As the name suggests, these audiometers are lightweight and completely portable, giving audiologists the tools they need to conduct hearing assessments and diagnoses from any location. 

Portable audiometers, like their bigger, in-office counterparts, can determine if a customer has a hearing loss and the severity of that loss. Audiologists can use these tools to conduct a variety of valuable hearing tests, including pure tone audiometry, bone conduction, speech in noise, and more. 

Since audiology is a technology-driven industry, audiologists can now serve customers in alternate locations in addition to traditional hearing clinics. Some audiologists are offering options like remote and telehealth hearing care services, and these solutions are possible because of the portable, digital audiometer.  

A portable, digital audiometer allows audiologists to conduct hearing tests in a variety of places, from customers’ homes to pharmacies, supermarkets, community centers, assisted living facilities, etc. 

Then, audiologists can easily, accurately, and securely transfer test results to a Practice Management Software (PMS), electronic medical records (EMR) system, hospital, or specialist for seamless follow-up care. 

Portable audiometers allow audiologists to utilize a low-touch delivery model, where customers are examined in a remote setting, or a no-touch model, where special headsets and accessories are sent to the customer’s home. Customers can use their electronic devices (e.g., laptop, smartphone, tablet) for the hearing test, which can be easily accessed by an audiologist via the cloud. 

Brendan Milburn opened Hambleton Hearing in a rural area of the United Kingdom and often travels to conduct screenings and diagnostic visits at satellite clinics and in customers’ homes, especially if they have mobility issues that make it difficult to visit his clinic. He also does regular diagnostics work at a nearby military clinic. 

Therefore, he needed a portable solution that he could travel with, allowing him to access and input data on each of his customers in the field, then easily store and access that information via a cloud-based system in his clinic. 

When Brendan decided to offer hearing aid services, he wanted to follow best practices, using speech testing, Real Ear Measurements, and speech mapping, all in one package. He didn’t want to utilize a disjointed system or rely on multiple solutions to accomplish his tasks. 

Auditdata’s full suite solution – and its many useful features – allow him to work more accurately and efficiently. He loves Primus Pro’s portability, so he can easily take it on-the-go. 

Primus Ice is portable and calibrated, making it an ideal solution for off-site appointments and home visits. He also uses its online-offline modes to access and enter data at clients’ homes and at military clinics during his visits. 

Then, when he gets back to his clinic, all his off-site data can be instantly uploaded into the cloud for efficient and accurate record-keeping.  

He finds this all-inclusive system to be intuitive and user-friendly, allowing him to concentrate fully on his customers, rather than fussing with complicated technology. 

Audiologist Liat Rubinstein has made in-home visits a key element of her practice. 

Liat needed a solution that was easy to transport from house to house, that delivered quick, reliable, easy-to-understand results, and didn’t require a lot of complicated setup. 

Since administering hearing tests in people’s homes rather than from an office or a centralized location adds an element of unpredictability, Liat needed reliable, portable technology that made in-home testing as smooth as possible.

Auditdata’s Primus Ice is the perfect solution for her because it’s tiny, lightweight, portable, and easy to use. 

She calls it “the smartest audiometer I’ve ever seen,” adding, “Being able to just connect it and transfer the hearing test to the computer makes life a lot easier.”

With its modern and innovative features, Auditdata's portable audiometers, Primus Ice and Primus Pro are fast, efficient, and user-friendly and delivers everything you need to perform advanced clinical audiometry and counseling. Driven by advanced software, it makes data available from your testing and fitting processes, empowering you to streamline workflows and provide better customer service.  

Primus Ice is the perfect choice if you’re looking for a portable NOAH integrated clinical audiometer. Without the lid, the Primus Ice audiometer is no bigger than an envelope, making it an ideal solution for diagnostic audiometry on the move.

While both Primus Pro and Ice are portable and user-friendly, Primus Pro has more functionality and is a bit bigger.  The chart below outlines the different features and functionality of each:

Click on the image for full size

As hearing clinics decide that they need to become more mobile to examine customers offsite, what should they look for in a portable audiometer? You’ll want a portable audiometer that is: 

• User-friendly. It’s important that the device be intuitive and easy to use. When audiologists are out in the community conducting examinations, they want to focus their attention on their customers, not trying to figure out complicated tech tools during the appointments. Tools like Primus Pro and Primus Ice are simple to use, making off-site examinations a breeze. 

• Scalable. Portable audiometers should be able to screen a few customers at one location, then scale up to easily test many more at another site. Audidata’s integrated system means that higher volumes don’t mean more paperwork. Data, like each customer’s audiogram, is stored electronically and can be easily accessed via the cloud.

• Easily calibrated. Hearing clinics love Auditdata’s unique SWAP services, where we ship calibrated transducers to you well in advance of the due date of the old ones. You plug in the new transducers, and you’re ready for your next client without any interruption. You return the expired transducers and experience no downtime or disruption whatsoever. It’s truly that simple.  

• Integrated. The beauty of Auditdata’s audiometers is that they integrate seamlessly with our other solutions, including Manage, our Practice Management Software (PMS), as well as with electronic health records (EHR). It also allows data exchange between clinics and hospitals or other specialists, which is helpful when customers need more care from a hospital, ENT, or other provider. This provides a seamless system for audiologists to transfer critical data quickly, easily, accurately, and securely, without redundant data entry. 

• Backed by technical support. While Auditdata’s portable audiometers are extremely reliable and intuitive, audiology providers are pleased to know that we have an entire team supporting our solutions behind the scenes. If a clinic, hospital, or audiologists has any issues with our solutions, we offer exceptional technical support, troubleshooting and problem-solving to maximize productivity and minimize disruptions. 

• Small but mighty testing tools. The Primus portable solutions offer the same necessary tests that a bigger audiometer can provide, including: 

• Pure tone audiometry. This is the test audiologists use most often to determine the presence and severity of a customer’s hearing loss. This provides a baseline for all further tests and is a useful indicator of functional hearing. 

• Bone conduction. A bone conduction test can help audiologists determine if there’s a problem in the inner or outer ear, generally known as conductive hearing loss. 

• Audiometric masking. Audiometric masking is performed to provide accurate results of pure tone audiometry by separating the ears acoustically. This means that the non-test ear is exposed to a masking noise and, therefore, unable to assist the ear being tested. 

• Auto-Hughson Westlake. Primus Ice offers automatized Hughson-Westlake audiometry and can be used as a screening tool for adult patients.

• Speech audiometry. A speech audiometry test is used to assess a client’s ability to recognize speech in a variety of situations. People who have hearing loss say that hearing speech is the most troubling area. 

• Speech-in-noise (SIN). More advanced speech testing examines how speech is understood in the presence of noise. A series of words are played, accompanied by various noise types. 

• Quick speech in noise. The QuickSIN is a speech-in-noise test that quickly and easily measures the ability to hear in noise. Speech understanding in noise cannot be reliably predicted from the pure tone audiogram or other standard audiometric tests. The QuickSIN test should be used on all adult patients as part of the audiometric test battery.

• TEN test. The Threshold Equalizing Noise (TEN) test is used to identify dead regions in the cochlea. The TEN signal masks hair cells that may pick up the pure tone signal adjacent to the dead region.
  
  
• SISI test. SISI is a test of the ability of an individual to recognize 1dB increases in intensity during a series of pure tone bursts. This was designed to assist in the determination of where the hearing impairment arose from.