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TV Hearing Aids: What People Mean, and What Actually Makes the Television Clearer (UK)

A note on what this site is. Ovara sells a personal sound amplifier, one of the four options below. Nothing here is medical advice. If you notice a change in your hearing, book an appointment with a hearing-care professional first.

"TV hearing aids", "deaf aids for TV" and "television hearing aids" are the phrases people type when they want the same thing: to follow the dialogue without the rest of the household leaving the room. None of those phrases names a single product. What they describe is a problem, and there are four different answers to it, from free to a few hundred pounds. This guide takes them in order of cost, says what each one really does, and tells you which to try first.

A personal sound amplifier charging on a bedside table
Three of the four answers plug into the television. The fourth is worn, and works away from it too.
A living room at evening with the television on and the remote on the sofa arm
The volume that works for you is the volume nobody else can sit through. That is the problem all four answers below are trying to solve.

Why the television is so hard to hear

It is not only you. Modern programmes are mixed for cinema-style sound, with dialogue placed in a centre channel that a flat-screen's small downward-firing speakers reproduce badly, and background music mixed louder than it was twenty years ago. Ofcom has been reporting viewer complaints about inaudible dialogue for years. So the first fixes are about the television, not about your ears.

1. Free: the television's own settings

Most sets made in the last decade have a speech-enhancement or "clear voice" mode buried in the sound menu, and a night mode that flattens the difference between quiet dialogue and loud music. Turning off surround effects, choosing the "speech" or "news" preset, and switching subtitles on for the noisiest programmes solves the problem for a surprising number of people at no cost. We walk through the exact menus in how to hear the TV better without turning up the volume. Try this before spending anything.

2. £40 to £200: a TV listener

This is what most people mean by a TV hearing aid. A small base plugs into the television's optical or headphone output and sends the sound wirelessly to a headset, a lightweight under-chin receiver, or a neck loop that works with a device that has a T setting. You set your own volume; everyone else keeps theirs. The well-known UK ranges are Sennheiser's RS series, Avantree, and the under-chin sets sold through the RNID shop and Connevans. Check that the base accepts optical audio, because many new televisions have no headphone socket, and that the headset style suits glasses.

The limit is that it is tied to one screen. Take the headset off and the room is as quiet as before. If the television is the whole difficulty, this is the right buy, and the comparison in sound amplifier vs TV listener goes into the trade-offs.

Side by side: a TV listener headset with its base station, and a behind-the-ear personal sound amplifier
The two devices people confuse. One serves the television; the other goes where you go.

3. £30 to £150: a personal sound amplifier

A personal sound amplifier is a small device worn behind the ear that makes the sound around you louder and clearer, with a volume dial you set yourself and a mode switch for quiet rooms and busy ones. For the television it works the same way as for anything else: it amplifies what reaches you from the set, so you watch at the room's volume and hear it at yours. Unlike a TV listener it comes with you to the table, the car and the walk, which is the reason to choose it if the television is one of several places you struggle.

Its limits are the ones we state on every page: it boosts all the sound around you, it is not tuned to your individual ears by a professional, and if you struggle to follow conversation even in a quiet room, the right first step is a hearing-care professional. What it is and who it suits is in what is a personal sound amplifier, and the buyer's guide written for adult children of older parents is here.

Ovara sound amplifier showing the volume dial, the H/L mode switch and a soft ear dome
For television, the L mode and a volume set to where speech is comfortable is usually the whole adjustment.

4. Professionally fitted devices

If you have been fitted with hearing devices by an audiologist or the NHS, many have a T setting that picks up a neck loop or a room loop, and most current ones stream television audio directly through a small streamer box that the audiology service can supply. That route is outside what we sell, and it is the right one if everyday conversation is already hard: in the UK it starts with a GP referral or a free high-street check.

Which to try first

  • Everyone: the television's speech-enhancement setting and subtitles. Free, five minutes.
  • The television is the only problem: a TV listener with an optical base, £40 to £200.
  • The television, the table and the walk: a personal sound amplifier. The Ovara™ Sound Amplifier is about £74 with 30-day returns, so you can find out at home whether it does the job.
  • Conversation is hard even in a quiet room: a hearing-care professional before any purchase, ours included.

Volume, briefly

Every option here makes sound louder, and loud sound from any source can harm hearing over time. Start low, raise until speech is comfortable, stop there. The fuller version is in are hearing amplifiers safe.

The honest summary

There is no product called a TV hearing aid. There is a problem, and four answers to it. Fix the television first, buy a listener if the television is the whole difficulty, wear an amplifier if the difficulty follows you, and see a professional if conversation itself has become hard.

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