#roger pen

[fishyasl]

I never quite realized how much I rely on technology as a deaf person until today as I was getting ready for bed. Plug in my laptop so I can actually get transcription for tomorrow, put my hearing aids in the dryer so that they don’t fizzle out and die on me, put my pen on the charger....

[deaf-a-rising]

In college, I use this neat piece of technology called a Roger Pen. It is supposed to look a pen, but the little blinking green gives it away. What it does is amplify your surroundings up to a 30ft circumference. It hooks up to your hearing aid/cochlear implant via a chip. You can set it down on a table and point it in a direction the sound is coming from. It’s especially great when you’re in a group of people, you’re able to pick voices in different directions. I highly recommend it if you’re looking for something that’ll help you take notes better or if you’re involved in groups. There are a lot of other unique features about this such as Bluetooth and hooking up to your phone. The pen can act like headphones for you on your phone or ipod/ipad. I used it everyday for classes and music. It makes my life so much easier. If you guys want more information, I can totally do that.

[fishyasl]

One of the best things about hearing aids is no one knows I’m listening to music, like ever.

Didn’t hear you? Ooops, sorry I’m deaf...

[deaflepuff]

I'm newly diagnosed hoh and I was wondering - can I wear hearing aids and earbuds/in-ear-headphones at the same? I'm sorry to be a bother, I forgot to ask the audiologist and don't really know any deaf/Deaf/hoh people in real life.

You COULD depending what model of HAs you have. I have BTE (one in my profile picture) but it has earmoulds. 

But I also have something called Audio Shoes(1) and Receivers (2). 

Not entirely sure what the use of the audio shoe is probably just there to connect the Receiver. Anyway Receiver is a thing that is used with FM System (amplifies speaker voice, decrease background noise). I have something called Roger Pen and I use an adaptor (wire) that connects to Pen - Media player (iPod/MP3/Phone) for music to be streamed to my HAs. 

Which looks like... this:

so the music is streaming through your HAs via Bluetooth and you can increase the volume as loud as you want and no one will hear except you ;)There’s also such a thing called DAI (Direct Audio Input which is a wire (kind of like the one above) that instead of being attached to FM it’s attaching to your HA - Media player. I’m not too familiar with it but in a couple of weeks I’m getting my DAI so if you still want an explanation on how that works... in a couple of weeks I’ll let you know :)

I hope that helps! You can also get HEADphones but those give feedback to your HA so... but that’s just me.