eargym Review: What It Does Well, Where It Stops

eargym comes from a UK team led by Amanda Philpott, a former NHS chief executive who wears hearing aids herself. The app is built around three habits: check your hearing, train with short games, and track how you are doing over time.

The checks include an "ear age" test and a 5-minute speech-in-noise test. The training games target skills like telling sounds apart and following speech in background noise. eargym's own store listing calls the app "a UK Class 1 and FDA Class 2 medical device" (checked October 12, 2026). Its own pages are careful to say the checks screen for signs of hearing loss rather than replace a full hearing test.

The check-train-track loop is the draw. Most listening apps only train; eargym also gives you a quick way to watch your hearing over time, which makes progress feel visible. The games are short and light, so a daily session asks little of you.

The company also keeps building: both store listings stay current, and the team includes people who wear hearing devices every day. In a category full of abandoned apps, that counts for a lot.

eargym is English-only, and it is phone-first: there is no iPad version and no way to practice on a computer. If you like a bigger screen, that matters.

The training itself leans toward game-style ear workouts — spotting sounds, holding focus in noise — with hearing checks alongside. If what you want is a long, structured ladder of speech practice, from word pairs up through sentences and stories, that is not the shape of this app. Neither approach is wrong; they train different things.

The free tier is thin. You can download and sample it, but the training and tracking sit behind the subscription, and eargym publishes no exercise counts, so you cannot size the library before you pay. One App Store reviewer reports having to subscribe before the 7-day free trial would start.

eargym also sells a separate app for cochlear implant users, called eargym CI Rehab, co-developed with specialists in Cleveland Clinic's audiology program and funded by Cleveland Clinic.

The games begin with single words that differ by one sound. Later ones have you finish short sentences, or pick words out of everyday scenes and answer by typing or saying them. Like the main app, it is English-only.

Pricing is separate too, and higher. The US App Store lists it at $49 a month, or $149 paid once for lifetime access. If you use a cochlear implant and you are weighing eargym, check which of the two apps you are looking at before you pay.

Pick eargym if you want quick hearing checks plus light daily games on your phone, in English, and you like watching a trend line. It is well maintained and easy to stick with.

If you want structured speech practice instead — word pairs, sentences, conversations, and stories, with background noise you control — that is what our app, SoundSteps, is built around. It runs in any browser with a free version, and your first 7 days include full access with no card. We make it, so weigh that suggestion accordingly.