Tried the Starkey Livio Edge AI yesterday, and don't understand what I found

Hearing Aids
#77

I have extracted this information but not from Starkey…Maybe this is why it is confusing regarding Ai and Machine Learning.

The launch of Livio Edge AI in July 2020 continues the tradition established with Livio AI by using artificial intelligence to mimic and, even, surpass human intelligence.

What is artificial intelligence and how is it used in hearing aids?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a program that can sense, reason, act, and adapt. It encompasses machine learning, which has been available in hearing aids for some time now, in the form of acoustic classification of different environments. However, with the introduction of direct connectivity in hearing aids along with Cloud computing possibilities, AI can now be implemented in hearing aids to improve performance and customise personal performance in a way that has never before been possible. Livio Edge AI is the culmination of advanced AI and complex Cloud computing to offer instant optimised adjustments via a feature called Hearing Reality Pro .

#78

I searched Google to learn more about Hearing Reality Pro is, and it seems like it’s just the name of the Starkey platform that the Livio Edge AI is based on. I don’t know why they call it a “feature” in the text you mentioned. Maybe because whoever wrote that text (which you said did not come from Starkey) didn’t really know what they were talking about specifically and was just making assumption that the Edge AI is a cloud based feature called Hearing Reality Pro, even though according to Starkey, it’s just a platform name. I could not find any indication from my Google search of Hearing Reality Pro using cloud computing to upload or download self learning data,.

Anyway, below is the link to the whitepaper on the Livio Edge AI’s Edge Mode that I was referring to. If you can find any mention of using cloud computing to upload or download self learning data, feel free to point it out to me because I’m interested to know and maybe I missed something.

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#79

@Volusiano. Thank you. I shall read the whitepaper. You are a very wise and informed forum member. This is why i get trust issues because it takes a lot of digging around to find the truth.
I would rather not say where i got the information but i am disappointed in what i assume may be a kind of Bend the Truth advertising. Not many people looking to buy hearing aids would read white papers or even have heard of it. The first thing they do is read the advertising and then perhaps visit a forum or read reviews from Google or Redditt/Quora.

#80

@Deafas: I’m also glad that @Volusiano has decided to apply himself and his considerable expertise to the layman’s explanation of Starkey’s take on AI/Edge, but I’m still puzzled:

Surely a Starkey Livio Edge 2400 AI user isn’t obligated by the complexity of the hearing instrument to do so much ex ante analysis? It’s not like you’re buying a small aircraft, the advance knowledge of whose idiosyncrasies is necessary to avoid a crash.

It’s a pair of hearing aids that - if it were light years ahead of the other big makers - would have people flocking to it in droves.

[EDIT: I wish I had taken my own advice and done a Search, prior to making this assertion:

This seems not to be the case, judging from the few users who are actually posting about it on the Forum.

In fact, there have been a significant number of posts by satisfied Starkey user/members that attest to Starkey’s popularity.

What I was originally trying to say - but flubbed badly - is that if the Livio 2400 Edge AI was actually as revolutionary as it is sometimes described, the rush of people to buy it would crush the competition (viz. Oticon More). This, clearly, has not been the case.

{@jim_lewis gets credit for calling my cards on the original false assertion.}]

If you’re absolutely set on your self-determined decision to purchase these instruments, surely wearing them will provide a quick and authoritative response to your queries?

My concern is that you seem bent on doing the selection and fitting of your hearing aids all by yourself. Were you already an experienced HA user, equipped to enter the DIY realm, that would be no cause for apprehension, for it would not compromise the satisfaction that you’ll receive from your devices of choice (any make).

Have you considered what disservice you may be doing to yourself to have already given the role of an audiologist such short shrift in your ongoing theoretical evaluation?

My comments are intended just as a friendly challenge to your path, that I’d ask you to consider - because I’m on your side.

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#81

@Deafas: If the truth were known, I think that most people (and not just Forum members) would do none of the above, but would just go with their audi’s/HIS’s recommendations (to their possible chagrin!).

They might check your cited sources, after the fact, to reduce any post-purchase cognitive dissonance they may be experiencing because their audiologist gave them a bum steer.

My$0.02/YMMV

#82

I think it’s always dangerous to judge the ACTUAL current quality of anything on such bases.

Bill Gates in his 1995 book The Road Ahead, which was interesting in many ways although it may very well have been ghost-written for him, begins by mentioning tornadoes of group enthusiasm or deprecation that lift some software companies up and tear others down despite the relative quality of their products because some are in the right place at the right time and others just get screwed up on the luck of the draw, crowd psychology, etc.

Starkey was once the darling of the hearing aid industry. It prescribed hearing aids for five U.S. Presidents. It’s founder and CEO Bill Austin got too busy being a media and social “rock star” and left the running of the company to his compatriot Jerry Ruzicka and things went south from there. Hopefully, Starkey’s present HA’s are more in line with the quality of their original products but they have a terrible interim history to live down. So no matter how good present Starkey HA’s actually are, any potential new HA wearer coming to the forum and finding the substantial enthusiasm for Phonak, the past (hopefully well-over) clouded history of Starkey, how much do you think actual present HA quality determines a trial and buying decision…? It’s a positive feedback cycle, either in the UP or the DOWN elevator (tornado).

A few of the undoubtedly quite a few mentions of Starkey’s checquered past on the forum: Oticon replaced my hearing aids under warranty, are they new or used? and Starkey fires president and other top officers - Archived - Hearing Aid Forum - Active Hearing Loss Community (hearingtracker.com)

Edit_Update: There’s also this Forbes article: Former Starkey hearing aid president starts 7-year prison sentence

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#83

@jim_lewis: That’s a fair point, and well taken.

I’m sure the issue was raised on account of sloppiness on my part (I should have searched the Forum before making that assertion - you’re right to pull me over for it. You make several other illuminating points, too).

Hence, I have edited my post for greater accuracy and clarity. I apologize for my mis-step.

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#86

Thanks everyone for your comments and opinions. It’s what keeps this place real which i like.
I have good faith in my audiologist and put my trust in her hands. I have signed up for a 3 year service package. It’s the start of a long journey. You people have been great!

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#87

Congratulations, @Deafas. May you have as good results from your hearing instruments as I have with mine!

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#90

This statement is very vague and doesn’t really explicitly implies self learning.

"Allowing Edge to learn" can simply means to activate it so that it can start analyzing (or learn) the current environment the user is in to match it up with what’s in a pre-built database.

"Apply the best fit for that situation" is what it is, once the situation of the current environment has been analyzed and classified (or “learned”), it finds the matching situation in the pre-built database, then extract the parameters pre-defined to be best suited for that situation and apply those parameters’ settings to your hearing aids.

So, just a simple statement like that from Starkey doesn’t mean that the hearing aid can really self learn.

Training a neural network (like what Oticon did with the More), or using AI to build a smart database (like what I think Starkey did with the Livio Edge) is not the same as self learning. If you wear the hearing aid for 3 years, then it crapped out and you have to get new replacements, the replacement hearing aid will perform exactly the same as the original hearing aid. The original hearing aid does not get any smarter than the replacement hearing aid just because it’s had 3 years of self-learning experience from being worn by yourself, while the replacement hearing aid has 0 experience because it’s never been worn. The trained/accumulated “smart” is already built into all hearing aids just the same. They don’t evolve and self-learn individually to become different from each other at their core. Sure they’ll have different personalized settings stored, but their core smart is all the same and one HA does not take on a different experience from another as they progress over the years.

I think real self learning requires a very complex and self-sustaining digital eco-system that’s not easily fit inside a tiny chip of a tiny hearing aid.

I’m not arguing that the Livio Edge doesn’t do self-learning. I’m just saying that I don’t see any evidence of it described in its whitepaper, and the statement from Starkey about “allowing Edge to learn” does not imply self-learning for me.

Now the Widex Evoke claims self-learning, and I would buy that claim. That’s because they use their smartphone app to establish connectivity between the hearing aid back to their cloud based system. The user, by being presented with an A/B choice of settings, then to tell the system which is preferred for his/her current environment, would have their A/B choice along with the environmental data fed back through the phone app to the Widex cloud, into their self-learning eco-system, to train it better and better using connectivity with their hundreds of thousands of users (or millions? I don’t know how many they sold so far) over more and more exposure to more and more environmental data and more and more users’ preferences learned, and over more and more time, now that’s self-learning.

Maybe the Starkey Livio Edge AI does the “pushing” of data back into the Starkey cloud, but it’s not obvious to me through the whitepaper. Widex, on the other hand, is very explicit about this in their marketing claims. It seems like the Livio Edge is “pulling” from the database, and this database is either stored in the hearing aid or in the Starkey cloud and gets pulled through the Thrive control app. That part (where the database resides) is not clear to me.

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#91

Hi, Rob! @Deafas. Have you begun your trial yet? Please keep us all posted!

Good luck!

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#93

@SpudGunner thanks for the nudge and hope you keep well too. Last week I had the impressions made for each ear and they are being sent off to Starkey and i go back to the audiologist in 2 weeks for the fitting. Ive been a little quite lately reading up on the livio edge manual and thrive app as well as the many Youtubers mostly audiologists who have posted great content on using the thrive app which helps to learn all the functions before the trial starts with the livios. Whether or not these functions are gimmicky i dont know at this stage. I’m not sure what to expect to hear after going 46 years without hearing aids. Foolish I know although I had a bad experience with a fitter providing me a cic in my 20’s which was an incorrect diagnosis as I already had moderate/severe loss and would have needed 2 x bte. I can’t really count that as a hearing aid which cost $1200 and I tossed in the bin a week later as I wasn’t allowed to return it. My current audiologist (she’s so kind and I actually take her advice very patiently which you forum members have helped me to realise to be trusting) told me she will start me on a low volume and increase gradually as I get used to the hearing aids. I will get my audio gram results updated very soon. The amplifiers I currently wear are almost like real hearing aids with silicone domes fully closed so no feedback and tap buttons for volume control. They have a rechargeable case that fits in my front pocket. I have found lately they only last a couple of months before they lose power altogether and end up in the bin. They give straight gain of around 25 decibels. Total nightmare for anyone that has more than moderate hearing loss as full volume causes background noise to be extreme. My hearing loss is sensorineural and it only helps to just get by day to day. Without the amplifiers I cannot hear anything except a little in the right ear. My audiologist would have been surprised to see these copies that the chinese make look so identical to the Starkey custom livios. All of my self experiments in the past few months has come to an end. Mostly I was testing to see what I can hear and from what distance and kept notes for the hearing aid comparison I tried bone conduction headphones and different amplifiers such as Resound match with the large tubes and hard plastic dome fitting. They are super comfy and hardly noticeable compared with the analog aid I had as a child. The dome fitting does tend to slide out a bit which I remember never happened 46 years ago when I wore a custom mould hard shell. Now after reading other forum members I will keep a diary and compare what I will be hearing with the Starkey livios as compared to the amplifiers. Sorry for the long post it grew so fast. My typing speed is already improving rapidly after posting here for a few weeks.

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#94

Thank you for your informative posts as they raise good debates and you make the Starkey livio edge sound exciting! Dr Cliff Olsen mentioned that some people will be buying the livio edge customs even though they don’t have hearing loss. His comments made me laugh as I highly doubt it at $8000 but i must admit they will make good earbuds for everyone. I have asked you many questions and you have been generous enough to reply to each one even though I have no recent experience wearing hearing aids. I will hope to share with you my findings too with the custom Starkey livio edge 2400s.

#95

Just a little update to let you guys know that i have found out it is good to have a little earwax in the ears. For many years I kept them clean inside the canals using cotton tips. Since I stopped eating fatty foods 4 years ago due to oesophageal reflux i dont use cotton tips anymore as i dont produce hardly any wax. Since wearing in the canal amplifier aids in the past 3 months I was told by my audiologist that I may have a fungus in my ear. I can understand this is due to the tight dome fitting causing moisture buildup after 6 hrs daily use. My doctor told me that it is not a fungus but mild irritation and prescribed me a cream which is mostly antibacterial with little anti fungal ingredients. I think my audio is right as we could see small white spots in one of my ears in the canal. Anyway the point of my post is that A little wax in the ears prevents fungus growth for those who wear itc/ite and dome inserts. Fungus cannot grow when there is earwax lining the canal.

#96

@Deafas: Here’s a link to a helpful little writeup by the Mayo Clinic

Earwax blockage - Symptoms and causes - Mayo Clinic

[Don’t let the title fool you - it’s about way more than just blockage, such as the benefits of cerumen, its composition, etc. Anybody who is interested can find a ton of useful information just by Quacking “cerumen”.]

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#97

Thanks for the link which is most informative. The human body never ceases to amaze me the way it functions.

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#98

Using AI language as a marketting tool has been recently increasing, but most manufacturers have been using AI to train their automatic programs for years now. Off the top of my head, Phonak/Unitron were doing it at least 5 years ago and I think Signia was at that time too even though neither of them are really using the language in their marketting yet. Oticon uses it slightly differently than most of the other manufacturers, but primarily because their noise management system is different. None of them use on-board AI active within the hearing aids themselves.

I suppose you could think of the Widex app (now Signia as well since the merge) as a sort of AI. I guess I thought of if as more of a cool application of data mining/crowd sourcing. Either way, I would agree that it is the only sort active/on-board learning system out there right now.

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#99

This is tangential to the discussion, but I would be interested to see how consumers think that this should best work.

There are a lot of people who come on the forum feeling like it is appropriate that they should get to test drive multiple devices, and it feels like the assumption is that they should be able to do this at no charge. It is certainly the case that you cannot truly compare two devices unless they have been appropriately fit for you, so trialing a bunch of first fits from different manufacturers is only KIND of a real trial. Appropriately fit hearing aids are both a device and a professional service. So, in trialing multiple devices, where should the cost of those professional services go? Does it make sense to you to pay a setup fee for each different device you try, or does it make more sense to have that cost rolled into the final purchase so that when you are buying a hearing aid you are actually paying for an average number of multiple trials?

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#100

It would be nice to see a new post about any peoples experience with the Widex evoke hearing aids. Ai + machine learning (data upload and download from the cloud). When I asked about Widex My audiologist didn’t recommend this brand. I’m not sure why but I accept her decision.

#101

Audiologists have their preferences. Honestly, though, the differences between modern hearing aids are razor thin and if the hearing aids are appropriate and correctly fit, most users will do well with most of them. Widex has historically been a smaller company with smaller market share, and you can probably translate that into it being recommended less frequently.

My surely personal and limited view of Widex is that they have had some very clever people who have created some clever features that have led to a strong history of clear sound. However, bigger manufacturers with perhaps more power to move quickly have watched what Widex has done and followed suit such that the things that used to differentiate Widex hearing aids (e.g. 6 years ago they were pretty much the hearing aid for musicians) no longer do.

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