Hearing Aid Update

Right. There is an audiology development.

It turns out I am no longer merely amplified. I am now tethered.

Because these NHS marvels are Bluetooth enabled, they do not simply pipe the world into my head. They maintain a relationship with my phone. A watchful, slightly clingy relationship.

If I wander too far from it, say by stepping out of the house having left it on the kitchen table like a reckless Victorian, my ears inform me. A discreet alert arrives directly in my skull. Not a ring. Not a buzz. A quiet, internal notification that I have strayed beyond acceptable range.

It is less “man with hearing aids” and more “officer leaving perimeter”.

The first time it happened I stopped in the driveway and looked around, mildly alarmed. I half expected a small drone to rise from behind the hedge and request my intentions. Instead it was simply my ears reminding me that my phone and I had become a bonded pair.

On the other hand, if I lose the phone somewhere in the house, which is not infrequent, the system reverses the process. As I wander from room to room, the connection re-establishes itself and I am subtly alerted. Warm. You’re close. Colder. No signal. Hot. There it is, under a newspaper I can now hear rustling.

I have effectively become a human tracking device for my own possessions.

There is something faintly dystopian about receiving proximity alerts inside one’s own head. I can hear birdsong, the heating pump, the cat’s disapproval, and now the digital reassurance that my communications hub is within range. If I’d been told in 1974 that I would one day be wirelessly linked to a small glass rectangle and warned if I strayed too far from it, I would have assumed either espionage or lunacy.

Instead, it is Tuesday.

The great irony is that these are NHS hearing aids. Free. Issued without ceremony. Yet they quietly outperform the thousand pound retail alternatives that were presented to me with the solemnity of a luxury upgrade. Mine not only restore my treble, they supervise my wandering.

I now receive alerts about distance from my own telephone directly inside my head.

This feels like a small but definite step towards being monitored by my ears.

On the bright side, I am far less likely to leave the house without my phone. On the less bright side, if the phone battery dies, I imagine I shall feel briefly abandoned.

I used to worry about losing my hearing.

Now my hearing worries about losing my phone.