Oticon announces “world’s first” hearing aid with innovative adaptive user-intent sensors
Hearing aid manufacturer Oticon has introduced an innovative hearing aid that can understand a hearing aid user’s listening intentions and respond accordingly.
Oticon Intent claims to solve the number one challenge for people with hearing loss – hearing speech in noise.
With 4D Sensor technology, Oticon Intent can understand what users want and need to listen to and adapts the support it provides seamlessly to individual needs.
Its ‘BrainHearing’ technology supports the natural way the brain works in giving important information about what’s most crucial for hearing aid users to hear at a given moment.
When struggling to hear what someone is saying, users are likely to lean-in to listen. Oticon Intent combines all these inputs to understand the hearing aid user’s listening intentions and adapt accordingly.
Thomas Behrens, Vice President of Audiology at Oticon, commented: “BrainHearing is central to everything we do because sound is a vital source of stimulation for the brain.
“If you have a hearing loss, you can actually protect your brain from cognitive decline by using active hearing aids which enable you to connect with others and let you engage in life to the fullest.
“With Oticon Intent we ensure hearing takes less effort and that you can communicate with ease in any situation. You can also enjoy future-proof, next-generation connectivity technology, crafted into the smallest form factor we have designed to date within this category.”
In challenging, noisy environments, Oticon Intent claims to make it possible to move through a crowd with seamless awareness, while orienting to the surrounding sounds.
The aid makes it easier to begin chatting with a group of people, thanks to heightened access to voices and balanced background sounds so they are not bothering, while still accessible.
It is also easier to start a more intimate conversation with one person, gaining full access to the speaker’s voice amidst the noise all around.
Oticon Intent features LE Audio Bluetooth to deliver easy connection to smart devices, allowing for a detailed, high quality sound experience for hands-free calls and direct streaming of music, audio book and much more.
By double-tapping the Oticon Intent hearing aid, answering calls becomes a simple task. With improved rapid charging, Oticon Intent provides more than a full day’s battery life, after two hours of charge.
The new hearing aids are also ready for future communication technologies such as Auracast broadcast audio.
In September 2023 Cambridge audio software company AudioTelligence launched a crowdfunding campaign in a bid to get its hearing aid into the hands of those who struggle to hear in noisy environments.
