Bose is revolutionizing the hearing aid landscape with its self-fitting (no audiologist required), affordably priced ($858) new model for people with mild to moderate hearing loss (a currently underserved market). And (I know you were wondering), they look spiffy: more or less like you’re wearing some new professional line of Bose earbuds.

Do you have a nagging feeling that you’re no longer hearing the audio details you used to love—the fizz when opening a soda can, the treble in your favorite music? And speaking of nagging, are your loved ones and friends constantly coming after you about making them repeat themselves and mis-hearing their words? And worst of all, perhaps, are you removing yourself from conversations and social situations more and more because it’s so frustrating to parse the words from all the voices?

The gifted and socially minded scientists and designers at Bose have a solution for you. Bose, now partially owned MIT after stock was gifted to them by founder Dr. Amar Bose, is dedicated these days to more than making money. And they decided around 2014 that the problem of hearing loss was one that their pioneering work in headphone design made them uniquely able to solve.

Brian Maguire , category leader at Bose: “48 million people in the U.S. today suffer from some degree of hearing loss, and only one in five of those who could benefit from a hearing aid actually take the step to purchase one.” McGuire says that hearing technology is still “about in the same place where it was in the seventies,” in contrast to the improvements in other personal technologies in eyesight, cosmetic dentistry, and so many parts of the healthcare landscape.

The solution wasn’t only technological. Legislation, in fact was required: “We were part of an effort that ultimately culminated in the Over-the-Counter Hearing Aid Act of 2017 which, while still awaiting a final ruling by the FDA, has cleared the way for companies to offer hearing aids directly to consumers. In combination with the novel technology that Bose has developed, this allows them to offer a product that a consumer can “self-tune and self-fit,” without seeing an audiologist for multiple appointments, a situation which has increased the inertia in sufferers to address the problem.

To be clear, this solution isn’t for people with severe or profound hearing loss, for whom traditional hearing aids, with the essential involvement of an audiologist, remains the way to go. “It’s for people, well, like my mom,” another Bose employee tells me, “who can hear okay in some settings, but who spends a lot of time asking us to speak a little louder.” That may sound minor, but untreated hearing loss at any level can lead to social isolation, increased risked for falls (due to balance problems), and depression, and is also associated with dementia.