Oticon Announces Oticon Intent™, the World’s First Hearing Aid with User-Intent Sensors

@Misterref78 said:

Well in the anouncment it was mentionet that there will be a 13 version

All I see is mention of a size 13 lithium-ion battery, which is the rechargeable one.

@Volusiano said:

A 13 version would make sense because I wonder how much more battery juice something like an accelerometer would suck up.

It would also be interesting to see if the Philips 9050 (which has been confirmed to have the accelerometer technology as well) will only have a battery size 13 version eventually as well.

@Um_bongo said:

Not really. Conventional micro accelerometers are piezo-ceramic and make volts when you bounce them.

@Gazza5982 said:

No, modern micro accelerometers are all Silicon MEMS based. A 3D capacitive sensing structure that is co-packaged with a sophisticated controller die. So they do consume power, but they are very efficient drawing only µA of current at 1-3V.

I learned something new about micro accelerometers from the other Oticon Intent thread today. Thought I’d copy and share here. Perhaps they’re not the new energy hog I thought they might be.

His head movements….

@Misterref78 said:

Well in the anouncment it was mentionet that there will be a 13 version

@x475aws said:

All I see is mention of a size 13 lithium-ion battery, which is the rechargeable one.

oh ok then it seems that I haven’t read it correctly, but hope never dies

It’s not your loyalty to the tape that’s a lie…it’s just, the kilt is a deal breaker. Lose the kilt and your life will improve in oh so many ways!

The tape will still work as it did before, however. And your hearing will still be the same, too. Sorry.

Interesting @Neville, we Scots are not really brand loyal, when it comes to Whisky basically as long as it is wet, then it’s drinkable If I am honest, I prefer “Single Malt’s”… The Balvenie being my favourite, The Dalmore is another (Probably under 2 miles from my front door) and Oban Malt being my least favourite, but after about half a bottle, it started to taste just fine Slainte Mhath

not all Scotts have a drinking hobby. its all in the usage of the brain.
Look at my audiogram. I use the 105 db receiver and I am amazed how well I’m doing in noise. I think my Reals help my brain along with all the visual cues to hear speech. It can be exhausting after hours of speech but it works. Thanks Oticon.

I agree with a lot of your insights here, you betcha. Music is one of my passions, too. Now it COULD be that if the speakers are in front of me, and I’m in the “sweet spot” listening, I don’t have to do any more.

But you also prompted me to think of a scenario I OFTEN experience: streaming TV at night (I use a Roger ON iN, but others may have a different hookup). Would the Oticons let me stream beautifully and direct to the TV UNTIL someone across the room or behind me asks a question, at which time, I’d turn my head and maybe … VOILA! Their voice would take precedence over the streaming? I simply don’t know.

But that is why I don’t jack up the volume to MAX when streaming with the Roger. If I keep it at a magic level to allow streaming, I can also hear hubs when he asks ceaselss and endless questions or makes comments throughout the program. In my current state, I can get about 80-85% of what he says, but sometimes - he being a GENIUS with convoluted thoughts! - will launch into a technical “white paper” on the spot, and then I simply have to take my aids out of streaming.

Luckily, there’s no pop quiz afterwards. But the big picture here is that we DO want and need some kind of magic to boost human speech frequencies in myriad situations. Enable that in an aid, make it run on batteries, and I’d rob a bank to go buy a pair. Seriously.

LOL you were one BAD BOY! I’m hoarding a bottle of Shieldaig Single Malt … but have utterly gone OFF all alcohol 3 weeks ago to see if that helps what may be some autoimmune going on.

On the other hand, a spell of PAIN may feel better with a wee bit o’indulgence. Trying to see how long I can hold out.

Back to the topic here tho, I hope SOMEONE gets their Oticon Intent trial going so we can all learn about how it works! I wonder if Phonak has anything similar under development.

@DaveL said:

I worked for 3M for 15 years. They would make tape in 5 foot rolls. Then they would shred and package it. Some of the tape was private labelled. Different cores. Different packaging. Same tape. Different vendors.

I think that hearing aids may the same, except they’re not made in 5 foot rolls and slit.

Hey, small world! My uncle spent his career at 3M up in MN. And yes, I suppose some “private label” aids are made by the big guys in HAs - ending up at Costco!

But I’m actually intrigued and impressed how Starkey, Oticon, Phonak and others are taking advantage of AI and other tech to actually create a unique competitive advantage in their new offerings. We can only benefit from all this research! Now … if only one of them would figure out how to put their LATEST, GREATEST aids into a battery-powered model.

(anyone here hear an ECHO?!)

Having been scared by a directional pair of HAs giving no awareness of vehicles approaching from the rear, I would hope the new algorithms get clever enough to alert the wearer. Not just to the increasingly quiet hybrids and all-electrics, but powered bikes/scooters - not all of them attentively driven.

@Misterref78 said:

Resound Nexia has two models with 312 and 13 battery, Genesis with 312.
Signia IX? Nope, Oticon Intent? Nope. Disgusting.

And Tesla doesn’t make a car with a gas engine. Different companies go for different segments of the market. Why is that disgusting? If you want a hearing aid with a replaceable battery, it’s out there.

As for Signia IX, its rechargeable battery is good for 2 days (40 hours) if you buy the T- coil version. It also provides a compact charger with 2 more full charges after the initial charge before it has to be plugged in again. In other words, there are 6 days of power available between the initial charge and the need for access to a power source. That covers 99% of anyone’s needs.

The Intent hasn’t even hit the market yet. We’re still in the.announcement stage. Maybe we should allow a little time for the roll out to actually be completed. Meanwhile the Real is available with disposable batteries for anyone who wants a Oticon product with that option. Like Signia, the Oticon SmartCharger provides 3 full charges before it has to be plugged in again. In addition, Oticon is the only hearing aid company, I believe, which provides a system in which the built in rechargeable battery can be changed in the audiologist’s office without having to be sent back to the manufacturer at the end of their life span.

Every company makes decisions about how to deal with the challenges of electronics and about which market segments they want to pursue.

I read the description of the new hearing aid at the beginning. I don’t really see anything significant compared to previous hearing aids. These hearing aids will be better than the previous ones, this is mostly true because they bring some small improvements to the previous hearing aids and get some new features.

Reading a more detailed description, it sounds more like they want to convince the customer to switch from Oticon real to new hearing aids, so they sell more hearing aids, not only to those who need it. I say necessary, most of us buy new hearing aids because the old ones have become too old, or they cannot be repaired because the repair is too expensive, so the simplest thing is to buy new hearing aids.

Tech-savvy people will buy hearing aids because they want new technology like Auracast.

I think that Oticon is now selling new hearing aids with the same chip that Real had but with an upgrade, mostly a software upgrade.

In my opinion, I think that Starkey made a bigger development breakthrough because they made a chip that consumes less power. Apparently built in 5 nanometers, which is currently current and other brands of hearing aids lag behind in this. Chip development is a long and slow process. Once they make a new chip, they have to sell the same chip in multiple generations of hearing aids and advertise them as something new.

@markoo355 said:

I think that Oticon is now selling new hearing aids with the same chip that Real had but with an upgrade, mostly a software upgrade.

This might be true going from the More to the Real (they both share the same Polaris platform), but it’s not true going from the Real to the Intent. The Intent is on a new hardware platform called the Sirius. They need this new hardware platform for the additional of the 4D Sensor accelerometer. But the DNN 2.0 may be another reason that the new platform is needed as well. So the Intent is not on the same “chip” (as you call it) compared to the Real.

The 4D Sensor feature is probably a gimmicky novelty, but the DNN 2.0 gives you an additional 2 dB in Signal to Noise Ratio of noise attenuation to help speech, raising the bar from 10 dB max attenuation on the Real to 12 dB max attenuation on the Intent. I learned from @Um_bongo that each 1 dB improvement in attenuation helps result in about 10% better in speech understanding. So depending on how well your speech understanding is in noise, if you’re not struggling with the Real for speech understanding, the Intent 2 dB improvement in noise attenuation may not be a big deal. But if you’re struggling with speech understanding even with the Real, then this 2 dB more attenuation on the Intent may be a welcome improvement.

Also, depending on how long the battery lasts you on the Real, the faster charging speed on the Intent may also be helpful if you find yourself running out of battery juice before your day ends. Their claim of 20 hour full day use, plus 1 hour charge time for a full charge (a 33% improvement from the Real), 15 minutes for 4 hours more, 30 minutes for 8 hours more, can help you manage your battery usage more easily. Not to mention going from a claimed 3 year battery life in the Real to 5 year battery life on the Intent → hopefully lower cost of battery replacement.

Those are the 2 kind of main improvements I see on the Intent compared to the Real that may be worth considering. Another angle to look at is that now when the Intent is released, hopefully the price of the Real will start going down significantly enough (at least on the third-party market) that can turn it into a good value purchase.