Review: Lexie B2 Hearing Aids

While some consumer electronics companies, like Sony, have jumped directly into the burgeoning over-the-counter hearing aid market, others are getting there through partnerships. The latest of these is veteran audio manufacturer Bose, which is “powering” hearing aids from a manufacturer called Lexie. Recently I took its latest model, the Lexie B2 “Powered by Bose,” out for a spin through my auditory meatus.

Like the rest of the industry of late, Lexie’s B2s are self-fitting, over-the-counter hearing aids, which means you can buy them anywhere (not just from a licensed hearing aid retailer) and adjust them yourself, without the involvement of a doctor or audiologist.

But unlike the other OTC hearing aids I’ve tried of late, which are designed to fit completely within the ear canal, Lexie’s use a more traditional design, with the electronics fitting behind the ear and a small wire connecting to a receiver which fits in the ear canal. While technically known as receiver-in-the-ear (RITE), the design has an appearance much like that of an old-school behind-the-ear unit.

The body of the hearing aid nestles behind your ear, where it's held in place by a stiff loop of wire leading from the earpiece.

Photograph: Lexie

Having hardware external to the ear canal is problematic, foremost because of the way it looks. While new-school in-the-ear hearing aids are virtually invisible, the RITE design telegraphs “I’m losing my hearing” from across the room, which probably isn’t the aesthetic that most users are looking for. While Lexie’s B2 is certainly svelte—each aid weighs just over 3 grams—they’re far from invisible, and the effect on one’s appearance is decidedly aging. There’s simply no way you can pretend these are earbuds.

Getting started with Lexie was a bit comical, involving text verification codes that went nowhere and endless pages of terms and conditions to scroll through before I could start using the units. Fortunately, the main portion of the app is much better designed, featuring an intuitive interface that lets you adjust “world volume,” the overall amplification level, on one side of the screen and set your preference for bass or treble on the other. Additional functions let you adjust the balance between your right and left ears—or mute an ear individually—and choose among preconfigured environments (noise indoor, outdoors, music, or everyday). You can set up to 10 personal environmental settings and choose between two directional modes, whether you want to amplify audio from everywhere or just in front of you.

As is the case with most hearing aids, these more refined settings can be hit-or-miss on the Lexie B2, as the master volume setting is by far the most impactful. However, I found that they can be worth toying with if you really want to get nuanced about your audio experience. Unfortunately, the Lexie B2 has no training feature that lets you measure your hearing loss or fine-tune your hearing, equalizer-style, which makes it all the more surprising that a 124-page manual is required to explain how all of this works.

Putting the aids on is also something of a challenge, and while there’s clearly a learning curve that can be overcome by the persistent, I never got to the point where it was easy to slip a unit on with just one hand. Most problematic, though, is that I just didn’t find the units comfortable. Although the device includes tips (Lexie calls them domes) in three sizes and two styles—open or closed—I never found any that both fit well and didn’t eventually start to itch, though the smaller ones were less irritating. The silicone domes feel soft to the touch of a finger, but they unfortunately feel a bit rougher in the ear.

The good news is that the hearing aids do work well. In regular use, I found them to provide a substantial lift to audio levels without any boom and only minimal hiss. The higher you turn up the volume, the louder the hiss gets, of course, but even at a robust level of amplification that hiss is manageable, a bit like someone left a faucet on in another room. The aids also have onboard volume controls, a rocker button that appears on both the right and left aids. Oddly, both sets of controls operate the master volume universally. If you want to individually tune each ear, you’ll need to do so within the mobile app.

Photograph: Lexie

It’s also worth noting that you don’t need your phone nearby to use the Lexie B2. They remember your settings between sessions, so when you fire them up after a recharge, they’ll work just as you left them. Speaking of charging, battery life is extensive, which is one big benefit of having a larger external design. Lexie claims 18 hours per charge, which is far longer than I would consider wearing them. Oddly, the included carrying case does not contain its own battery; the case must be plugged in using the included USB-C cable to recharge the hearing aids. You can also use the aids—effectively—to stream phone calls from an iPhone. And while Lexie says they are not recommended for use as streaming media earbuds, I found that they can readily be used in this fashion if you’re in a pinch.

At $999 per pair, the Lexie B2 is priced roughly in line with competing OTC hearing aids, and the audio quality is on par with others you’ll find on the market. My discomfort with the fit may be an outlier compared to other users, but even if I was able to resolve that, there’s no getting around the issues with the way they look. I’ll be frank: I’d rather not hear anything at all than have to walk around my house and listen to my wife call me “Gramps.”