A few years after the first model of Audeara’s headphones arrived on the NDIS, a second version is here. What’s new?
Australia doesn’t have a whole heap of headphone makers, but the ones we have tend to offer something very different for the world. Three specifically have approached the world of headphones very differently, though ironically in much the same way.
If you’ve ever heard of Nuraphone, Nuheara, or Audeara, you’ve heard of one of Australia’s answers to making sound work with your ears better, with each of these Aussie brands companies a pair of headphones or earphones that can test your hearing and balance the sound to match. While other earphone companies have since adopted ear-testing features, these three have all built tech that aims to match what your ears are doing in different ways.
While we’ve taken a look at pretty much every Nuraphone — including the original Nuraphones, the Nuraloop wireless earbuds, and more recently the NuraTrue wireless earphones — and glanced at Nuheara’s tech, too. Meanwhile, Audeara has been largely silent following the release of its first headphones back in 2018.
We reviewed the Audeara A-01 in 2019, and while the idea had promise, the sound could come off a little shallow at times. However, they have something on other headphones, because they’re available on Australia’s National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS), making them an option for people who have diminished hearing but still yearn to use headphones.
Four years later, it seems that Audeara is back, as the follow-up to the first model, the A-01, is finally announced.
Called the A-02, they’ll talk to Audeara’s app for customised sound profiles and connect to another gadget, a Bluetooth streaming gadget made for TVs, allowing wearers to listen to the TV more clearly not only using headphones profiled for their ears, but with a dedicated way to stream that sound to those headphones.
Also catering to that market are larger buttons on the A-02, making it easier to control media and volume, especially if headphone owners have complained that controls are too small or fiddly.
That design suggests Audeara has focused its A-02 headphones as headphones for seniors, getting around the complaint of being unable to hear the TV with a pair of headphones and a little bit of streaming, though of course anyone could use these.
Australians keen to try the Audeara A-02 will be able to find them through audiology clinics and through the Audeara website, with the headphones launching by themselves for $399, or with the TV streamer for $599.
