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Starkey Wearable Hearing Aid
Pedram Kabiri
Introduction A hearing loss can cause problems at home, at work, and
with friends. You may miss important information. You
may worry that you ask others to repeat themselves too
much.
in children, hearing loss can cause problems in school
and with friends.
Medicine or surgery can fix some types of hearing
problems. For example, your child may have problems
hearing when she has a hearing loss. The hearing loss will
go away when the infection clears. For other types of
hearing loss, a hearing aid may help.
Hearing aids come in different sizes and designs. Some
make sounds louder than others. Some are easier to
handle. Some have different features that you can use to
make your hearing better.
but there is some chalange in buy or using hearing aid for
hearing aid users.
we will discus about hearing problem and hearing issues
and new generation of hearing aids.
How Hearing Works Your ears are complex organs that gather and process
vibrating sound waves in the air around you, transferring
them into electrical signals that your brain processes as
sound. When just one part of your hearing is not working
properly, the system breaks down in ways that cause
hearing loss. To fully understand hearing loss, you have
to first understand how hearing normally works.
The outer ear, also called the pinna, gathers sound waves
and funnels them into your ear canal, which is the small
portion of your ear going in toward your head. When the
sound reaches the eardrum, which is a tightly stretched
membrane at the end of the ear canal, they cause it to
vibrate at the frequency of the sound.
On the other side of the eardrum, you’ll find three tiny
bones, all attached to each other. These make up your
middle ear. The first bone is attached to the eardrum and
the last is attached to the inner ear, where you’ll find your
vestibular tubes and cochlea. As the bones in your middle
ear move with the sound waves, they pump against your
cochlea in your inner ear, causing the fluid inside it to
move in waves.
The tiny hair cells inside the cochlea move with the
waves and, with each movement, transmit an electrical
signal through the auditory nerve to your brain. Your
brain gathers and puts together all of the information
from hair cells and interprets it as sound.
Hearing health facts People can have hearing problems at any of the stages of
the process, for example, some people suffering from
nerve damages and others having blockages in the ear
canal that cause the eardrum to not vibrate much.
According to official report,14-17% (more than 700M)
people worldwide have hearing loss (2015) and The
number of hearing impaired people is growing twice as
fast as the general population
As you see in the chart, only 10 percent of hearing loss
population use hearing aid
According to the last researches, hearing aids can help
95% of hard of hearing people but:
In developed countries only 15-20% of people
with hearing loss use hearing aids
In developing countries only 1 in 40 of those
who need it have access to hearing aids
Hearing aids sales are stagnating for the past
several years
But, why? The main reason are:
1) Hearing aids are extremely high cost due marketing
& distribution
a) Every hearing aid maker spend $250 for
manufacturing + $250 on marketing + $75 on
research and develop.
b)
after all, devices are sold by audiologists for
$3000-$5000 that is hi cost for regular consumer
2) Hearing aid is a medical device
a) Associated with elderly or handicapped people
(hearing aids stigma)
b) About half of people with hearing loss avoid
seeking help
3) Limited functionality
a) Hearing aid users suffering from Limited
connectivity
b) Ordinary haering aod are limited by specific
frequency range (300-7000Hz)
4) Technology (satisfaction is not guaranteed)
a) 20% of people who bought hearing aids return
them
b) 17% users are dissatisfied,
c) 7% keep them in the drawer
Hearing aid Hearing aid is a small device placed in or around the ear
to improve the hearing of those with hearing loss. The
basic components of a hearing aid are a microphone,
signal conditioning, a receiver also known as a speaker,
and a battery.
Figure (3) hearing aid elec circuit
As you see in fig(3), the microphone converts the sound
into an electric signal. The Signal then undergoes
conditioning that can be as simple as amplifying all of the
sound equally, to more advanced equalization involving a
digital signal processor. The receiver converts the
electronic signal back to sound, and the battery powers
the electronics.
There are four main styles of hearing aids on the market
today. From largest to smallest, they are behind the ear
(BTE), in the ear (ITE), in the canal (ITC), and
completely in the canal (CIC) that showed in Fig (4).
Hearing aid must be produced as tiny is possible, so
manufacturer always have trouble in findig the best
comprimisation of size and performance.
Every tipe of them has specifiec cost and benifiet that not
our business to discuse about them in this report paper.
Figure (4) common type of hearing aid
Werable hearing aid
Wearable hearing aid are the new generation of hearing aids with different shape and new capabilities , hearing aid manufacturer tried to create a line of multi-functional, high-performance, low-cost alternatives to traditional hearing aids. In fig (5) you can see some type of werable hearing aid
Figure (5) some type of werable hearing aid
They are similar to fashion electronic devise instead of
hearing aid
Werable hearing built in varies shape and forms and
theyre not limited by size
In each of them the all component are available
Bluetooth chips integrating audio DSP
Low-cost, powerful DSP with ultra-low power
consumption
MEMS microphones with high SNR and
excellent matching
Wireless charging solutions
Smartphone applications
Green light from FDA
In addition, every thing you can find in the most
expensive hearing aids.
If we comparing the two kind of hearing aids:
werable hearing Traditional hearing aid
Consumer elec device Medical device
Stylish, fashionable device of
different types making you look
…
As small as possible,
better invisible, but
making you look older
Low cost of manufacturing due
to using highvolume, CE
component
High cost of
manufacturing and
precision components
Distributed via Internet or
consumer electronics channels
High cost of marketing
& distributio
Larger form factor allows using
better components,
rechargeable batteries and
powerful DSP
Limited performance
due to size and power
consumption limitations
Starkey hearing aid Company:
Starkey Hearing Technologies is a privately held,
global hearing technology company
headquartered in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.
Founded in 1967, the company is recognized for
its innovative design, development and
distribution of comprehensive digital hearing
systems. As the only American-owned and
American-operated provider of hearing
technologies. Starkey Hearing Technologies
currently employs more than 5,000 people,
operates 24 facilities and conducts business in
more than 100 markets worldwide.
In 2018 stakey just relised new wearable hearing aid.
Livio® AI is the first wearable hearing aid to
include embedded sensors and artificial
intelligence. These technologies enable health
tracking and other features that optimize the
listening experience and improve peoples' lives.
History
The first Wearable hearing aid refer to 1950
the first patent under Wearable hearing aid
with inductive pickup for telephone
reception that was a helping device for deaf
people. electric tinnitus maskers providing
an auditory perception using an external
connection, either wireless or wired using a
wireless connection, e.g. between
microphone and amplifier or using Tcoils
Second patent that lunched in 1984 ender
Wearable digital hearing aid and method for
improving hearing ability
that was a wearable hearing aid to be worn
by an individual of impaired hearing ability
producing analog output signals of
improved intelligibility.
The hearing aid includes a wearable,
programmable digital signal processor for
processing digital samples of the analog
signals coupled thereto in real time and
providing analog output signals having the
processed characteristics.
Finally the last patent and most similar
product, is Wearable electronic hearing aid
that was similar product with similar
application.
Starkey product (wearable hearing aid)
Starkey's AI Transforms Hearing Aids Into Smart Wearables
Today, Starkey Hearing Technologies unveiled an
AI-powered hearing aid that fits snugly into your
ear, automatically translates foreign languages, and
tracks both your physical and mental health.
With the new device, Starkey aims to overcome the
stigma of hearing aids as medical devices for old
folks rather than wearables for the tech-savvy crowd.
The company promotes its Livio AI hearing aid as a
multifunctional device that combines features from
wireless headsets, fitness trackers and health apps,
and language translation programs.
Brandon Sawalich, president of Starkey says “What
we want to do is make hearing aids cool “It’s not
about hearing loss, it’s about hearing gain.”
The Livio AI hearing aid still fulfills its core
function. It uses a combination of directional
microphones and machine learning algorithms to
classify the wearer’s listening environment: chatting
outside in a backyard surrounded by natural sounds,
having a conversation in a loud restaurant, or
listening to music at a concert. The hearing aid then
adjusts to the best listening mode for the wearer’s
acoustic conditions.
Features and benefit
1- Together, hardware and software help
deliver the “best-sounding hearing aid we
have released,” Bhowmik explains. Still, he
seemed especially excited by the smart
wearable functions built on top of that core
hearing aid.
2- The Livio AI hearing aid has a
fitness tracker with inertial sensors that
can count steps and track daily physical
activity. But it also comes up with daily
wellness scores for both physical and
mental health and reports the scores on an
associated smartphone app. The mental
health “brain score” is based on hearing aid
usage time, the degree of social engagement
derived from the acoustic environment, and
the extent of active listening.
3- The hearing aid can also translate
between 27 languages. The language
translation works in conjunction with a
smartphone app. If an English speaker
wearing the device says something to a
Chinese speaker, the Livio AI system would
translate the words and display them in
Chinese characters on the English speaker’s
smartphone screen. If the Chinese speaker
said something in return, those words would
be directly translated into spoken English in
the ears of the hearing aid wearer.
4- The artificial intelligence running under the
hood of the Livio AI system mostly relies
on traditional machine learning algorithms
rather than the potentially more powerful
deep learning algorithms.
having machine learning embedded in the
Starkey hearing aid to automatically adjust
for different sound environments could be a
big help for wearers. The leveraging deep
learning to help hearing aids automatically
and selectively boost certain sounds while
dampening others.
5- Despite the lack of onboard computing to
support deep learning, the Livio AI hearing
aid still has triple the computing power and
double the local memory capacity in
comparison with prior Starkey hearing aid
products. It can also sustain several days of
continuous use on a single battery.
Figure (7) Starkey's new Livio AI hearing aid
Cost and limitation some of AI hearing aid specific angle caused to limitation for consuming As Starkey president Sawalich “acknowledged’ that the Livio AI hearing aid would not be for everybody”. The ideal customer might be someone who is reasonably tech-savvy and comfortable with using smartphone apps, and perhaps has a relatively active lifestyle. At the end of the day, some people may not need the “fully loaded Lamborghini” of hearing aids and may simply want the basics, Sawalich says.
Refrence
[1] https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-human-os/biomedical/devices/starkeys-ai-transforms-hearing-aid-
into-smart-wearables