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Jabra Enhance Select 500 Review: The Only OTC Aid That Streams Phone Calls

Reviewed by Max · Last updated: March 20, 2026 · 8 min read · Consumer hearing health writer, 8 years covering OTC hearing aids (not an audiologist)

Think about how many phone calls you've had in the past month. Now think about how many of those you'd have dreaded less if you could actually hear the person clearly. If you're like many people with hearing loss, phone calls are a special kind of exhausting — you're working hard to piece together meaning from fragments, and by the end you're more tired than you should be.

The Jabra Enhance Select 500 is the only OTC hearing aid on the market that streams phone calls, music, and video audio directly into your ears, hands-free, from your phone. No other OTC brand does this. That's not a small feature — for people who take a lot of calls, it's the feature that justifies the price.

The ReSound Advantage: This Isn't a Startup

Jabra is a well-known consumer audio brand — headphones, earbuds, video conferencing equipment. But the Enhance Select 500 isn't really a Jabra product in the way your AirPods are an Apple product. It's a ReSound product wearing Jabra branding.

ReSound is one of the six major hearing aid manufacturers globally. They've been making prescription hearing aids for decades. The Enhance Select 500 uses ReSound's speech-processing technology, which means it's drawing on the same acoustic engineering that goes into $5,000+ prescription devices.

What does that mean in practice? Better speech processing than most OTC competitors. The app's hearing test is more sophisticated. The directional microphones are more refined. You're getting the benefits of serious hearing aid engineering at a consumer electronics price point.

Bluetooth Streaming: The Feature That Actually Changes Things

Let me be concrete about what "streaming" means for your daily life.

When a call comes in, you answer normally — the audio goes directly into your hearing aids, and the person on the other end is clear and present in both ears. No holding the phone to your good ear. No speakerphone. You can be cooking, driving, walking — the call is just there, as clear as if the person were beside you.

Music and podcasts work the same way. You start a playlist and your hearing aids become wireless earbuds. Video calls (Zoom, FaceTime) stream the audio directly. The TV streamer accessory — sold separately — sends TV audio to your aids so you can watch at your preferred volume while your partner keeps the TV at theirs.

This is genuinely different from any other OTC hearing aid. The Eargo 7, the NEO XS, the Sony CRE-E10 — none of them stream audio. They amplify sound, but they don't receive it wirelessly from your phone. The Jabra Enhance Select 500 is in a category of one.

The Fine Print: Android and iOS Differences

Here's the part the marketing doesn't emphasize: Android users don't get full Bluetooth streaming. iPhone users get hands-free calling — the audio streams in, and the hearing aids' built-in microphones pick up your voice for calls. On Android, you get audio streaming but the call may work differently depending on your phone and carrier. Some Android users report that calls route through the phone's microphone rather than the aids'.

If streaming calls is the feature you're buying this for and you have an Android phone, do your research before purchasing. Call Jabra's support line and ask specifically about your phone model.

The Honest Criticism: Noise in Noise

Here's the review that should give you pause, from a Reddit user in November 2024:

This is a serious criticism. The same directional microphones that help with speech can sometimes amplify noise in ways that make it harder to hear, not easier. Not everyone experiences this, but it appears in enough reviews that it's worth flagging.

Expert testing from HearAdvisor found that the Enhance Select 500 is "best suited for users who prioritize speech clarity over streaming audio quality." That's a meaningful qualification — the device is better at some things than others.

The Practical Things

Battery life: 15 hours per charge, with streaming reducing that somewhat. That's less than the MDHearing VOLT 4's 20 hours. You'll charge every night.

The BTE design is more visible than ITC alternatives. It's not huge — HearingTracker describes them as "the smallest and lightest behind-the-ear hearing aids I have ever experienced" — but it's not invisible. If you've specifically avoided BTE aids because of how they look, this won't change your mind.

Setup involves the app and an in-app hearing test. It's more involved than the MDHearing plug-and-play approach, but the app is well-designed and guides you through it clearly. If you're comfortable with smartphone apps generally, you'll be fine.

What $1,195 Gets You

Price	$1,195 per pair
Style	Behind-the-Ear (BTE)
Battery	Rechargeable: 15 hours (streaming reduces)
Bluetooth	Yes — stream calls & music
Smartphone App	Yes — Jabra Enhance (iOS & Android)
Made By	ReSound (Big Six manufacturer)
Warranty	3 years
Trial Period	100 days
Audiologist Support	Yes — remote adjustments included

The 100-Day Trial: Genuinely Generous

Most OTC hearing aids offer 45 days. Jabra offers 100 days — over three months. That's enough time to really live with them: take them to the holidays, use them on calls, try them in the situations that matter to you. If after 100 days they're not working, you can return them. That risk reduction is meaningful.

The Verdict

The Jabra Enhance Select 500 is the OTC hearing aid for someone who: takes a lot of phone calls, listens to podcasts or music while doing other things, values professional-grade speech processing, and is comfortable with a BTE design.

It's expensive. But if the streaming feature genuinely fits your life — if you dread phone calls or want to listen to audiobooks hands-free while you cook — the $1,195 starts to make sense as an investment in how well you communicate.

If you don't take many calls or stream audio, or if you want something more discreet, the MDHearing VOLT 4 ($397) with app control at half the price might be the smarter choice.