Pro. They are comfortable, easy to use, and no one will know you're wearing hearing aids. Though you might have to reassure people that you can hear them perfectly fine while still wearing your "earbuds."
And since you read this far, chances are you really have a problem with your hearing. Get it checked out! As we alluded to in our previous coverage of hearing loss technology, most people wait too long, which can lead to permanent neurological damage.
source https://www.makeuseof.com/signia-active-pro-review/
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