Bringing opportunity to fruition, Widex announced it is “the first hearing aid manufacturer to utilize real-time AI to create a better, more natural and personalized sound experience for hearing aid users.”
“By applying artificial intelligence, a hearing solution learns how users prefer various listening environments and gives them greater control over their hearing experience,” Widex Head of Audiology Lise Henningsen said. “By being the first to embrace AI, Widex benefits from years of continuous machine learning and hearing aid optimization that other hearing aid manufacturers have not yet developed. It is a key reason Widex is able to deliver its revolutionary natural sound.”
Powered by AI, Widex SoundSense Learn helps process inputs from connected hearing aids throughout the world and shares anonymized data with a cloud-based AI system. According to Widex, the system then continuously learns how to further optimize hearing aid settings in different situations for specific wearers.
Widex SoundSense Learn presents users with A-B comparisons to begin understanding how a person wearing compatible Widex hearing aids prefers sound in an environment. SoundSense Learn manages three acoustic parameters—low, mid, and high frequencies—which can each be set to 13 different levels, resulting in more than 2,000 possible settings, according to the company’s announcement.
To A-B test each setting would require more than 2 million tests, but by using the power of machine-learning algorithms, Widex SoundSense Learn requires “only about a dozen comparisons to calculate the optimal settings for the individual person.” Further, Widex says, the SoundSense Learn algorithms also help track the user’s individual adjustments and draw from other user settings stored in the cloud “to more precisely tailor the hearing aids to one’s surroundings.”
When applied, the settings help create “a personalized hearing experience based on context, content, and intent.” Users can store the settings as programs in their smartphones and activate them throughout the day, such as when they’re at work, at the supermarket, or in their kitchen. Anonymized, the programs can also be stored in a secure, cloud-based system and help enhance the hearing experience of other users.
“Our studies show that hearing aid users have a significant preference for the personalized settings achieved through artificial intelligence and machine learning, and that 80% would recommend the function to others,” Henningsen said.
AI-equipped hearing aids such as the WIDEX MOMENT help enhance our digital lives, the company says. “With AI, they are more like new lifestyle ‘hearables,’ which are key contributors to ubiquitous computing, just as virtual assistants and smartwatches are,” Henningsen said.
SoundSense Learn is currently available in the new WIDEX MOMENT hearing aid. For more information on WIDEX, click here.
Source: Widex
Image: Widex
