Sony CRE-C20 — Elevating The OTC Hearing Aid Market

Forbes

a day ago

The charging case for the CRE-C20 with the buds in place and charging
Sony is one of those companies that is always looking for ways to expand its technology leadership into new areas. Recently, that has happened in the XR space with its Spatial Reality displays and XR headsets, but the company also has considerable lines of business in the wearables space, especially in audio. Sony only recently launched its latest set of world-class headphones (the terribly named WH-1000-XM6). So it's no great stretch that Sony also makes over-the-counter hearing aids. This is in distinction to hearing aids prescribed by a doctor to address a person's hearing impairment.
Sony's Thoughtful Approach To OTCHAs
An OTCHA allows a person to buy the device themselves and calibrate it to their hearing ability. OTCHAs are not designed for people with severe hearing loss, but rather for those with mild to medium hearing impairments. These OTCHAs are designed to be worn all day and can easily be used while wearing headphones over them, in my experience. Sony offers one-on-one consultations for customers on its website to ensure that they buy the pair of OTCHAs that is right for them. (It also offers a much shorter 30-second quiz to quickly help a user buy the right pair.)
The pair of OTCHAs that Sony sent me for review is its most advanced high-end model, the CRE-C20. This is Sony's most compact design that includes the most capabilities and virtually fits right inside your ear canal. This makes it nearly invisible except for the tab that sticks out so you can remove the hearing aid to charge or clean it. The C20s are also the only in-canal earbuds that Sony makes that are wirelessly chargeable through the charging case. If you want earbud-style hearing aids, then the Sony E10 model also offers a Qi-compatible solution.
The C20 is very comfortable to wear and offers additional features over the simpler C10, including IP68 water resistance and improved Sony sound capabilities like Soundscape Adaptation and Speech Contrast Enhancement. The C20 is also rechargeable using the carrying case, which itself is rechargeable either wirelessly or via USB-C. The C10 does have longer battery life but it also needs its batteries replaced from time to time, so the $200 difference in price between the two models will likely disappear after a year or two of use. That said, it is important to understand that if you are used to using replaceable batteries, this is a different experience, and you will likely want to charge the hearing aids in their case almost every night — and possibly the charging case itself once every few days.
The battery in the C20's case holds enough power for three charges so that you don't always need to plug in the case to charge the hearing aids. In terms of size, the case is only slightly bigger than most of my earbud cases. That said, it would be great if Sony could continue to reduce the size of the case to the point where it is no bigger than an earbuds case.
A picture of the CRE-C20 case (black) next to AirPods Pro 2 and Pixel Buds Pro 2 cases for ... More comparison
Speaking of earbuds, these hearing aids do not have audio streaming, so they cannot replace earbuds, nor can you use earbuds at the same time as these. Some earbud companies like Apple are trying to offer their earbuds as an OTCHA solution, but those are more comparable with Sony's E10 hearing aids, which are also rechargeable but operate more like earbuds than an in-canal hearing aid. I also believe strongly that Apple's entry into this market will improve the overall size of the market and help some people with hearing impairments realize that they probably need a hearing aid and not just earbuds.
Setting Up And Using The Sony C20
My experience with the C20s was pretty simple and straightforward. I followed the instructions on the packaging and downloaded the Sony Hearing Control app while the earbuds charged inside the case. Then I waited until the case and both earbuds were fully charged to do the setup. The first-time setup has you calibrate each earbud based on each ear's hearing ability. This was probably the most time-consuming part of the setup for the CRE-C20, but once it was done, I could port the settings to other Sony devices thanks to my Sony account and the app. If you don't use the app to set up the earbuds, you run the risk of using them wrong and just having everything amplified all the time — which defeats the purpose of having such a capable device.
I have always known that I have a hearing impairment in my left ear due to losing a layer of my eardrum to ear infections as a child. While I did get ear tubes, the damage was already done. Only recently, I had a professional test done to evaluate my hearing loss, which is in the bottom 10% of the spectrum. I also gained 10% at the high end as a result of this injury, so I expected that I might get some benefits from trying these hearing aids. When I did the hearing aid setup and realized that I didn't hear a couple of tones in my left ear, I wasn't entirely surprised, but I also wasn't expecting it to happen. This is a good place to note that I believe accessible hearing aids like the C20 can help all types of users, including those who might not have very impaired hearing but could still benefit from them.
One of the biggest challenges for these kinds of earbuds is keeping them clean and wax-free, which is a real challenge for someone like me who produces a lot of earwax. That said, there really isn't a great workaround for hearing aids since they all have to go into your ear canal. I did use them for a couple hours every day and found that my hearing was overall improved and that they didn't impede my ability to do anything, including gaming — when I always wear headphones. The C20s even effectively amplified voices in Discord when I was gaming with friends on my PC. I don't know how many Discord users wear hearing aids, but I have a feeling that the number is going to grow with time as gamers start to age and gaming reaches older audiences.
Sony's Quest For Better Hearing Leads To The CRE-C20
The Sony CRE-C20s are a great pair of over-the-counter hearing aids that integrate really well into my daily life without too much setup. While I do think the $999 price is a bit steep for the average consumer, it is still considerably cheaper than many of the prescription hearing aids available, which usually start around $2,000 and can cost up to $8,000. There are many OTCHA products in the market today, but Sony's offer some of the highest performance. Some places like HearAdvisor have ranked Sony's CRE-E10 as the best-sounding OTC hearing aids on the market but have evaluated the CRE-C20 and C10 much lower.
Realistically, most people with hearing loss can't wear earbuds all day long, and I think they are going to be best served by either an all-day solution like the C20s or something clinically prescribed by a doctor. Either way, hearing aids are becoming better and more available to consumers, and I am glad to see that people have choices. The Sony CRE-C20s definitely offer a more high-end solution for OTCHAs, but one that I believe is also pretty simple and accessible for a broader audience than previous generations of hearing aids.
There's still room for improvement from Sony, based on my own experience and others' reviews. For starters, I would love to see the C20 get Bluetooth support along with a more compact case. But the overall battery life is great, and I think that having rechargeable OTCHAs is an ideal setup, as long as you understand the compromises. That said, I do worry about the longevity of such small rechargeable batteries, and whether Sony's one-year warranty is long enough to cover that. It would be great to see Sony offering longer warranties for products like these that are paid for out of the consumer's pocket but are also used every day to meet such a critical need.