>This trend would make hearing aids not just target hearing impaired people, but also individual with normal hearing. For example, features such as protecting your ears against a sudden loud noise, silencing a loud restaurant so you can have a quiet conversation or improving the audio of a soft speaker could be useful for everyone.
Amusingly this already exists, there are a bunch of ear muffs (and some in ear equivalents I think) that relay sounds from outside in that cut off when a threshold is reached. They're pretty much exclusively sold for use with firearms, I'd love to see them developed more to work better in a setting other than the woods and shooting range.
Having just experienced a pair of these, it was incredible. I don't have extensive hearing loss beyond what being a teenager listening to music too loud will do for you, but the way these headphones relayed "normal" sounds while rejecting "loud" sounds was one of those - "why aren't these more popular?" moments. It felt truly superhero-esque.
What's even cooler is turning up the volume and have Spidey-Senses.
I've done this on a couple of hunts and it's amazing to hear everything -- you can't believe how loud grass brushing against you can be. It's like you can hear like the elk do. Well, not quite... Good sets (I like MSA Sordin) have excellent stereo imaging in front of you as well.
In shooting classes, I turn them backwards so the microphones point at the instructor.
Amusingly this already exists, there are a bunch of ear muffs (and some in ear equivalents I think) that relay sounds from outside in that cut off when a threshold is reached. They're pretty much exclusively sold for use with firearms, I'd love to see them developed more to work better in a setting other than the woods and shooting range.