AI enhancements have made hearing aids more powerful than ever. They can make dynamic adjustments in response to changes in ambient sound, or enhance select frequencies to make conversation more intelligible, such as NuHeara’s IQ Buds Max. Phonak’s Audeo Paradise line of hearing aids detects the direction between people who are conversing and boosts the volume and improves the quality of sound, even if they’re talking while walking on busy streets.
Somerset, New Jersey-based Oticon introduced Oticon More at CES 2021 this week. Oticon More hearing aids for people with mid-to-severe hearing loss; wearers can hear sounds more naturally thanks to an on-board deep neural network (DNN). The hearing aids sample and analyze area sound 500 times per second, according to an Oticon news release. OticonMore’s DNN compares the sample sounds to a library of more than 12 million real-world sounds. The hearing aid then represents the identified sounds in a manner that improves the wearer’s total hearing experience. Perhaps even more amazing, the DNN performs all of this sensing, analyzing, and enhancing directly on-board the hearing devices. No streaming or remote access to other resources is required.
DNN-powered Oticon More hearing aids are available now from the hearing professionals. We’ve written about (and in a few cases tried ourselves) a variety of ever-more-intelligent hearing devices in the last two years. We look forward to future developments, especially hearing assistance devices that can be purchased over-the-counter without a prescription.
