Specsavers are a trusted high street brand and they sell a range of custom-made ear plugs, the type which are made to fit an individual’s own ears, but are they OK to use at work?
Key points:
Specsavers sell custom ear plugs, ear plugs which are moulded to a specific person’s ear.
Part of that range is called Specsavers Advance Work however when you check, nowhere in their product information does it actually say they are for use in a workplace.
The website, customer services and their audiologist I contacted appear to have no access to EN 352 certification, no certified SNR, HML or APV data, and no Declaration of Conformity.
Specsavers custom ear plugs should not be used for hearing protection in a workplace.
On a noise assessment I came across a shot blasting bay where the average noise level when working was around 111 dB(A), or to use the correct technical terminology, ‘hellishly loud’. While quite a few workplaces may have noise which hits around that mark for very short periods, very few have it as a sustained noise level for hours on end, in this case five to six hours a day.
The person working in there had got himself some custom-made ear plugs from his local Specsavers and from speaking to him and his colleagues, they all had the erroneous belief that custom ear plugs are stronger than anything else on the market.
Are custom ear plugs stronger than other hearing protection?
Just to cover off that last point first, no, custom ear plugs are not stronger than everything else on the market. They are more comfortable to wear for long periods, and can have other goodies in them such as improved ability to follow speech, but they are not stronger than everything else in terms of how much they reduce noise levels by.
The strongest hearing protectors on the market are some normal ear plugs. For example, Betafit disposable plugs have an SNR of 39 dB, as strong as hearing protection gets. Beeswift’s QED301 disposable plugs have an SNR of 38 dB. Both are types of the standard foam ear plug and nothing is stronger than these, including both custom moulded ear plugs and ear muffs / ear defenders.
I therefore had a concern, was he getting enough protection for what is an exceedingly high noise risk, and turned to Specsavers to ask them what the performance levels are for their custom ear plugs.
It turns out, they haven’t got a clue.
Specsavers website
There is precisely nothing on the website giving anything about their custom hearing protection other than vague marketing waffle. Nothing about product certification and noise attenuation levels at all.
Specsavers customer services
My next port of call was their online Customer Services team.
I asked: “There should be an SNR value for each hearing protection product. If there is HML as well then that's useful. There should also be a stated shelf-life - for custom plugs that usually ranges between five and ten years.”
The response was: “From what I can find, I think they have an estimated SNR Level of 20-22dB”
I went back to them saying we cannot use ‘estimated’ and that all hearing protection must be certified to EN 352, which will mean it has a definitive certified SNR, along with HML and APV data. There should also be a Declaration of Conformity which is mandatory for all hearing protection certified to EN 352, so to sell it they must have that, and it is usual to have a Data Sheet with the performance values.
They came back with: “I have taken a look to see if I can access a datasheet from anywhere on my side at the support centre, but it does appear it is not something we have available. When asking my colleagues they have advised if anywhere is to have this listed information it should be the trained audiology staff within store”.
It seems Specsavers Customer Services have no access to any performance data for their hearing protection products.
Specsavers audiologist and the custom plugs brochure
As they told me to ask the audiology staff, I did, and received a response from an audiologist, including their brochure about the Specsaver custom hearing protection.
The brochure talks about music, sleep, flying, working at home or in an office, motorsports, children attending football matches, and shooting. None of that is work.
Importantly, they do have a product called ‘Specsavers Advance Work’ but if you read it carefully, it talks about hedge cutters, lawnmowers, grinders and general home maintenance. It is all about DIY and not ‘work’ to mean the workplace.
Despite that rather misleading name of ‘Specsavers Advance Work’, nowhere do they actually say these are suitable for use at work.
Also, and critically, nowhere does it state an SNR, nor HML or APV data, and makes no mention of being certified to EN 352 or include a Declaration of Conformity that they are indeed certified.
There is a lot of buzzword-bingo about “designed to filter out harmful sound levels ranging from 80 to 100 decibels” or “Medium, High and Max attenuation” but there is nothing about what this actually means.
Specsavers Advance Custom Ear Plugs at work Summary
As their website has nothing on performance data, and neither customer services nor the audiologists seem to have access to anything confirming EN 352 certification and performance levels, these must not be used at work.
The lack of this is not a ‘they ideally should not be used at work’, it is more black and white, they must not be.
I would expect better of a brand such as Specsavers. It seems to be one of those cases of a big company decides to branch out away from its core business but doesn’t really understand what it is getting into. That’s the charitable version.
As for the initial situation which lead me down this path. The lack of any performance data means a simple ‘do not use them’, but even if that ‘estimated’ SNR from Customer Services (which has nothing to back the statement up) is correct, the Specsavers custom ear plugs are still hopelessly weak for the noise risk, leaving the wearer still exposed to a very high level of noise every day. Maybe Specsavers can then sell him a hearing aid further down the road…
FAQ: Specsavers custom ear plugs for use at work
Specsavers are a big name brand, surely they must be OK to use?
Who knows? Based on the information available, or to be more precise not available, on their website, to customer services, to their audiologists or in their product brochure, they have absolutely nothing stating a certified SNR level or certification to EN 352, which is not optional for hearing protection.
Without that they cannot be used at work.
Why can Specsavers sell them if what you are saying here is correct?
The rules for hearing protection apply to people who are at work - mandatory EN 352 certification, Declaration of Confirmity, HML and APV data, etc. If someone is not at work then none of the rules apply and companies can make and sell anything they want.
Calling a product ‘Specsavers Advance Work’ is, to my mind, very misleading as only when you delve into the brochure do you see that their definition of ‘work’ is very much DIY, not in paid employment in a workplace.
If you are not at work then you can use whatever you want to reduce noise, but at work ‘hearing protection’ has a very tight definition,
More help and advice on hearing protection at work
Article last updated: October 2026
