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