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Fortell Hearing Aids

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Edited

In reply to @d_Wooluf

It’s interesting you say this – this is something that happens often in the tech world.

I used to work for the largest IT/computer company in the world at the time. In a huge organization, turning an idea into a product and selling it can take forever. The reasons? The innovator’s dilemma and the fear of hurting current sales—figuring out how to allocate resources to new products while keeping existing customers happy with current ones on a limited budget . This leads to endless meetings, with every team fighting to protect their budget from being diverted to unproven ventures. It’s one of the main reasons big companies often end up buying smaller ones (like Amplifon getting Resound) – faster to buy than create something new at home (this is very common in pharma). One example: Embrace , even if it means sacrificing sales of proprietary accessories.

In a startup, you gather in a room, make quick decisions, and everyone pitches in on everything. Things move fast because if you don’t launch the product quickly, you risk running out of funding and then the company dies. I love working in start-ups, super fun but it is exhausting and risky. In a big company, you are all day on the phone in meetings :frowning:

I really hope Fortell will be successful, @MattHdeJonge did mention (not here I think) that the new SF office will be open early next year and they already hired their director. I am not looking for new aids right now but I will definitely stop by when they open and spread the word in my circles.

So, smaller means more agile. I can get that. I don’t get how they put that technology together so easily (I guess they would dispute the ‘easily’). My non-techie guess would be that in a world of miniaturised everything putting a hearing aid together isn’t as difficult as it once was.

@OcramSagev said:

new SF office

If they dig a hole from New York through the centre of the Earth, come out the other side and open an office there, it will probably be quite convenient for me. I hope they’ll consider it for a laugh.

This new startup hearing aid maker looks very intriguing indeed. Lord knows we need a new competitor to the four major Giants in the industry right now.

We don’t know much about them yet but I for one hope they succeed.

I look forward to YouTube reviews, especially from Matthew Allsop, BSc (Hons) Audiology and Dr Cliff Olsen, .

Possible t/j here: The Mythical Man-Month is a great read for anyone interested in how one large corp innovated. It offers insight into moving from skunkworks to production BITD.

Edited

In reply to @platypus

@OcramSagev said:

Fortell

I worry they specifically try to compete in US markets- with its sky-high US prices…
Also, their Bluetooth seems to connect exclusively to Apple products. iPhones dominate the US market, when Android phones are used by the majority of people in Europe and Asia… Not holding my breath here.

This Week in Hearing12Inside Fortell’s Push Into the Prescription Hearing Aid Market

This is an interview with two of the co-founders.

H_P, Thanks for posting that video. Fortell looks like an excellent hearing aid. Unfortunately it doesn't look like they will be opening a clinic in my area of the country in the next year or two.

In reply to @jeffrey

‘Denoising’ is actually in fairly widespread use amongst people describing noise reduction. It doesn’t just refer to background noise, as AI reduction may also include feedback reduction, babble reduction and mic noise reduction.

I hadn’t heard of it until 6 months ago, but it’s recently become more widespread.

Edited

EDIT: Thah post have been written before reading that post, but look at the 2 latest paragraph about monaural fitting (I don't expect to test that, just my 2 cents):

https://forum.hearingtracker.com/t/as-promised-we-finally-tested-fortell-hearing-aids/135151/3

END of EDIT.

Thank you very much, I sincerely much appreciate that work! And I am not suprised by high results, congratulations to @MattHdeJonge

However (I'm sorry, I must and I should write that, to be continued under screens):

That comparison is more answering the question "What client will get with the highest probability?" than perfectly equal and fair comparison.

I don't criticize you. I think the same - indeed, it's better to test the most likely fitting that the customer will receive to test the most probable conditions.

However, for mere speech in noise testing, that gave Fortell's hearing aids upper hand just because of earpiece which isolates more from noise. I appreciate that part:

My situation is pretty unique, because I have in left so I can use only monaurally. Phonak Infinio/Eon Spheres don't require fitting to give me benefits, but what about monaural Fortell (2.0?) hearing aids? If their will work with monaural using?

EDIT: Just I said above - I don't expect to test monaural conditions. It's just wondering, however it's important because this is why I don't recomment Resound hearing aids for Cochlear monaural CI users if someona want to get the most of DNN monaural working in the better (HA) ear.

END of EDIT.

FYI: I use Audeo Infinio Sphere Ultra 90 P receiver with power domes (Unitron because of thicker silicone than from Phonak) and waits for UP in cShell with no vent after testing UPs in cShell titanium with 1mm vent diameter.

So, I don't understand what do you exactly mean.

"Model upgrade" looks like simply buying a new generation of hearing aids, e. g. having Infinio Sphere 90 Ultra and buying Eon 90 Sphere?

Edited

The most recent hearing aids run “models” that are trained on real audio samples to separate speech from noise. However, just as “frontier” LLMs like ChatGPT and Claude continually improve their language models, so do hearing aid manufacturers. However, this has usually meant that you had to purchase a new pair of hearing aids to get the new model. Not so with the Fortell.

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