Hearing aids can be life-changing, but today’s most advanced models support so much more than hearing alone. In 2018, Audibel introduced the world’s first hearing aid with built-in health tracking features. Today, this technology is more advanced than ever, empowering users to take a more proactive approach to their overall wellness.
From tracking your daily step count and social engagement to monitoring your respiratory rate and even detecting falls, these features turn your hearing aids into powerful wellness tools.
In this guide, we explore the health tracking features available in Audibel hearing aids, explain how they work, and walk you through how to use them to support a healthier, more active lifestyle.
Jump Ahead:
- Health Tracking Hearing Aids Overview
- How Health Tracking Hearing Aids Work
- Different Health Tracking Features
- How to Set Up Health Tracking Hearing Aids
- Tips for Using Hearing Aids with Health Tracking
What Are Health Tracking Hearing Aids?
Health tracking hearing aids are advanced devices that combine built-in sensors and smart technology to track daily health and activity metrics. This gives you valuable insights into your physical activity, hearing habits, and overall well-being.
Some of the health and wellness features that Audibel hearing aids offer include:
- Daily Physical Activity and Step Count
- Mental Engagement Tracking
- Respiratory Rate Monitoring
- Balance Building Exercises
- Automatic Fall Detection and Alerts
In addition to delivering personalized sound and speech clarity, health tracking hearing aids can also monitor physical activity, encourage social engagement, detect falls, and even track your breaths per minute (respiratory rate).
How Do Health Tracking Hearing Aids Work?
Health tracking hearing aids use built-in motion sensors, AI technology, and a secure smartphone app to track physical activity, daily engagement, and safety data. These metrics automatically sync to your My Audibel Hearing Aid App so you can easily monitor your wellness trends.
How Health Tracking Hearing Aids Work:
- Built-In Motion Sensors: Health tracking hearing aids use built-in motion sensors and advanced software to track key vital signs, body movements, and device usage patterns.
- Artificial Intelligence (AI): Using advanced AI technology combined with the built-in sensors, these hearing aids can automatically detect when you’re walking, sitting, standing, jogging, speaking, turning your head, falling, and even breathing.
- Smartphone App Sync: Your daily activity metrics are all securely synced with the My Audibel app where you can view health and wellness reports and even set personal goals.
Like any other hearing aid, health tracking hearing devices are worn in your ear, allowing them to track wellness metrics while you naturally go about your normal routine. Since hearing aids are designed for consistent daily wear, they can provide a more complete picture of your health without requiring you to wear a separate device like a smartwatch.
By combining some of the world’s most advanced hearing technology with built-in sensors, Audibel hearing aids provide a holistic approach to managing both your hearing and general wellness.
What Features Do Health Tracking Hearing Aids Offer?
Today’s hearing aids are designed to do much more than improve hearing. Audibel devices include built-in health and wellness features that help you track your physical activity, social engagement, hearing aid usage, and more.
These features are designed to work seamlessly in the background while you wear your hearing aids, making them an even more valuable part of your daily routine.
Below, we take a closer look at key health tracking features available in Audibel hearing aids:
Physical Activity and Step Count
Staying physically active is an important part of healthy aging. Using built-in motion sensors, Audibel hearing aids can help you track daily physical activity levels, including:
- Daily Steps: The total number of steps you take each day.
- Movement and Exercise: The time you spend in continuous physical motion, like walking, running, indoor biking, and general aerobics.
- Time Standing: The time spent standing upright and moving versus sedentary periods like lying down.
Through the My Audibel app, you can view your activity data, set personal goals, and monitor your progress over time. These insights can help you stay motivated to incorporate more movement into your daily routine and better understand how your activity levels change from day to day.
Mental Engagement Tracking
Auditory stimulation from conversations and everyday sounds help keep the brain active and is essential for good cognitive health, especially as we age. Audibel hearing aids include mental engagement tracking features that can provide insights into your hearing habits:
- Daily Hearing Aid Wear Time: Measures how many hours you wear your hearing aids each day. Consistent use is essential to keep the brain healthy and stimulated.
- Social Engagement Activity: Tracks periods of active listening and conversations to provide a better understanding of your engagement throughout the day.
- Listening Environments: Provides insight into the different acoustic environments you spend time in and their noise levels.
By tracking hearing aid usage and engagement patterns, these metrics can help you better understand your daily hearing habits. This can help you identify opportunities to stay more connected with the people and environments around you.
Respiratory Rate Tracking
Your respiratory rate is the number of breaths you take each minute. Changes in breathing patterns are sometimes the first physical indicator of stress, illness, or serious health concerns. Select Audibel hearing aids can automatically track your respiratory rate throughout the day, giving you valuable insight into one of our most important vital signs.
Hearing aids with respiratory rate tracking can show:
- Baseline Insight: Track your baseline breathing patterns to better understand what’s normal for you.
- Long-Term Trends: Monitor long-term wellness trends by tracking changes in your respiratory rate over days, weeks, and months.
- Patterns: Track breathing patterns during physical activity to see how your body responds to exercise and recovery.
Respiratory rate tracking can provide helpful wellness insights but is not intended to diagnose or monitor medical conditions. This hearing aid feature can serve as a tool that helps you better understand your overall health.
Balance and Stability Exercises
Our hearing and balance systems are closely linked, so problems with one often affect the other. Audibel hearing aids were the first to offer built-in balance builder tools and guided exercises designed to help users improve their stability at home.
Through the My Audibel app, you can access multiple Balance Builder features, including:
- At-Home Balance Assessments: Guided tests help measure your current balance and stability, allowing you to establish a baseline and monitor changes over time.
- Guided Balance Builder Exercises: Step-by-step exercises designed to improve balance, coordination, and confidence during everyday movements.
- Progress Tracking: The app records completed exercises and assessment results, so you can see your improvement over time.
These built-in balance tools can make it easier to take a proactive approach to your mobility and stability to reduce the risk of falls.
Fall Detection and Alerts
In addition to activity tracking, Audibel hearing aids are also the first of their kind to offer automatic fall detection and alerts. The same built-in sensors that track your daily health and activity metrics can also identify sudden changes in movement or orientation indicative of a serious fall.
Here’s how hearing aids with automatic fall detection and alerts work:
- Automatic Fall Detection: Hearing aid sensors can recognize the motion patterns associated with a fall. When a fall is detected, it automatically triggers a countdown to send out an emergency alert.
- Alert Canceling: If you are unharmed or do not need help, the countdown gives you time to cancel the alert in the app or by pressing a button on the hearing aid.
- Emergency Alert: If the alert is not canceled and the countdown ends, an emergency alert is sent to your pre-selected contacts, such as a family member or caregiver.
- Location Sharing: When enabled, the alert includes your current GPS location, so your emergency contacts know where you are and where to send help.
For older adults who live alone, enjoy an active lifestyle, or simply want added confidence during everyday activities, this feature can help ensure that help is notified quickly when it’s needed most.
How to Set Up Health Tracking on Your Hearing Aids Step-By-Step
Getting started with Audibel hearing aid health tracking features is simple. Once your hearing aids are paired with the My Audibel app, you can begin monitoring your goals and tracking personalized health metrics.
Below is a step-by-step overview of how to set up the health tracking features on your Audibel hearing aids:
1. Download the My Audibel App
The first step is to install the free My Audibel Hearing Aid App on your compatible Apple or Android smartphone. The app serves as the control center for your hearing aids, allowing you to adjust hearing settings, monitor health and wellness metrics, perform balance assessments, and much more.
After downloading the app, create an account or sign in if prompted, then follow the on-screen instructions to begin connecting your hearing aids.
2. Pair Your Hearing Aids with Your Smartphone
The next step is to wirelessly connect your hearing aids to your smartphone. The My Audibel app will guide you through the pairing process, but it typically involves opening your phone’s accessibility settings (for iPhones) or Bluetooth settings (for Androids), then selecting your hearing aids from the list of available devices.
Once paired, your phone and hearing aids will automatically connect any time they are near each other.
3. Enable Health Tracking Features
To access all available wellness tools, you’ll need to grant the My Audibel app permission to use certain smartphone features. Depending on your smartphone, you may be asked to allow:
- Bluetooth access for hearing aid communication
- Motion and fitness permissions for activity tracking
- Location services for emergency fall alerts and location sharing
- Notifications for reminders and alerts
Once these permissions are enabled, your hearing aids will automatically sync data with the app, allowing your information to update throughout the day.
4. Customize Your Wellness Settings
Once everything is connected, you can personalize the health tracking features to fit your needs. Within the My Audibel app, you can customize settings such as:
- Daily activity and wellness goals
- Emergency contacts for fall alerts
- Balance Builder exercises and assessments
- Notification preferences
- And more
Taking a few minutes to personalize these settings helps ensure your hearing aids provide the most relevant insights and support for your lifestyle.
5. Start Tracking Your Health and Wellness Metrics
After setup is complete, simply wear your hearing aids and go about your normal routine. The health tracking features run automatically in the background, and the app will update your stats throughout the day.
You can open the My Audibel app at any time to review your step count, physical activity, respiratory rate trends, social engagement, hearing aid usage, and other available wellness data.
Need help? If you need assistance during setup or have questions about any of your hearing aid features, contact our team at Pattillo Balance & Hearing Center. We are more than happy to walk you through the process and ensure everything is configured correctly.
Tips for Using Hearing Aids with Health Tracking
Hearing aids with health tracking features provide the greatest benefit when you use them consistently and as part of your everyday routine. Being mindful of how you use these features can help you get more accurate, useful data over time.
Below are some practical tips to help you maximize the performance of your health tracking hearing aids:
Wear Your Hearing Aids Every Day
The more consistently you wear your hearing aids, the more complete and accurate your health data will be. Daily wear creates a complete picture of your physical activity, social engagement, and other wellness metrics.
If you only wear your hearing aids occasionally, your health insights will have scattered gaps in data that will not accurately reflect your typical routine or lifestyle.
Track Long-Term Trends
Daily numbers can fluctuate and provide a small snapshot of information. Looking at more long-term trends gives you a better idea of your actual activity patterns and any changes worth paying attention to.
Rather than focusing on day-to-day fluctuations, look for weekly and monthly patterns that can help you better understand your overall wellness.
Set Realistic Wellness Goals
One of the easiest ways to stay motivated is by setting achievable goals. Whether you’re trying to be more active, wear your hearing aids more consistently, or improve your balance, small, realistic goals are often the most sustainable.
As your habits improve, you can gradually adjust your goals to continue making progress while avoiding frustration or burnout.
Complete Balance Assessments and Exercises
Don’t overlook the Balance Builder tools. Completing regular balance assessments and guided exercises can help you monitor your stability over time and build confidence in your everyday movements.
Just like physical exercise, consistency is key. Performing these exercises regularly may help support better balance and reduce your risk of falls.
Keep Your Hearing Aids and App Updated
Audibel periodically releases updates that improve performance, add new features, and enhance security. Keeping both your hearing aids and the My Audibel app up to date helps ensure you have access to the latest health tracking capabilities and the best possible user experience.
If you’re unsure whether your devices are running the latest software, your hearing care provider can help you check for updates during your next appointment.
Review Your Data with Your Hearing Care Provider
Your health tracking data can also be a valuable resource during your hearing care appointments. Sharing information about your hearing aid usage, social engagement, and other wellness metrics gives your hearing care provider a more complete picture of how your hearing aids are supporting your daily life.
Together, you can discuss any concerns, identify opportunities to improve your hearing experience, and make adjustments to your hearing aid settings if needed.
Try the Latest Hearing Aid Technology for FREE at Pattillo Balance & Hearing Center
Health tracking turns your hearing aids into comprehensive wellness tools. With features like step counting, social engagement tracking, and fall alert technology, Audibel hearing aids help you stay connected, active, and informed about your overall well-being.
If you’re interested in hearing aids with advanced health tracking features, our team is here to help. Schedule a hearing aid consultation to demo the latest technology for FREE at Pattillo Balance & Hearing Center in Birmingham.