Jabra Enhance Select 700 review

The Select 700 is a receiver-in-ear (RIE) device, rechargeable, cleared under the FDA's over-the-counter hearing aid rule for adults 18 and over with perceived mild to moderate hearing loss. Jabra publishes Bluetooth LE Audio and Auracast support, along with hands-free calling and media streaming on compatible Apple and Android phones. The feature that defines this tier is the fitting model: rather than the wearer running a self-fitting procedure alone through an app, the Select 700 is fitted and adjusted remotely with audiology support included in the purchase price.

That support model is the reason this device exists in the same catalog as a $199.00 earbud feature and a $597.00 behind-the-ear aid under the same OTC rule. The 2022 rule created one regulatory category, but it did not force every device in it to be sold the same way. See what is an OTC hearing aid for how that category was defined.

Jabra sells four devices under the Enhance Select name, and the split between them is really a split in fitting model, not just hardware generation. The Select 700 and the Select M3 Aureon are sold with audiology support bundled in. The Select M2 Swift is FDA cleared as self-fitting, meaning the wearer completes the fitting through the app rather than with remote professional input, at roughly half the price. Neither approach is inherently better; they are different products for a different kind of buyer.

A shopper who wants ongoing professional fine-tuning without traveling to a clinic is the target buyer for the 700. A shopper who is comfortable running the fitting process themselves and does not want to pay for the support package gets the same underlying Jabra platform for less in the M2 Swift. This is the same decision that separates a $999.95 device like the Sennheiser All-Day Clear, which is self-fitting with no bundled support, from the Select 700's supported model at roughly double the price.

Every OTC hearing aid, the Select 700 included, is written to the same phrase: perceived mild to moderate hearing loss in adults 18 and over. That phrase maps to a real clinical scale, but it is worth knowing there are two of them in common use, and they do not draw the line in the same place. The severity categories used in routine United States audiology practice are a widely taught clinical convention rather than a figure any standards body publishes, applied to the average of the thresholds at 500, 1000 and 2000 Hz. The World Health Organization's 2021 grades are a separate, published classification that sets the boundary of normal hearing lower, so a threshold that reads as normal on the US clinical scale can read as mild on the WHO scale.

Neither scale is something a shopper is expected to apply to themselves. Both come from an actual audiogram, produced by a hearing test, not from how a device is marketed. See how to read your audiogram and hearing loss levels in decibels for what those two scales measure and how they differ.