AI and Hearing Aids – the Synergy

When someone talks about artificial intelligence (AI), it might conjure thoughts of your favorite sci-fi movie. But these days, AI is more science than just fiction. When it comes to hearing aids, this is particularly true. The days when hearing aids simply increased the volume and were one-size-fits-all are gone forever. Contemporary, high-end hearing aids utilize AI.

Artificial intelligence – what exactly is it?

AI is a form of technology that utilizes sophisticated algorithms to generate new results from inputs of data. AI is able to use an algorithm to participate in a kind of learning called “machine learning”. With AI the user doesn’t have to program every specific result because the algorithm does that by itself.

In the instance of hearing aids, AI algorithms can help your hearing aids adjust to your personal requirements depending on your behaviors, lifestyle, habits, and degree of hearing loss. Your hearing aids will be more effective at improving your ability to hear as a result.

How can AI help hearing aids work better?

This may feel a bit abstract at first. After all, hearing aids appear to have a pretty straightforward function. How can adding AI to the situation enhance things? Well, imagine a recording studio with the soundboard loaded with switches and dials. (You’ve most likely seen them in movies.) There’s a little tiny one of those inside of your hearing aid. Better sound quality can be achieved by altering these settings. With hearing aids that are powered by AI, these settings are changed automatically without needing you to do anything.

This AI hearing aid mimics human brain response using a deep neural network. Without even being programmed to, these devices react to real-time situations because of this.

This is the same technology that lets streaming services recommend movies according to your viewing history, though it most likely sounds like futuristic technology at first. AI is also encountered in cars and the emails auto-sorted into your inbox. The more you use these devices, the more reliable they become at making correct decisions.

New improvements in AI hearing aids

Hearing aids these days are helping you hear even better with new developments in AI technology. Some of the best instances include the following:

• Helping you hear through facemasks: During the pandemic, everybody was masking up, which was good, but definitely made conversations with a hearing aid more challenging. AI algorithms can automatically amplify those voices behind the facemask, helping those with hearing aids hear better and stay safe at the same time.
• Edge mode: This is a user initiated, AI assist mode. Basically, you can initiate something known as edge mode whenever you’re having a hard time hearing. When this is activated AI will begin working on clearing up what you’re hearing.
• Noisy room filters: If you’re in a location that has a lot of echoes, or is overly loud, new AI technology algorithms can separate out room noise. A hearing aid can have a hard time with cross-talk, for instance. But even in a loud setting, you’ll be capable of hearing more clearly what the person across from you is talking about as AI filters out unwanted information.
• Acoustic environment classification: Every room you go into has its own distinctive acoustic properties. Your hearing aids can handle some of those properties, but others it can’t handle very well. With AI technology, your hearing aid can effectively make automatic corrections that let you hear better in almost any setting.

Hearing aid producers and scientists are continuously developing new hearing aid technologies, so this may be just the tip of the iceberg.

AI for the discipline of audiology

AI has become a bit of a buzzword these days. Depending on the context, AI does different things, which can occasionally cause confusion. So, what does AI mean for the discipline of audiology?

First, it means that scientists are looking for ways to make hearing aids even more beneficial to patients. This research includes new technologies, like deep neural networks and machine learning. But hearing aids aren’t the whole story. In the future, AI may be able to help with diagnosing hearing loss or even helping patients prevent future hearing loss.

Patients will see AI in more and more of their devices as the technology becomes more dependable.

AI-assisted hearing aids and their advantages

AI is being incorporated into hearing aids not because it’s the popular new fad, unlike other industries. Some significant benefits to patients are offered by these machine learning algorithms. Among those advantages are the following:

• You have more control over how you hear: Many AI-assisted hearing devices give you the option to turn those algorithms on or off. So the clarity of sound users hear will be more in their control. And this usually means a better all-around hearing experience.
• Health tracking and fall prevention: If you happen to fall while you’re wearing your hearing aids, your AI-assisted devices may be able to detect the significance and severity of your tumble. If there is a serious fall, these hearing aids can, in some cases, alert the Authorities. Should you be drinking more water, exercising more, eating healthier? AI can make your health data easier to interpret.
• Helping you listen to devices: Microphones from cell phones, speaker phones, televisions, and other array devices can cause your hearing aids to feedback. Machine learning algorithms can help filter out this feedback, so all you will hear is the sound you really want to hear.
• Social engagement: Studies have revealed that individuals who use AI-assisted hearing aids are more successful when it comes to dealing with their social engagement. The speech that they hear will be clearer in a wide spectrum of settings, which probably accounts for better social engagement. With that being said, it’s not completely clear that AI is the defining factor in keeping your social life afloat. Most likely, it simply helps people who are already social better maintain their relationships.

What this means for patients

For individuals who use AI-assisted hearing aids these benefits frequently translate into real-world advantages. Imagine you were at a party having a discussion. An older hearing aid would raise the volume on everything. This isn’t helpful because the conversation you actually care about will get drowned out by background noise. With AI, the hearing aid can tune in to the noise around you and respond the way your brain would, lowering background noise and focusing on your friends’ voices.

AI will generate a location-by-location program to deal with the various kinds of sounds it picks up. These algorithms help when you go back to a specific location or sound profile. In order to better define and amplify important sounds, some AI hearing aids are programmed with day-to-day sounds.

Some of the other practical advantages of AI-assisted hearing aids include the following:

• Your quality of life will get better.
• You won’t be frustrated because you can’t hear (at least, not as often).
• The cognitive load will be decreased.

In other words, it’ll be easier to follow along with your favorite shows, hang out with your favorite people, and take care of your favorite brain.

Cost vs. reward

Due to the costs, AI wasn’t available in the majority of hearing aids until recently. After all, the device itself must perform some extreme calculations (an algorithm, of course, is essentially a very elegant math problem). However, in part because of the preponderance of the technology, prices for AI hearing aids are starting to go down.

That isn’t saying that those hearing aids will absolutely come down in price soon and you still might end up wanting a model that doesn’t include AI functionality. Clearly, patients will still need to make important choices. However, it does mean that these AI-assisted features are becoming more prevalent and more widely available.

Finding out what choice is best for you

For someone who lives alone and doesn’t go out much, hearing aids with AI might not be worth the extra cost. But AI makes a huge difference for people who are socially involved and go out into noisy situations a lot.

Hearing aids with AI are also helpful for somebody who is rapidly worn out in social situations where the task of keeping up with conversations utilizing a traditional hearing aid is exhausting. Social situations are simpler and the user will feel less exhausted with AI hearing aids. AI technology can also send alerts to your phone when the doorbell rings, alert others that you have fallen, and track your steps. Hearing aids will keep improving as AI technology improves.

Want to find out how AI hearing aids can work for you? Make an appointment with us right away.