There’s an app for everything these days, and you know better than most people what a difference technology can make in our daily lives. We use apps to stream videos, connect with friends on social media, read the news, play games, learn a language, and so much more.
With the Nucleus® Smart App, an app can even help control how you hear. It can tailor your hearing to your personal preferences, all from your compatible Apple or Android smartphone or Apple Watch. *
For Lewis, a Cochlear™ Nucleus® 8 recipient and Cochlear employee, the main benefit of upgrading is the Nucleus Smart App.
Adjusting how much environmental noise I can hear
“The feature I use most in the app is adjusting sensitivity. By adjusting the sensitivity, I can still mostly hear other people as well as my own voice in a way that’s helpful. And when I’m streaming a video, I can take the sensitivity off if I don’t want to hear any background noise, which improves the sound quality.”
Listening in a noisy environment
If you find yourself trying to have a conversation in a noisy environment and have a sound processor that has ForwardFocus + enabled, it can help you filter out background noise so you can manage face-to-face conversations.
“I’ll turn ForwardFocus on and it reduces noise coming from behind me, which is fantastic when I’m a noisy environment such as a restaurant.”
Connecting to other devices
Lewis uses the Nucleus Smart App to connect and switch between different devices, such as the Cochlear Wireless TV Streamer.
“My wife, Vanessa, often tends to work late in our living room. If I switch to the TV Streamer, I can watch TV without bothering her. I just select it through the app and she can’t hear the TV at all, as it streams directly to my sound processor. It’s especially helpful for when a soccer match is on – I enjoy soccer, but my wife doesn’t.”
You can switch between devices by accessing the feature by selecting ‘Audio Sources’ and select any of the devices you have connected.
Learning how much of my day is spent listening
By selecting the menu, followed by ‘Hearing Tracker’ then ‘Time in Speech,’ Lewis can see how much time he’s spent in a speaking environment.
“I’ve learned through the app that I spend about six hours in speech on average each day. If I’m feeling especially tired, I use this feature to figure out if I spent more time in speech than usual. When I’m listening to people, I’m concentrating more and that tires me out more.”
When visiting his much younger brother, Lewis found he was getting tired. But the app helped him understand why. The brothers spent so much time chatting, “I realised I was spending nine hours in speech, so it was no surprise!”
Knowing how much battery I have left
“With the Nucleus 6 Sound Processor, I was often nervous that my battery would run out at specific times, like during job interviews,” Lewis says. “Being able to check the battery level using the Nucleus Smart App is a small but reassuring feature.”
At work, Lewis makes sure that video calls and online meetings go smoothly.
“Before I join a meeting, I check my app to make sure I have enough battery left to make it through the call. And if the battery run lows, it beeps which is very distracting. Instead of disrupting my work, using the app I can check my battery level easily, which saves me a lot of stress.”
Lewis makes good use of other apps too, “but the Nucleus Smart App is one I would struggle to live without. It offers some simple yet important ways to adjust that allows me to control how I hear, and that’s something most people can’t do.”
The Nucleus Smart App is just one of many great reasons to upgrade. Check out our latest sound processors and talk to your clinician or get in touch to find out if you are eligible to upgrade.
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Disclaimer
*The Cochlear Nucleus Smart App is available on App Store and Google Play. For compatibility information visit www.cochlear.com/compatibility
+ForwardFocus can only be enabled by a hearing implant specialist. It should only be activated for users 12 years and older who are able to reliably provide feedback on sound quality and understand how to use the feature when moving to different or changing environments. It may be possible to have decreased speech understanding when using ForwardFocus in a quiet environment.
