Jabra’s Enhance Plus are a new pair of true wireless earbuds aimed at helping people who experience “mild-to-moderate” hearing loss. They’re meant as a half-step towards a more traditional hearing aid solution, for people who might not be ready to wear a device all day. The Enhance Plus will be released first in the US at the end of the year, and will be sold through licensed hearing care professionals at a price that’s yet to be announced.
Although Jabra is perhaps best known for its true wireless earbuds like the Elite 85T, its parent company GN Group has a long history in the hearing aid business. Now Jabra is also getting involved. It announced a new hearing aid lineup in June, and last year it added a hearing test feature to its true wireless earbuds, to customize their sound to your hearing.
The Enhance Plus are designed to be discrete, and are half as small as Jabra’s Elite 75T earbuds. But despite this, they also offer a respectable 10 hours of battery life, or 30 hours total when used with the charging case. They use beamforming to isolate sounds and amplify what you’re listening to, and offer noise reduction and feedback suppression features to cut out unwanted background noise. There’s also a companion mobile app to tweak The Enhance Plus’s settings.
Since they’ve got the form-factor of a pair of true wireless earbuds, the Enhance Plus can also be used like a traditional pair of headphones to stream music or make calls from a paired smartphone. They’re IP52 rated for dust and water resistance, and will be sold in gray and beige.
Recently, other headphone manufacturers have shown a similar interest in designing or tailoring their products towards people who experience hearing loss. Bose announced its own hearing aid in May, while in June Apple announced a new “Conversation Boost” software feature for its AirPods Pro, which is designed to amplify the sound of people speaking. And they’re unlikely to be the last, after hearing aid manufacturer Sonova recently bought headphone manufacturer Sennheiser.
