Adjustable Hearing Aid Earpiece with Segmented Plug and Tragus Contact
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Solution Overview
Problem
Behind-the-ear hearing aids face challenges in adapting to different users, providing comfortable retention, and achieving effective acoustical coupling while allowing external sounds to reach the tympanic membrane.
Innovation Solution
The earpiece design includes a plug for the ear canal, a contact element that adjusts to fit the tragus and ear canal, and a fixture for securing the plug and contact element, allowing for customizable fit and sound bypass options, using flexible materials and incremental adjustment mechanisms.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the earpiece is customized to fit different users, then the retention and comfort are improved, but the device complexity and manufacturing difficulty increase
Solution Approach 1:
The earpiece is divided into multiple separable components: a plug for the ear canal, a contact element for the tragus, and a fixture with adjustment mechanisms. This segmentation allows each component to be optimized independently for fit and comfort while simplifying manufacturing and assembly processes.
Solution Approach 2:
The earpiece incorporates adjustable elements including a rotatable contact element with guideways for orientation adjustment, and a flexible beam with grooves for incremental positioning. These dynamic features enable customization to different ear shapes and sizes without requiring completely different devices for each user.
2Ease of operation
If the earpiece is customized to fit different users, then the comfort and retention are improved, but the ease of manufacture decreases
Solution Approach 1:
By separating the earpiece into modular components (plug, contact element, fixture), each can be manufactured using standard processes and then assembled. This reduces the complexity of manufacturing customized fittings while maintaining comfort through proper component design and combination.
Solution Approach 2:
The design incorporates adjustable parameters such as the rotation angle of the contact element and the position of the flexible beam along its grooves. These parameter adjustments allow the same basic component to adapt to different ear geometries without requiring custom manufacturing for each user.
3Reliability
If the earpiece provides good acoustical coupling, then the sound transmission is improved, but the ability to allow external sounds to reach the tympanic membrane decreases
Solution Approach 1:
The plug is designed with selective acoustic properties: it provides occlusion (blocking external sounds) in certain regions to improve acoustical coupling for amplified sounds, while incorporating sound bypass features in other regions to allow external sounds to reach the tympanic membrane. This local differentiation of acoustic properties resolves the contradiction between coupling and sound bypass.
Data Source
AI summary
An earpiece (2) for a hearing aid (12) comprises a plug (20) for contacting the meatus of the users ear canal, a contact element (13) for resting against an inside of the users tragus and or the ear canal, and a fixture for holding the plug and the contact element together, the fixture having means for adjusting the spacing between the plug and the contact element. The invention further provides a hearing aid.