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$1 hearing aid could treat millions with hearing loss

sciencemag.org

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Re: $1 hearing aid could treat millions with hearing loss

#101

Post by jki275 »

red_hare wrote: post #88
pontus wrote: post #84

With all the advances in tech, why does it seem that hearing aids are still from the 80s? I guess ultimately you're limited by your interface to the brain (something maybe neuralink could address?), but even still shouldn't there be some "magic" machine learning stuff going on in this space? Not at all an expert in audio processing, but I would imagine that we could do a decent job distinguishing voices from backgrou…

My mother, who's fully deaf in one year and mostly deaf in the other, has heavily depended on strong and expensive hearing aids her whole life. Over the years her hearing aids have improved in battery life, gotten smaller, and improved in things like filtering background noise. Every new hearing aid would start by sounding distorted and weird but her brain adapts to the new sounds after a couple of weeks. The single…

If she likes watching on a TV, the Apple TV can talk to bluetooth audio devices. Have never tried it, but it would probably be able to talk to the hearing aids directly.

Re: $1 hearing aid could treat millions with hearing loss

#102

Post by jiofih »

tobtoh wrote: post #90
SeasonalEnnui wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Multiple-decades of hearing aid wearing here. I agree with most of that. I ended up buying the programmer for my aids to do small tweaks (not the prescription/audiogram, just the program configuration where you can edit the level of DSP in various situations). I would say that this latest generation of hearing aids (Phonak Marvel) is the first generation where I've felt like they've got it right. Direct bluetooth con…

I'm about to trial a replacement for my current HA (about 5 years old) for the Phonak Paradise (the just released successor to the Marvel). The bluetooth connectivity has been a big reason why I want to upgrade - the work from home situation this year with constant phone calls and Zoom meeting requiring headsets has been a constant annoyance. I use an Airpod in my right ear and leave one HA in my left for those situa…

> The new IOS14 feature where I can tailor the Airpod audio response to my hearing frequency loss is simply amazing!

What feature is it? Can’t the same be achieved with EQ?

Re: $1 hearing aid could treat millions with hearing loss

#103

Post by emcq »

Someone wrote: post #75
madspindel wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's because it's a medical device. The OTC Hearing Aid Act will change that so Bose (and I would guess Samsung and Apple in the future) can sell hearing aids directly to consumers. Bluetooth 5.2 LE Audio will solve the vendor lock-in. So the future looks bright for us with hearing loss. Edit: And with iOS 14 you can use AirPods Pro as hearings aids by adding an audiogram to the Apple Health app. Works really well.

Apple already sells a hearing aid that they can’t legally call ‘hearing aid’. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT209082 : “With Live Listen, your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch can act like a microphone that sends sound to your AirPods or Powerbeats Pro. Live Listen can help you hear a conversation in a noisy area or even hear someone speaking across the room.” It even supports hearing aids (a few? Some? Many? The most p…

Unfortunately live listen is more like a replacement for remote microphones, not the hearing aids themselves. It adds around 70ms latency with a bluetooth headset. This is enough to be very uncomfortable. For comparison, most hearing aids on the market today have around 8ms of end to end latency.

Source: I've built a hearing aid and done extensive latency tests :)

Re: $1 hearing aid could treat millions with hearing loss

#104

Post by dpweb »

Unfortunately that $1 aid will cost $1000 when it hits the public market. It would be nice to see open source hardware in medical devices. And a health/safety approval of the DESIGN. At least devices that won't kill you if they fail. So I can build my own like I build my own desktop computer.

Buying any Chinese electronics off Aliexpress doesn't excite me too much. Generally, they suck.

Re: $1 hearing aid could treat millions with hearing loss

#105

Post by jiofih »

vpribish wrote: post #83

here's a more detailed write-up including pictures of the device: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal... It's a crude, bulky, ugly, and fragile thing and the $1 price is not realistic - but it would be less than $10. It seems like a decent product for the poorest places - which is their goal. The hearing aid biz in the US is glaringly inefficient and obviously ripe for disruption - but this p…

This is basically using academic journals as a marketing channel. As someone else linked above, there are tons of similar devices available from China, probably even using the same chips, at equally low prices.

Re: $1 hearing aid could treat millions with hearing loss

#106

Post by emcq »

pontus wrote: post #84

With all the advances in tech, why does it seem that hearing aids are still from the 80s? I guess ultimately you're limited by your interface to the brain (something maybe neuralink could address?), but even still shouldn't there be some "magic" machine learning stuff going on in this space? Not at all an expert in audio processing, but I would imagine that we could do a decent job distinguishing voices from backgrou…

Both https://audatic.ai/ and https://whisper.ai/ are taking the ML approach for speech enhancement, and the large companies are starting to get on board. It's the future!

Re: $1 hearing aid could treat millions with hearing loss

#107

Post by jiofih »

caymanjim wrote: post #73

This is not a $1 hearing aid and never will be. The material cost of almost any device is insignificant compared to the overall cost of manufacturing, testing, and distributing it. The barrier to low-cost hearing aids in most countries is medical regulation and liability coverage, not expensive parts. Maybe India's regulations are lax enough that someone could bulk-manufacture cheap, poorly-tested medical devices to…

> if there were a viable market, it would already be manufactured

Yup. https://m.aliexpress.com/wholesale/hearing+aid.html?channel=...

Re: $1 hearing aid could treat millions with hearing loss

#109

Post by DenisM »

Related to hearing problems there is also a thing called"Auditory processing disorder":

Individuals with APD usually have normal structure and function of the outer, middle, and inner ear (peripheral hearing). However, they cannot process the information they hear in the same way as others do, which leads to difficulties in recognizing and interpreting sounds, especially the sounds composing speech. It is thought that these difficulties arise from dysfunction in the central nervous system

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_processing_disorder

Re: $1 hearing aid could treat millions with hearing loss

#110

Post by ygjb »

mdw wrote: post #67
DanBC wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes. Plenty of people prefer behind the ear devices because they are either rechargable, or brightly coloured. Young people in particular benefit from being able to chose an aid that's brightly coloured, and you see some YP modify their aids with skins or stickers. Here's the colour range for one modern aid: https://www.fmhearingsystems.co.uk/PDF/FocusColours.jpg Rechargable: https://www.phonak.com/uk/en/about-us/rec…

Having a brightly coloured hearing aid as an adult doesn’t look professional. Are these marketed towards younger people?

This is your opinion. In many parts of the world, criticizing a piece of accessibility equipment as unprofessional is likely an HR violation, and probably grounds for termination.
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