Earmold

Earmolds are anatomically shaped and can be produced in different sizes for general use or specially cast from particular ear forms.

This is an essential feature to diminish feedback paths in hearing aids and assure better intelligibility in noisy-environment communication.

Earmolds (and their tubes) often turn yellow and stiff with age, and thus need replacement on a regular basis.

[2] Traditionally, the job of making earmolds is very time-consuming and skillful; each one is made individually in a molding process.

[7][8] This is why, in the early 2000s,[7] a new idea for determining the anatomical shape of the individual's ear canal began circulating.

[7] This is why the Navy then began looking for universities to create an anatomical 3D model of the ear using a scanner.

[7]  Karol Hatzilias from Georgia Tech undertook inventing an ear scanner, which has since then been successfully integrated onto Naval ships.