A question to the gurus: is any company using the computing power of an iPhone to make an effective genuine hearing aid?

Hearing Aids
23

Perhaps you need to understand your own question better.

The issue isn’t that the software can’t do it, the issue is that the software doesn’t deliver the sound to the sticky bits of the user; weighing nothing, invisible, without occlusion, maintaining a real-world directional field, improving SNR while counteracting auditory resolution failures with a battery that lasts a week, with zero latency……

Once you’ve sorted all of those, let us know. I’ll buy 20 demo pairs at $100 each and run a trial for you with real clients.

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24

I’m not sure the question deserved the snark really.

25

OK, @Um_bongo, please do expand on your note above. I am not an expert in this field, which is why I addressed my first post to “the gurus” of this forum—and you may well be one of them. I can understand abstruse concepts, and have a Master’s degree in science, but absolutely nothing in audiology.

Please do help me to understand my own question, and please expand on your points which suggests that what I proposed for discussion was simply a pipe dream. Unlike many, I am eager to learn, and this area is of personal interest to me, too.

And no new-approach system needs a battery that “lasts weeks” (I assume that’s what you meant to write); a full day would be perfectly adequate.

Please: you have the floor.

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26

It wasn’t meant like that - it was a list of what aids do and what people on here have expected them to do on this forum.

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27

‘Lasts a week’ has been a fairly regular request on this site, mainly in the argument against rechargeable devices.

Which bit do you need help with? It’s a vast field - the hijacked use of the BLE 5.3 to put sound around the BAN at really low energy? The expectation of zero latency or the need to get your mics at the same locations as the ears to preserve body reflected directionality.

There’s a library of tech notes and history avalable, but you could do a lot worse than picking up a book - Hearing Instrument Technology by Andy Vonlanthen is where I’d start if I wanted a how-to on the technology.

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28

I think the basic question is could an advanced smartphone serve as an “equivalent” to Whisper’s Brain device. Is the generalized computing power of the smartphone adequate so that only software modifications would be needed or would additional specialized function hardware be necessary? Latency and battery life (Whisper used 675 batteries) would likely be issues as well as a generalized dislike for carrying another device (although that device being a smartphone may be less of an issue)

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29

Which is fair enough, that’s a potential intermediate solution that answers a number of the issues.

My original observation was that the question was so far left on the Dunning-Kruger curve in the ‘you don’t yet know what you don’t yet know’ field, it made working to a meaningful answer very difficult.

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30

I was a customer of Whisper AI, the startup that released Whisper Hearing System a few years ago. A couple of other Hearing Tracker users were also customers.

Whisper’s goal was to leverage the superior power of mobile device processors, compared to contemporaneous hearing aid processors, to do a better job of isolating speech from noise. They published these white papers:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/16goZB-Hdozx6uhEZKt2aQrFV2WE9_Dxq/view?usp=drive_link

https://drive.google.com/file/d/13hsTvLe2SmB_38IDrr2kZGNuueRc6QfV/view?usp=drive_link

Their earpiece was a hearing-aid-style receiver-in-canal device sitting behind the ear, and the receiver (speaker) in the canal was enclosed in either a flexible dome or a custom earmold, just like other hearing aids. When it comes to more severe hearing losses, technical requirements preclude use of an earbud. A device behind your ear can hold two microphones, which allows software-tuned directionality. Also, microphones on either side of your head can help localize sounds, unlike a microphone on an external device.

Whisper didn’t use an iPhone or even a cheaper Android phone, rather they used a proprietary device (Whisper Brain) that’s pictured in the white papers. I assume this is because phone OS’s aren’t suitable for real-time tasks and real-time communication, and a phone screen adds unnecessary size and cost. The former reason may also explain why no one’s leveraging the phone already in your pocket to replace a hearing aid processor.

Whisper was a success in that their speech-in-noise performance was perhaps the best at the time. But it didn’t work out business-wise, for reasons that we can only speculate on. In the end, they gave all customers their money back and let them keep the devices.

Whisper was mostly leased, not sold, and that pricing model seemed to engender a lot of animus, as you’ll see if you search for the Whisper threads on this forum. Another factor helpful for understanding those threads is that a prominent user here is a “stan” of William Demant, the company that makes Oticon and Bernafon and Philips hearing aids. Demant poached Oticon’s chief audiologist, which seems to have “burned that user’s biscuits”, so to speak, and caused him to post some utter nonsense about Whisper.

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31

I have a pretty loose relationship with my smartphone. At home we often are many meters apart. When playing soccer I leave it in the dressing room. When I go outside for a minute to put the garbage in the bin I leave it at home.

On the other hand, my aids are always with me, without having to think about it, sitting comfortably behind my ears. Whole day long, except when I’m swimming or take a shower.

Besides how many times smartphones get lost or stolen? I think hearing aids are safer in this respect.

32

Thank you x475aws. I haven’t been able to get back here to replay to Kit’s request until now, in which time of course you have provided a very comprehensive answer to his request. Much appreciated and my regrets to Kit for not being able to get back to you sooner. Busy couple of days!

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33

Thank you. I don’t know whether “Hearing Instrument Technology by Andy Vonlanthen” is available locally, but will find out.

35

I read both the white papers; and sincere thanks for the Whisper overview.

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36

Instead of using a smartphone, you could use a bracelet to put on your wrist with a device like the Wishper brain (maybe smaller) or a rectangular smartwatch

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37

Flagship phones these days have multiple cores, some of which are AI cores. I don’t think processing power would be an issue. Latency probably would.

“Link latency in a UWB system can be very low (less than 5ms for most audio applications), making it easy to keep audio signals in sync with each other and with other related sources such as video. Additionally, due to low latency control signals, audio/multimedia channels can be tightly synchronized (within 20µs) to deliver exceptional performance across a BAN/PAN or home sound system.”

R&D Stories: Using Ultra-Wideband Technology for Wireless Delivery of Audio and Multimedia | audioXpress.

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38

Yeah I’m thinking smartphones are darned powerful now but I don’t know what special computing needs might be present for hearing needs so I tried to err on the side of caution.

39

Latency was not an issue with the Whisper devices. Their inventors had a background in cell phone technology, which is why they saw that a supplementary processing unit could work.

40

But sound processing would use tie up those resources and block other tasks from using them.

41

@d_Wooluf , interesting, especially text in screwn below. Could it be the successor to Bluetooth LE? :thinking:

Screenshot_20241127_163535_Chrome
Screenshot_20241127_163535_Chrome1308×1851 182 KB

42

Sounds like more complementary than replacing Bluetooth. UWB vs Bluetooth: work better together | Ceva IP

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43

And thank you for introducing me to the term “stan”; the usage and origin are fascinating!