Hearing aid shopping has become a minefield of expensive mistakes. People spend thousands on devices that end up collecting dust in drawers within months. The wrong choice can mean months of frustration, wasted money, and even worsened hearing problems. Most buyers focus on fancy features while missing the critical factors that determine real-world performance.
In this article, we’ve referenced publications like the Journal of Ear and Hearing and comparison sites like the HearingTracker to present the five worst hearing aids of 2025 and discuss why you should avoid them.
5. Jabra Enhance Select 500: The Perils of Pre-programmed Hearing Aids
The Jabra Enhance Select 500 made waves when it hit the market with its straight-to-consumer approach. You can submit your audiogram online and get started without stepping foot in a clinic. But here’s the catch: once you’ve got them, there’s no remote tweaking available. Imagine you’re in a noisy café trying to have an important conversation, and your hearing aids just aren’t cutting it. Tough luck — you’ll need to wait for your next appointment to fix them. If your hearing stays pretty stable and you mostly hang out in quiet spots, you might not notice this limitation. But folks whose hearing changes over time often end up ditching these devices after realizing they can’t make those crucial on-the-fly adjustments when life gets loud. The tech will catch up eventually, but until then, you’ll have to decide whether to wait for upgrades or choose options that already offer this feature.
4. Eargo 7: Style Over Substance?
The nearly invisible design makes the Eargo 7 appealing to image-conscious users who want hearing help without announcing it to the world. These tiny gadgets tuck completely inside your ear canal, eliminating the “grandpa’s hearing aid” stereotype completely. On paper, they cover sounds between 250-5500 Hz, which sounds impressive until you realize some important speech sounds fall outside that range. Lab tests showed they struggle with soft-level speech, and according to HearingTracker, Eargo 7 is in the bottom 15% of all their tested products. If you’ve got smaller-than-average ear canals, you might be out of luck entirely. Ever caught yourself nodding and smiling during a conversation while actually missing half of what was said? That’s the Eargo experience for some users. People who just want to hear mid-range sounds without advertising their hearing loss love these things. But at the end of the day, what matters more — that no one can see your hearing aids or that you can actually hear your family speak quietly?
3. Apple AirPods Pro 2: Overhyped Hearing Aids
Struggling to hear in specific situations but reluctant to commit to hearing aids? Apple’s AirPods Pro 2 attempted to bridge this gap with hearing enhancement features. They packed in Conversation Boost and Transparency modes to help you catch nearby chatter, but the battery life is significantly shorter at six hours compared to dedicated hearing aids that can last 13 to 18+ hours. Moreover, hearing pros call these “sometimes helpers” rather than proper hearing solutions. The fancy algorithms excel at making your music sound amazing but fall flat when separating voices from background noise at your favorite coffee shop. Many users who rely solely on these as hearing solutions delay proper treatment by months or even years, and the brain adapts to hearing loss during this delay. This adaptation can make eventual treatment less effective and potentially compromise long-term communication abilities even after getting appropriate devices.
2. MDHearingAid: Compromised Sound Quality
If you’ve been putting off hearing help because of cost concerns, MDHearingAid targeted their products specifically with you in mind — their devices cost about what you’d spend on a decent smartphone. But budget devices often cut corners in ways that compromise performance, similar to the 25 worst smartphones. Lab tests show these aids handle mid-range sounds adequately but struggle with higher frequencies where many consonants live. When it comes to handling background noise, they offer modest improvements compared to premium models that provide substantially better clarification in noisy environments. They work fine in quiet rooms but fall apart in noisy restaurants. At your next family gathering, you’ll hear the general conversation, but might miss the punchline to your nephew’s joke while everyone else erupts in laughter.
1. Hear.com Horizon: The High Cost of Poor Quality
Picture spending thousands on premium hearing aids, only to discover you’re entitled to fewer adjustment appointments than the industry standard—that’s the reality for many Hear.com Horizon users in 2025. Their product line costs several thousand dollars depending on technology level—putting them in the same ballpark as premium brands, but the quality of service varies wildly depending on the local provider you’re matched with. Your experience is largely a matter of luck and the time your provider can spare. Most users receive fewer follow-up visits compared to what you’d typically get at a hearing clinic. The advanced technology inside delivers impressive sound quality, but without proper programming, even the best hearing aids perform like budget models.
