For many people with hearing loss, a normal conversation at a busy restaurant is the holy grail.
“[Background noise] is the number one problem that needs to be solved,” said Abram Bailey, a former practicing audiologist who now runs Hearing Tracker, a popular online resource. “…We’ve been trying to solve it in this industry for years and years and years. But we have only made these really tiny, incremental steps.”
Since digital hearing aids became available a quarter century ago, their audio quality in complex situations like a cocktail party has inched forward thanks to developments like directional microphones and pre-programmed settings for common sound environments. But dueling new entries to the market — one from established Danish brand Oticon and another from California startup Whisper — are trying to take a bigger leap forward using artificial intelligence to make noisy environments clearer than ever.
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