@billgem can you post pictures of the aids and Brain so we can see what they look like?
Yes, that is fair to say.
When I trialed a pair of Bernafon hearing aids at Costco years ago, they came with a remote to control volume and to change programs. Although this was redundant of the rocker switch on the HAs, their thinking was that many people would prefer the remote because it was more discreet in that it didn’t call attention to the fact that someone wears hearing aids.
I can’t right now because I’m in a doctor’s office. I will when I get a chance, but you can see pictures on their website: https://www.whisper.ai
I was also concerned about Whisper earpiece size, having just swapped my ReSound Quattros 13’s for 312’s. But after two days of my Whisper trial, I’m happy to say that the big earpieces seem fine. Maybe their proportions and balance are good.
625 batteries being so big, they perhaps require less dexterity than smaller batteries.
I’ll disagree with Bill here, and assert that the Whisper Brain is nothing like Roger remote microphones. The Brain is an extension of the earpieces’ signal processing power. It’s a new concept in hearing aids, so there’s no apt comparison to existing products. The Brain controls may resemble existing remotes, but that comparison poses the danger of obscuring Whisper’s uniqueness and innovation.
I’m told that, if I sign up for the discounted 3 year contract after my 60 day trial, I’ll get updated hardware if/when it becomes available. So Brain battery life could improve. And rechargeable earpieces may become available, though personally I’d rather stay with disposables.
I did get the sense from the OP that Whisper was ‘marginally’ better than other aids in a few ways; and just better for wind in noise and hearing voices at a distance. I wonder if this is enough to justify the bit of hype that the developers are touting.
I have conductive hearing loss. My cochlear nerves are fine. I got a Osia baha implant on my worse side. Wow, can I hear voices from fa away! This device is brilliant for speech. I suggest looking into a baha aid if you have conductive loss.
Well it sounds almost too good to be true. But then again manufacturers have a habit of making all their aids sound too good to be true. Wouldn’t it be great if this actually lived up to the hype
@hass5744, hearing aids are better with each successive generation, right? They’re better because semiconductor technology improves with time (Moore’s Law). Specifically for hearing aids, this means the performance of extremely low-power processors and memory. While those are getting better at Moore’s Law rate, mobile device chips, like those in phones, are already far faster, with far more memory. But mobile chips need more energy than can be delivered to a computer behind our ears.
Whisper’s clever idea is to offload hearing aid signal processing onto a mobile device (Whisper Brain) using suitable real-time communication protocols. Thus it’s conceivable that Whisper could perform, today, the signal processing that hearing aid chips alone will be able to do only years from now.
So, if you believe in gradual advances in hearing aids, you can believe that Whisper’s claims of a rapid advance are well within the realm of possibility.
No disagreement with any of the points you made, Jay. Knowing that you had posted about your trial, I was hoping that you would jump in with your perspective.
I too was told that if new hardware is introduced at any point during my 3-year subscription, it would be swapped out for the hardware that I currently have. Just want to verify that we have had the same experience, so this is clearly the company’s policy.
Gradual advances occur for a reason and by no means implies that rapid advances are possible. Instead they may indicate just the opposite. But as an individual who’s staring at 70 years of age even rapid advances may not be rapid enough. Time will tell
I’m sorry, @hass5744 - I don’t understand what you mean. (I’m quoting the preceding text for reasons of clarity.)
C475 said that if you believe that gradual advances are possible that rapid advances are within the realm of possibility and I don’t that that is an accurate statement. Gradual advance occur because of the technology that is currently avaiable. You just can’t assume that rapid advances are an automatic thing. The whisper aids sound interesting but don’t even have something like streaming available. Makes me a little skeptical regarding rapid advances. I would be nice but I don’t think one guarantees the other. I guess there’s always the possibility that like a light bulb that last 100 years never goes into production because it puts the competition out of businesses
@hass5744: okay … That’s very clear. FWIW, I agree with you: gradual advances don’t suggest anything, taken over time, other than more gradual advances are likely to occur in the future.
If one could say “History shows that for every x gradual advances that are realized by the HA industry, a blockbuster breakthrough occurs.”, then we could infer what x475 is suggesting. Otherwise, I think your assertion is more tenable.
Thanks. It would be nice though if he were right. I just don’t think one implies the other. Unfortunately
@billgem: It’s struck me on several occasions before that “regular updates” and “feeling like you’re participating in Whisper R&D” are very appealing to you.
Why is that “The chicken is almost done” approach more appealing than “Let’s eat!” ?
Personally, I just want to put in my aids and go. I assume that- in four years’ time - my poorer ability to hear will be more attributable to the aging process of my body than to the aging technology of my hearing aids.
In other words, I don’t think that “regular updates” would allow me to hear better than regular hearing tests and adjustments of my existing devices (as log as I’m still within fitting range, of course).
Sure, “regular updates” are less hassle than tests and tweaks but will they allow me to hear as well? Another way of asking the same question in an even more focused/on-topic way is: were you able to hear a difference when the last update was downloaded onto your Whispers? (Sorry if you’ve answered and I missed it …)
What say, Bill?
The premise of the Whisper brain is that Whisper can manage to make quantum leaps in technology advances very rapidly, so the brain is needed there to provide a big enough platform to support these quantum leaps.
History has shown that quantum leaps in hearing aid technologies are slow and far in between. Going from analog to digital HAs is a quantum leap. Going from digital to AI/DNN stuff is probably another quantum leap.
Rapid advances are not quantum leaps. Rapid advances are the likes of beam forming for speech clarity, or direct streaming to iOS, or the Phonak direct streaming to the original legacy standard BT for Android, or rechargeable batteries for HAs. Maybe the open paradigm introduced by Oticon to minimize beam forming but still improving speech is another rapid advance.
But those are not quantum leaps. They’re only rapid advances. And the HA mfgs seem to have been able to manage to come up with more advanced platforms in a timely manner to support these rapid advances just fine. I don’t recall ever hearing that any of the big 6 can’t implement something because they don’t have the right platform developed for it yet. That’s because in my opinion, the advances in new platform development can keep up easily with the rapid advances in hearing aid technologies so far.
As an example, Phonak decided they’re going to do legacy BT support. They came up with the SWORD chip, put it on their platform, and boom, they got what they want. And the SWORD chip is quite an advancement in terms of needing to have much lower energy consumption than the bigger battery-based standard BT devices, but boom!, they got it done anyway because they want to support it. The platform development was never an issue holding them back.
In terms of silicon geometry, the HA industry is very far behind the computer industry in using the latest and smallest geometry. So they don’t really have an issue of not being able to rapidly develop a newer platform using a smaller geometry (but still never the smallest) to accommodate their rapid technology advances. And also because the rapid advances don’t need the latest and smallest silicon geometries to be implemented on right now. There’s plenty of room to support the HA industry in this front.
So it’s not a problem that needs to be solved (the need for a brain). That is, unless Whisper has the genius ability to leap frog the big 6 HA mfgs and can come up with quantum leap type (not just rapid advances) HA technologies left and right so rapidly (which I really doubt) that a very big and advanced platform has to be there in time already to support it. It seems like Whisper is putting the cart in front of the horse here with the brain idea.
In deference to @d_Wooluf 's stated preference here, I would only respond and share my counter opinions on some of the comments raised by the OP (or comments raised by other folks who are actually trialing the Whisper system), since if they raised up those points, I feel that it’s relevant to provide a counter response if I have one to make. But I’ll try to refrain from stating unsolicited opinions here that go beyond the scope of the actual trial experience.
From my reading, I think this is just if you’re on the Brains Trust program. Which sounds like a great deal, btw.
You’re saying that Whisper should just jump a generation or two in semiconductor design so they can fit it all in the receiver? Mea culpa. I’m not sure what you’re saying. I’m not being sarcastic either. Your technical knowledge surpasses mine in every way.
I think a dose of skepticism is a healthy thing. I also think that at some point, you can choose to suspend your skepticism and just pay attention to what’s in front of you. You know, there shouldn’t be any ducks this far north, but it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, so…
In this case, we’ve got an observant user giving us his experiences. I’ve got Oticon OPN 1 aids, too (which pretty much never solved my hearing-in-noise issues), so I’m definitely paying attention to his comparisons. I’ve also seen audiologists on Facebook mention their clients reporting generally positive experiences. So, from what we’ve seen so far, it’s not something that can be dismissed as a mere gimmick.
I’m appreciating the discussion thus far. Thanks op.
This issue is specifically addressed at length in one of the 2 white papers which I linked in my OP, the one titled “Beyond Frequencues: Artificial Intelligence, Sound Patterns, and the Whisper Hearing System”.
Yes, it is for participants in the Brain Trust program. I am participating in Brain Trust and I assume that Jay (x475aws) is as well. Thanks for clarifying that point.