Phones for the hearing impared?

No it doesn't.

Thank you for the clue, Roger.

You're welcome.

Well, my stuff finally got here.

Once I figgered out the instructions and installation of the Clarity XL50. I made a test call from cell. Then I turned up the ringer volumn to high and jiggered with the ringer tone control. My overall impression of the ringer is "My, isn't that a polite and unintrusive little telephone?". My accessories include an external ringer booster, but how much stuff with wires can a feller tolerate on one small desk? I'll leave that item in the package till my next motel stay, which happens often. Maybe I will hear the wakeup call.

It has a four position tone control. Low freq amplification, flat amplification, amplify low sounds and depress the loud ones, and high freq amplification. Like most people, my greatest loss in in the high freq range, so I chose that first - then the others. For reasons I don't understand, the flat amplification worked best.

Volumn on the incoming voices worked out quite well. I called one of my credit card companies for a voice test. You know, the one with the interminable phone tree? For the real acid test, I'll probably make a call to Peachtree Accounting's help line and get a good setting for "female voice - South Asia.

When the three year loan program expires, I think I will try a cheaper handset amplifier. It's cheaper even though it does use a 9V battery, and if I'm still spending as much time in motels, I'll just be able to switch out the handsets and be able to make calls. Motel phones are often underpowered, if noone has noticed.

The final accessory was the Clarity WakeAssure alarm clock. Clarity sure makes some polite ringers and alarms, but it comes with a bed shaker. I do believe that would wake a person up.

My sons alarm clock has a bed shaker. The funniest thing was being in the room that first morning when he used it. The alarm went off (shaker starts shaking) and he just about hit the ceiling when it started, there was no going back to bed for him that day.

That's indeed the part of the system that works as advertised. I tried the stand alone ringer in a motel, and it not only didn't work, it killed of the ringer in the motel's room phone. Well, that's one thing less to pack up and wire in.

Hey roger, just seeing this. Sounds like you were able to find something that works fairly well -- if you still have questions though, lemme know.

Harris Communications is a good one-stop for this sort of technology:

http://www.harriscomm.com/

Sozlet hears just fine but has historically been a major pain in the ass to wake up in the morning. Major. Successful awakenings usually involved dragging her to a sitting position -- she just couldn't wake up while horizontal.

It wasn't about how much sleep she gets either, once she's UP she's bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for the rest of the day. (Well, about 20 minutes after she's up.) And she's just as difficult to awaken after 10 hours as 8.

I'm the same way, I just have trained myself to summon a wave of willpower to get me from horizontal to vertical. Then I'm OK.

We tried alarms for her, they just bleated ineffectually and didn't change anything.

Then, about a year ago, we tried my old bedshaker alarm.

Halleluiah, clouds parting, rays of golden sunshine, etc. It works SO well. It cuts the stress of school mornings by about 90%.

However, my old alarm (more than 20 years old?) started misfiring after a few months of renewed use. It would go off randomly, including at like 3 in the morning. That wasn't good.

Just got a new one a bit ago, all is well again.

I'm very grateful to it and its wondrous awakening properties.

Listening.
I may be able to get a hearing aid sometime in the next year or so. We'll see.

Anyway, Roger, when you folks were coming to my house, you calling to tell me, I couldn't understand the message, it was you yelling. I know you, you are quiet and regarding, controlling, of message. You of all people watch what you say. I played it four times to figure out that you were going to come here. Sure enough, a few minutes later, two cars showed up.

This all sounds quite trying.

Well put.

I'm still disappointed in the tone control. It sounded great in the literature. In practice, I could slide the control around while listening, and while I could hear a difference there was no position that seemed to give greater clarity. I think I would have been as well off with an amplified handset

My next experiment will be to bring my old AT&T handset while traveling. It seems better than most designs, and is probably compatable with the phone hook in the motel. I wish it would interchange with with the Clarity EL 50. It doesn't.

Do you know what your audiogram looks like?

Could be that it's a flattish line (you have as much trouble hearing low tones as you do hearing high tones) and the tone control won't help much.

Could also be that your high tones (for example) are way more impacted than the rest, and even with amplification they're still pretty much shot.

Or, the tone control could just not work right.