Louder (earpiece) DECT phone

[Jaded]

I cannot remember if I have asked this before, but Mum would benefit from a louder phone. The ringer isn't a problem, it is the earpiece that needs to be louder. Before I commit to a purchase based on internet searches, any recommendations?

TiA

[hbunnet]

Would it help if she used it on speaker phone?

[Jaded]

It's a thought, but I think that would be difficult to remember.

[Kim]

https://www.connevans.co.uk/catalogue/124/Telephones-at-Home

[vorsprung]

[vorsprung]

[vorsprung]

[hbunnet]

Would it help if she used it on speaker phone?

Another thought, using on speaker phone could be a lead in to using a smart phone, heavily disguised as a mobile phone.

[Jaded]

Has a mobile phone.

Unfortunately in an area where no Executives from Mobile Phone Companies live, or have second Homes or mistresses or toy boys.

[aidan.f]

Just a reminder that the analogue landline will cease, 2025 being 'the plan'. *

Assuming your mum had broadband a SIP phone would future proof. I find audio quality very good.
There are three pages of good YACF advice here: https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=118526.0

*When this happens your mum should get an adapter supplied with (and I expect only if you ask for it) a measly 30 minutes of battery backup for power outages.
from thread above:

However a VOIP to POTS adapter will be fairly trivial to engineer.

They're called ATAs and they're almost universally awful.  Much better to use an IP handset, unless you have very specific needs.

[Jaded]

That's an interesting one. I think it may not be a long term solution, so am less concerned about going broadband. Plus the internet she has is poor. Very poor. No Openreach Executives living by that exchange!

[Jaded]

So, the new LOUD phones were installed, and promptly taken out as being no different to the current ones.

Can you ask BT to make a phone line louder? Can they do that?

[Kim]

Can you ask BT to make a phone line louder? Can they do that?

Only if you can persuade them the quietness is a line fault.  Which it presumably isn't.

What was the LOUD phone that didn't help?

I expect you'd get better results with a non-DECT solution.  Barakta has dying Geemark Screenphone, which goes up to 11 (I have to turn the amplification off when I answer it because it's literally painful).  Those Sarabec PL51 inline amplifiers are a bodge, but a fairly loud^[1] bodge (we have them on a couple of Snom 300s, as nobody seems to make an amplified SIP phone any more).


_{[1] ETA: +40dB apparently.}

[Jaded]

It was Amplicomms BigTel 1502 (the 2 I think means that it was two handsets)

First problem is that it was initially quieter than the previous handset.
Second problem was that the LOUD button handle made any difference
Third problem was that it didn't remember that the LOUD button had been pressed, so you had to press it for every call.

[Kim]

Third problem was that it didn't remember that the LOUD button had been pressed, so you had to press it for every call.

This was one of the things the Screenphone did right: The default state of the amplification button was configurable via a hardware switch on the back of the phone.  And there was a blinkenlight on the toggle button to show whether it was active.  (Obviously that would be less useful with a cordless, where you can't see the handset when you're in a call.)

Connevans (who are a small company who know their stuff) suggest the Geemarc AmpliDECT can give you +50dB, vs +35dB of the Amplicomms BigTel.  Might be worth a try?

If that's not enough, the corded Geemarc AmpliPOWER 50 is apparently as loud as they currently get.  +60dB of boost.


As nobody else has mentioned it, is your mum a hearing aid user?  And if so, does she have and is she using a telecoil setting?  That ought to help, given a compatible phone.  It is of course more faff, to the point where many people's hearing aids don't give them the option, because so few people actually use it (especially the resistant-to-change age-related hearing loss demographic).

[Jaded]

She is a hearing aid user, but they don't appear to be working as well as they used to. With aged parent confusion she cannot remember when she got them. Googling the model numbers suggests aged hearing aids. Besides, they cost a significant fortune, and cost a lot for their annual check up.

So I have got her an Audiology appointment next week, which I shall take her to. That's probably the next step, before going onto the suggestion you made above. Thanks for all your help - most appreciated.

My hearing aids don't appear to have a T setting (and nor do hers that I can see) I wondered if with better tech, the T thing was being phased out gradually?

[SteveC]

My hearing aids don't have a T-switch, but you can go into T-mode by holding down the volume control.
I never do it as the aids are good enough without. I did try a T-mode attachment for my phone, but the volume was useless on that, so I gave up.

[Kim]

She is a hearing aid user, but they don't appear to be working as well as they used to. With aged parent confusion she cannot remember when she got them. Googling the model numbers suggests aged hearing aids. Besides, they cost a significant fortune, and cost a lot for their annual check up.

So I have got her an Audiology appointment next week, which I shall take her to. That's probably the next step, before going onto the suggestion you made above. Thanks for all your help - most appreciated.

Yes, sounds like some up-to-date audiometery would be prudent, at the very least.

My hearing aids don't appear to have a T setting (and nor do hers that I can see) I wondered if with better tech, the T thing was being phased out gradually?

I think it's more a case of the primary^[1] driving force in hearing aid innovation being to make them as small and invisible as possible, because people are ashamed of hearing impairment (which is a subject that I could rant about at length).  Leaving out the pick-up coil is an easy way to make them slightly smaller, especially as most users won't miss it.  In some cases it's possible to provide induction pickup for those who want it via an external accessory (barakta used to have a dongle that plugged into the bottom^[2] of her BAHAs for this, and in the new model it's built into the streaming device that connects via The Devil's Other Radio).

As Bluetooth becomes more common as a way to interface telephones with hearing aids, the telecoil becomes relegated to induction loop duties - and as anyone who's ever tried to use an induction loop in a public building will know, they're usually either switched off, the signal is obliterated by interference, are a portable unit with a b0rked battery because nobody ever charged it, or the microphone isn't pointing in the right direction.  (This is all exacerbated by staff not knowing what an induction loop is.)


_{[1] Making speech sound as natural (if not necessarily intelligible) as possible to people with acquired hearing loss is a distant second.
[2] By necessity, it couldn't be built into the unit, as the bone-conduction transducer is a whopping great electromagnet.}