Sony CRE-C10 Self-Fitting OTC Hearing Aids for Mild to Moderate Hearing Loss, Prescription-Grade Sound Quality, Compact Virtually Invisible Design, Customizable App, and Replaceable Batteries, Black

These hearing aids have been shockingly good. My pricey regular hearing aids are going back for repair--again. Even when they are working I have never been happy with their performance. I ordered these to use as a backup and expected them to be a poor substitute. What a surprise! They are better than my regular aids. I hear sounds and people with both my expensive HAs, but with these I actually understand consistently. The downloaded app (android) worked well and I quickly worked my way through the initial hearing test. Given the state of my hearing I was not sure these would work for me. However, the test went quickly and my hearing aids were set up. Then I moved through my day. I was pretty sure my experience would be frustrating, that they would not be very good, and that I'd be posting another kind of review. On the contrary! I was struck by the clarity of all types of conversational speech--something that is very important to me, and a continuing problem with my other hearing aids. I have now worn these for four days in a variety of situations, including small group gatherings and meetings, outdoors, one-on-one conversations, listening to audio, TV, and I am very satisfied. I haven't tried them in a very crowded noisy restaurant or very large crowd yet, and I wouldn't be surprised if they fell short there. But so do my expensive ones. Right now, speech in conversations, as well as from TV, is crystal clear. I am wearing them about 14 hours per day. They have been comfortable and there has been no squealing or feedback. I'm just hoping they don't break. The battery door seems a little vulnerable to me. I want these to last. I will update as I experience these in more difficult situations, but so far, it's all good. Update 8/10/2024 - These continue to work well. Can't believe it, but they are better in restaurants and group situations than my regular HAs. The battery door, contrary to my original evaluation, seems to be pretty robust. I put in the battery the wrong way once and tried to force the door to close. Couldn't, and nothing broke. But, do be careful. The batteries go in differently on each aid so it can be easy to make a mistake. Update 8/28/2024: I have now worn these in just about every imaginable situation. In a very noisy restaurant I found it easy to understand everyone, although the music playing in the background sounded atrocious. Walking down a high traffic street I encountered a little annoying background noise, but it was quite tolerable. I could understand what people around me were saying which was most important. My expensive hearing aids cancel background noise better, but I am constantly asking people to repeat themselves or spell out words. I am very pleased!

This is an updated review since I have had mine a couple months. This is for the invisible model - I didn't want any colossal thing hanging off my ears and the batteries are so each and cheap to replace that I'll take that any day. As others have mentioned - there is one major flaw in the software. One of my ears is pretty poor and the setup told me I can't use this. I literally had to repeat the setup 5 or 6 times to get past that step. At one point some wishful thinking and lying and saying I could hear a tone finally got past that. The should fix the software not to utterly reject the user in this case. What if over time that ear gets worse and I have to reset them? I'm supposed to throw in the trash? Which leads me to my next complaint - limited and simplistic software. After setting them up they didn't work all that well so I used the "customization" feature a couple times and finally got them to work GREAT. But now I have a real fear of ever successfully repeating the step should I need to. A simple way to save the settings would suffice. I should be able to save my settings. Otherwise, Sony, when these need eventual replacement the new one may have to be returned. Try to name a product where you can't save the settings somehow? Once I finally got them customized they work really well if not perfect. I do have some residual feedback at times. My ear that hears poorly is dramatically improved, proving they should have better software and let you use it even if it won't be optimal. I have no intention of ever paying an audiologist for what is essentially the same thing, so OTC is my only option. The battery as I suspected is a non issue. The Amazon Basics brand is practically free and it only takes a couple seconds to swap. They last a long time and you get two different audible warnings before a battery dies so really not a big deal. If Sony could make a couple small improvements - allow you to save settings and let setup continue even if results won't be optimal - this thing would be just about perfect. Nowadays, I am wearing them more and more. I can watch TV with my wife again and let her handle the volume control. I hear background noises in the house I have not heard in years. Overall they are well worth the money! Edit: After a few months one failed. Sony sent me a replacement fast so I’m raising to 5 stars for decent service which is rare these days. Second edit: A couple months later one failed again. Once again Sony came through. But given the fact that these are expensive and the warranty is so short (1 year) its looking like these are not going to be worth the money over time as they just don't hold up well. Final edit: One star. They only last 3 months or so on average, the third pair just had another failure. I use them lightly an am extremely careful, so I view this as unexceptable. I have a few weeks left on warranty but will not bother to get another replacement - the lifespan is too small to be useful for this product. And lastly when I bought the Apple EarPods pro 2 I realized they are so much better I would never go back to Sony. Threw them in the trash.

Only one complaint, really. Every so often, they “disconnect” and I have to go through setup again. If this happens to you, though, just select to keep previous settings when you come to that screen. I’d like them to be able to tune out extraneous noise and focus on the voices around me, but the very expensive ones my friends and family have don’t even do that well (from what they tell me). I’d also like to switch between quiet environment and noisy quickly and not have to go into the settings to go through the “troubleshooting” steps. Otherwise, these are user-friendly, very unobtrusive and “invisible” and I can hear! Without them, everything is very muffled and voices sound like they are mumbling. Battery life is fair - they last between 4-5 days. I buy the ones from Costco, so not too expensive.