Hearing aids and cellular phones haven’t always gotten along as well as they do now. The sophisticated electronics in both products often triggered static, lost words or screeching interference noises. New government regulations, along with significant advances in both cell phone and hearing aid technology, have made this incompatibility rare.

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The Hearing Aid User’s Guide to Selecting Mobile Phones
Hearing aids and cellular phones haven’t
always gotten along as well as they do
now. The sophisticated electronics in both
products often triggered static, lost words
or screeching interference noises. New
government regulations, along with
significant advances in both cell phone and
hearing aid technology, have made this
incompatibility rare. The regulations
mandated new labeling requirements and
ratings that help you to easily find a mobile phone that works well with your
hearing aid.
The first thing you need to understand is that hearing aids operate in two
different modes – microphone or “M” mode, and telecoil or “T” mode. When
your hearing aid is in M mode, it uses the built-in microphone to pick up
audible sounds from around you and amplify them to make them easier for
you to hear. In T mode, the hearing aid uses telecoil technology instead. The
hearing aid is able to pick up the electromagnetic signals from inside the
phone directly. Roughly 60 percent of all mobile phones sold in the U.S.
have a telecoil (T) mode.
The two modes – M and T – are each rated on a scale of 1 to 4 where 1 is
the lowest sensitivity and 4 is the highest. To be sold in the United States as
hearing aid compatible (HAC), a mobile phone or cordless handset must
have a rating of at least M3 or T3.
In addition, many hearing aids (and cochlear implants) have a similar M and
T rating to measure their sensitivity and their resistance to radio frequency
interference. When shopping for a phone, to determine its compatibility with
your hearing aid, simply add its M and T ratings together with those of the
phone to create a combined rating. A combined rating of 6 or more is
considered excellent, a hearing aid/phone combination that would provide
highly usable, interference-free performance. A sum of 5 is considered

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normal and should work fine for typical mobile phone users. A combined
rating of 4 is considered usable for brief calls, but may not be suitable for
extended phone use.
Since being introduced, the new rating system has made it much easier to
shop for a mobile phone online and determine its compatibility with your
hearing aid in advance. In the end, nothing beats a real world test so you
may want to wear your hearing aid to the mobile phone shop and test out a
few different phone in real conditions.