Laura from Connevans, our assistive hearing technology partner, shares advice and recommended products to help you have a fun and accessible summer holiday. When you shop online with Connevans&RNID, 10% of each purchase is donated to RNID.
“So many of the helpful gadgets and hearing aid care items we supply are light and easy to travel with. Making sure your hearing aid is well cared for when you’re away from home is particularly important to keep it working properly, so keep up with your usual cleaning and maintenance steps. A clean hearing aid is a happy hearing aid!”
The Dry Caddy Kit
“The hotter the weather, the more you’ll sweat and the more moisture will get into your hearing device. A drying box is a great way of making sure that your hearing aid is dried out overnight, preventing any damage. Electronic drying boxes are great, but for travelling we suggest the Dry Caddy Kit, as it’s lightweight and doesn’t require power.
Hearing aid Dry Caddy Kit code: 3DRYCA, price: £25.30 (£21.08 ex VAT)
Ear Gear
“To protect your hearing instrument from dirt, sweat or getting misplaced, you can use Ear Gear. These small spandex covers are acoustically transparent so they don’t affect sound quality. They will also help prevent chafing and irritation. Hand-washable and available in a variety of different colours and sizes to suit different hearing instruments, there are also corded models which you can clip to your collar to keep your aids safe and secure.
Ear Gear comes in a wide variety of colours and collar clips, and in different sizes, to suit different BTE hearing aids. Price: from £17.06
Assistive Listening
“If you’re travelling by plane, particularly long-haul, you might want to take a hearing aid compatible listening option for accessing the onboard entertainment system (which may not have subtitles). If you already have a wireless listening accessory which can be connected, make sure you pack any 3.5mm audio cables that came with it so you can plug it in. If not, consider buying something like an inductive neckloop or direct input leads.
Inductive neckloop , 75cm with 3.5mm stereo plug code: 91CNL75. Price: £26.99 (£22.49 ex VAT)
Travel vibrating alarm clock
“Essential to make sure you don’t miss your excursion bus or flight, a travel vibrating alarm clock is compact and battery powered. You put the whole clock under your pillow to vibrate/beep when the alarm goes off.
Connevans stock several different models: Geemarc Wake’n’Shake Voyager and the Wake ‘n’ Shake Voyager. Code: 40CLWAKEV, price: £34.99 (£29.16 ex VAT)
Hearing aid care kit
“Along with a drying box, it’s important to keep your hearing aid tubes clean and free from moisture and debris. As we all know, sand gets everywhere! So a little hearing aid care kit that includes a puffer to blow your tubes clean is a great low-cost investment. Hearing Aid Maintenance Kit code: MPUFFKIT, price: £14.64 (£12.20 ex VAT)
Other top tips for summer
- “Pack spare batteries and tubing for your hearing aids and, if you’re travelling abroad, power socket adapters for any chargers you have!
- If you’re staying in a hotel, make sure that you tell Reception that you’re deaf. They should give you a suitable fire alarm alerting system to make sure you are woken in the event of a fire.
- There are lots of other gadgets that can be useful when you’re away from home. If you’re staying with family and want to watch the TV together, then a TV streamer system is a good idea. The Bellman Maxi Pro with TV streamer is small and easy to bring with you.
- If you don’t already have a smartphone, the Emporia Smart5 is a particularly easy-to-use, hearing aid compatible option. As well as being handy on the go, it’s great for taking pictures.
- If you have tinnitus, we stock the wonderfully named World’s Smallest Tinnitus Sound Machine! It’s so tiny it’ll easily fit in even the most over-stuffed travelling bag.”
For more details visit the RNID Connevans website, where 10% of purchases are donated to RNID.