Tele-Coil Add On Feature

Tele-Coil (T-Coil) switches, makes it easier to hear when talking on the telephone. The telecoil eliminates the sounds from your environment and allows you a direct connection of the sounds on the telephone. It also allows a wireless Bluetooth signal to be received inside of your new hearing aids. T-Coils must be installed during the construction of your hearing aids at our lab and cannot be added later.

The "telecoil". is also referred to as a "t-switch" or "t-coil". The image at the right shows a telecoil blown up to many times it normal size since it is a small component in an already small hearing aid.

Normally, a hearing aid "listens" with a microphone, then amplifies what it picks up. But with a telecoil used as the input source instead of (or in addition to) the microphone, a hearing aid can "hear" a magnetic signal which represents sound.

On T-Coil-equipped hearing aids, the wearer must "turn on" or "switch to" the telecoil mode by pushing a button to a program mode that is set up to use the telecoil as an input source instead of or in addition to the microphones. Automatic T-Coils have become available on many hearing aids. Most will work when using a neckloop or a room loop, and they may even be intermittent in their recognition of a compatible phone's magnetic signal.

Even though newer phones are not natural sources of a magnetic signal, most phones contain extra electronics to generate a magnetic signal and are thus "Hearing Aid Compatible" (HAC). What that means is that a hearing aid with a telecoil can "hear" the magnetic signal they put out.

In addition, because of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), many public accommodations such as movie theaters, theaters, auditoriums, and sports stadiums provide Assistive Listening Systems (ALSs), which may include headsets or receivers loaned to patrons to help them hear. Many of these are HAC, so if you have a telecoil equipped hearing aid, then you can hear the magnetic signal ... many times you can hear that a lot better than you can hear an acoustic signal.

Many churches, though not required to provide ALSs, do so because they know it's good for their members.

You can also use a telecoil to hear the TV, telephones, in meetings, in noisy restaurants, or in a noisy car if you supply the magnetic signal using an Assistive Listening Device (ALD) coupled with a room loop, a neckloop or silhouettes.

One major advantage of a using a telecoil is that you can turn off your normal hearing aid microphone, and thus, not hear all the noise that might be around you. You only hear the magnetic signal, which doesn't include all that noise, so you can hear it a lot better.