Embrace Hearing

The customer support at Embrace Hearing has been remarkably good. I’m frustrated with the app from my telephone. Every once in a while, it somehow disconnects itself and I had recently called. I told Jim, the rep, to send me the instructions in writing so that I don't have to worry the next time this happens. And he did. I did not have time to deal with it that day and the next day, I put them on, and the things were working, even though I hadn't removed the app and reinstalled it. A second time quite recently, for a few hours, it didn't work again and it corrected itself somehow. Whether that problem is in my iPhone or in the app for the hearing aid, I don't know. But it is a nuisance.

They said that if something breaks down, I can go to the overall company that makes it. It turns out there is no such place on the North Shore. So far, I've been able to call for anything that didn't work and Embrace has led me through whatever I needed to do to get it up to par. But I am annoyed that I don't have that office because I can't function without the hearing aids. Still, when I call, Embrace has been simply wonderful about getting back to me on a weekend, late at night. In that respect, I wouldn't fault them. And I wouldn't want anyone to get the impression that by and large I’m not happy, because I am.

I also liked the feature that they reach out to me in the sense that if there's a problem. I was having a little difficulty one time because the loudness was causing some issues. They said that they would do a one-time adjustment. They did their thing remotely and it worked. They also did a couple other follow-up calls to see how I was doing with it and if there were any problems and for me, it went smoothly. In my first hearing aid, I went to an office. The person did the examination and tweaked the hearing aid for me. So, I liked the fact that they could adjust my hearing aids remotely and that was a big feature. I would definitely recommend this to other people.

The crazy part about this is its capability of being on the phone. The other ones, I have to keep taking them out. They're not as good as this. When I got this, I thought I won't use it all the time but I got no choice anymore because I want nothing to do with the other ones. Once in a while, in a restaurant, I might put it at a minus four because it'll bring up the voices a little bit more across the tables and it seems to work for whatever that is. On everyday life and wherever else I go, it's always minus five. Everything else is too powerful. If you get to zero, you'd give yourself a headache. You would have to be almost completely deaf to use zero.

I had emailed Embrace and asked what would be the chance of me being able to take a chance on the C Series which is not supposed to be as powerful as the ones that I'm using now. It would be nice to have two different types. Sometimes, when you constantly put this behind the ear, then it gets a little funny too. You wanna give behind your ear a rest. But they wanted me to feel this one out. On those other hearing aids, you can't do anything yourself. You can't touch it. You gotta keep going back and if it doesn't work, you gotta make an appointment. You gotta sit there all day and wait for them to come out. Especially now with all these masks, that's the worst thing. But Embrace came up with this remote control thing. I do it through my phone. It's much easier to just scroll through the phone, touch it and put the volume. The app is another beautiful thing.

What I also liked is that I'm allowed to buy one. They said, “Your hearing’s bad, and you could use two, but we'll sell you what you want.” I said, “Sell me the one and let me say what I got, and then we'll see.” It leads me to feel like I have another step. As you get older and your hearing gets worse, you wanna always feel like you're not at the last step. What Embrace also did which was really cool was by having this online hearing test, it allowed me to take the test and set up the hearing aid to the best I could. The only thing is the battery doesn't last as long as some of the other ones I had. Nevertheless, I recommended this to anybody that's got issues. It's very comfortable. I hope that Embrace stays around because they're good for me. They help a lot of people.

I had battery ones before. They last five to six days for the batteries go bad. But they didn't Bluetooth and anything else. That stuff wasn't out then. No place in Embrace's ads say that if you're using Bluetooth or just because they Bluetooth back and forth with each other, the batteries have half the life as what ones without that did. I have to change the batteries in three days. And that is with turning off my phone from being able to receive it, or the TV being able to receive it. The only thing I do with the Bluetooth is adjusting on my phone. And that is the happiest thing I like, is being able to adjust the mids, basses, and my trebles on the phone because some shows are just not good, and I can make it to where I can hear things better. I don't know if it was better to pay the extra 400. It's probably still cheaper to buy batteries over the life of what they're expected, but just the inconvenience. I just carry a package of batteries in my pocket all the time.

Considering that it would be 4,500 for Beltones, obviously at 24 something, Embrace was a much better deal. And I like the fact that they have a three-year warranty on them. Beltone had a year or so. But you kept going in every couple months, and they would change out the wax guards and do different things to them, and clean them up. But if there was something major, I would have to pay for it myself after the year. I've recommended Embrace to four people already.

One of the things that you really need when you get hearing aids, is that you need to get the real ear measurements, and that can only be done if you have the equipment and do it in an office setting. The other thing is that it's difficult to do things with Zoom, trying to connect with something like a hearing aid over the internet. Compared to the rest of the market, they're all overpriced. Product is very similar to the other products in the class. There are some products that are more or less popular.

Most people don't know how their hearing aids work. The products have features. I know how they work, and so I want some of the features. The feature right now that I have, as an example, when somebody calls, all I have to do is tap my ear twice and it connects to my cellphone that's lying in the living room. I tried another brand that went for about $2000 and they gave you a three-year warranty with an audiologist on Zoom. That was the closest thing to real life that I've experienced and the product was not so bad either.

I used to be a switchboard operator. I could not answer the phone with the headset because it would bother my ears. I can't wear my hearing aids all the time. I find that if I wear the right one by itself, I'm fine. The right one is the one that's okay. It's the left one that gives me problems. I have enough hearing with that one that I don't even have to worry about putting the other one on.