You don't say!
So, Bhowmik left his job as Intel’s vice president of computational perception to take up this opportunity to create a new set of hearing aids which mimic the human brains ability to process signals.
Unless I'm mistaken Bhowmik couldn't have incorporated Loihi in to these hearing aids because it's still a research chip, so that leaves... let me see...
Anyway, it says here that Starkey are miles ahead of the competition now with this transformational new product and that their only competitor on the horizon is APPLE.
Imagine if this is our technology, due to go head to head with APPLE's technology in the near future!
IMO. DYOR.
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OCT 9, 2024
Starkey, the US’s largest hearing aid producer, just announced a new AI-powered device.
BY
BEN SHERRY, STAFF REPORTER
@BENLUCASSHERRY
In 2017, hearing aid market leader Starkey, the only major American company in the industry, was at a crossroads. Facing a stagnating product line, the company’s newly promoted president, Brandon Sawalich, saw three options before him: “
Lead,
adapt, or
die.”
Sawalich ultimately decided to lead, and began what he describes as an ambitious “moonshot” to revolutionize hearing aid technology with artificial intelligence. Seven years and millions of R&D dollars later, that moonshot has resulted in Edge AI, the company’s brand-new flagship hearing aid. Starkey claims Edge AI represents a significant leap forward for the entire hearing aid industry, with greatly enhanced ability to detect speech and reduce background noise.
Starkey President Brandon Sawalich. Photo: Starkey
Edge AI is the followup to Starkey’s previous flagship model, Genesis AI, which Sawalich says is now one of the company’s best-selling products ever. Sawalich credits much of Starkey’s AI success to chief technology officer Achin Bhowmik, an expert at digitally replicating the human brain’s method of processing signals. After becoming Starkey’s president in 2017, Sawalich convinced Bhowmik to leave his job as Intel’s vice president of computational perception by promising him the opportunity to create a product as transformational for hearing aids as the iPhone was for mobile phones.
One year later in 2018, Starkey released Livio AI, its first attempt at an AI-powered hearing aid. These devices mostly used AI to track health metrics, like how many steps you take in a day, but also featured enhanced sound processing. Livio was successful enough that Sawalich pushed ahead with a plan that Bhowmik estimated would take several years and over $100 million dollars of R&D to achieve: Begin a “new era for Starkey,” by building advanced AI at the core of all future products.
Starkey established an advanced research technology team in Tel Aviv (“we went where the talent is,” says Bhowmik), tasked with creating a processing chip small enough to fit inside a hearing aid, but powerful enough to run a deep neural network model entirely on-device. The neural network, which mimics the brain’s ability to focus on specific noises, was trained on a wide database of sounds, enabling it to automatically adjust the hearing aid’s settings to adapt to the current noise environment like a human brain.
Half a decade of this R&D resulted in the Starkey Neuro Processor. Unlike other AI-powered hearing aids, which include a coprocessor to accelerate the main chip’s processing power, the Neuro Processor fully integrates the accelerator unit within the main chip. Because Starkey’s devices don’t need to bounce information between two chips, they can process sound up to nine times faster than the competition.
Starkey’s new device, Edge AI, greatly enhances “Edge Mode,” a function first seen in the Genesis AI device. When using Edge Mode, the device scans its environment and automatically adapts to the soundscape, either prioritizing clearer speech or listening comfort. The device can also perform a medical-grade balance assessment, using AI to determine if a user is at risk of falling.
Photo: Starkey
Sawalich’s hope is that through enhanced technology, Starkey can “chip away” at the stigma that hearing aids are clunky, difficult devices only used by the elderly. “If you think about the five senses, the ear is the most important to the brain,” says Sawalich, “because the ear is constantly feeding information to the brain, keeping it exercised and engaged.” That’s why Sawalich doesn’t see his devices as just assisting those with disabilities, but also those looking to acquire
new abilities. “We want to use in-ear technology to make the brain as sharp as it can be,” he says, “so people can be the best versions of themselves.”
While Starkey claims to be miles ahead of the competition, there are still threats on the horizon, most notably from Apple, which recently announced that AirPods Pro 2, the latest version of its’ popular wireless earbuds, will be updated with multiple hearing health features later this fall–including the ability
to act as a hearing aid.
For many businesses, an Apple invasion is the stuff of nightmares, but Starkey’s first-mover advantage, plus a 2022 FDA
rule change that enabled
over-the-counter sales of hearing aids (over 4 million commercial units were sold in the United States in 2023), have put the company in a solid position relative to the tech titan.
30% more accurate at identifying speech 
6 dB additional reduction in low-level noise 
Appropriately classifies multi-talker babble 
Apple Watch integration 
Balance Assessment 
Auracast™-ready 
run up 
Go BRN 
