Sivantos Pte. Ltd.

Siemens Medical Instruments Pte. Ltd.

Andreas Ratay

Frank Naumann

Holger Kral

Joachim Roland Barth

Markus Trautner

Hartmut Ritter

Marco Lederer

A connector for a hearing instrument, in particular a receiver-in-canal behind-the-ear hearing aid, is small and visually inconspicuous. The connector should be as invisible as possible on the hearing instrument as it is worn, and the connector allows a microphone arrangement favorable for directionality and sound pick-up. The connector is disposed on an earpiece tube, which defines a longitudinal direction at the connector. The connector is connected by insertion into a connector receptacle of a hearing instrument transversely to the longitudinal direction. The hearing instrument has a laterally arranged connector receptacle, into which a connector is inserted transversely to the longitudinal direction. Because of the transverse insertion, the connector can be arranged laterally on the housing and because of the lateral placement, the front end face of the housing is smaller and the housing is overall flatter. A microphone can be arranged on the end face instead of the connector so as to improve sound pick-up and directionality.

Connector for a hearing instrument, and hearing instrument

Connector for a hearing instrument and hearing instrument

A hearing instrument has housing with a plug-in connection. The plug-in connection connects hearing tubes, sound tubes or electrical signal lines. The hearing instrument ensures against an unintentional detachment of the tubes and lines from the housing. The housing has a locking apparatus. The plug-in connection is arranged in the housing. The locking apparatus is embodied to prevent an unintentional detachment of the plug in the plug-in connection. The locking apparatus includes a catch, with a latching plate, and being moveably mounted in the housing. The catch moves at right angles to the plug-in direction of the plug and the latch is pushed into the housing and is protected herein by a blocking facility against unintentionally being pushed out. The blocking facility includes a stop and a blocking element, against which the stop strikes when sliding out. With the moveable catch, an easy-to-operate locking process is achieved.

Hearing instrument housing having a plug-in connection, plug and hearing instrument

A behind-the-ear hearing device has a housing with a plug-in connector on a sidewall of the housing for connecting to an earpiece tube or sound tube. The lateral arrangement of the plug-in connector moves the plug-in connector away from the exposed position on the front end face of the housing. This enables the front end face, which is generally visible, to be made smaller. Advantageously, at least two microphones are provided, with one microphone position in the vicinity of the front end face of the housing. The front microphone position is thus moved farther away from a position that may possibly be covered by the pinna, and the rear microphone position can also be moved farther toward the front. The microphone positions are thus approximately horizontal, which promotes the spatial resolution of the detected surrounding sound (directionality) by the signal processing of the hearing aid.

Behind-the-ear hearing aid having a plug-in connector

With a hearing aid device in a frame configuration, acoustic feedback is avoided with an opened battery charger. To this end, a seal surrounds the frame component in an annular manner, the seal sealing a gap between the frame component and the housing thus providing a more user friendly hearing aid.

Growing community of inventors

Erlangen, Germany

Andreas Ratay