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Not confirmed: Starkey's next generation hearing aids with 8x AI power?

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Edited

I find Starkey the most interesting vendor because they don’t make their own chips. They use OnSemi’s Ezairo line of chips. In fact, they used to make their own chips, but sold that business unit to OnSemi many years ago.

OnSemi sells these chips not just to Starkey, but also to anybody else who is willing to pay (and sign an NDA).

The interesting part is that OnSemi publishes abbreviated datasheets, which give an idea what a modern HA chip looks like. Here is the link to the Ezairo 8310, which likely powers Starkey’s Edge and Omega AI products.

From time to time I check for new products and just now I stumbled over this link that’s already a year old (from June 2025):

https://en.eeworld.com.cn/news/medical_electronics/eic697420.html11

The interesting part is that it talks about the upcoming ‘Ezairo 8350’ which is supposedly released in Q4 2025 and boasts an 8x improvement in AI processing power.

image

There is not much information about this ‘8350’ to be found anywhere else. So maybe that article is wrong, or the chip is delayed, or OnSemi decided that they don’t want to go public yet. If the latter, then Starkey might well be working on integrating the 8350 into their next HA generation right now.

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Great research, and thank you for the insight. :slightly_smiling_face:

I had assumed a Minnesota company would be designing their own electronics and processors. Wrong‼️

Since they share the same neural engine, I wonder what is the true difference between the EDGE and the Omega AI in terms of capabilities :red_question_mark:

A week ago, I got the rebranded Soundgear AMP from Costco, which is the Starkey EDGE AI 24.

I wear the Edge

I had to have them sent in for a mic problem on my right aid.

I have Omega loaners. I know the processor is more powerful.

In my everyday use I really can’t tell the difference.

I don’t think there is any significant difference between Edge and Omega. If I remember the marketing correctly, Starkey only claimed that Omega has improved environmental classification. I’m pretty sure they are based on the same Ezairo chip.

Edited

In reply to @Buckeye

I think Starkey made the right call when they got out of chip design. As chips get more complex, the costs rise as well. You need large volumes to amortize the cost. Starkey, by far the smallest of the ‘big five’ manufacturers, wouldn’t be able to generate the required volume.

OnSemi can sell Ezairo chips to many customers, including many vendors.

However, OnSemi’s most advanced chip fab only produces 22nm chips. That’s far from leading edge as this historical roadmap from Intel shows:

image

This doesn’t mean that the other HA manufacturers use more advanced chip technology. With each new chip manufacturing process, costs rise exponentially and the gains are becoming smaller.

Interesting.

Since the trade war started, our Starkey sales have ground to a halt. I would say that I’ve always had some patients asking where their hearing aids were manufacturered, but the sudden rejection of Starkey as an American brand has been interesting. The downside for us is that we’ve just lost a certain sales “level” and as a result Starkey has downgraded our account and is starting to charge us stupid amounts for and the rep has stopped calling. I’ll be interested to see whether that relationship recovers. I wonder if Starkey is doing correspondingly better in America and. . . I guess Unitron worse? Although maybe Unitron America is now leaning on being Swiss instead.

Neville, I liked this quote from a Canadian hockey fan who crossed the border to see the Maple Leafs play at the Sabre’s, “politicians belong in the penalty box.”

@wtolkien said:

an 8x improvement in AI processing power

Not an expert in this area, but this smells like just another empty bs marketing claim…

In reply to @Neville

That’s pretty much us too. A couple of repairs and some parts only. We get our wax-traps through a third-party supplier here, so that’s not really had much impact.

I’ve got a pile of Starkey reciver stock that I’m not using……

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