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Oticon has announced the launch of its very latest hearing aid technology, Oticon Intent. The company claims it is "the world's first hearing aid with 4D Sensor technology to understand each user's listening intentions and seamlessly support individual listening needs while giving access to the full sound environment."
That's a big claim and quite a mouthful of marketing fluff; however, there is genuine substance to the claim. User intent is almost the holy grail of hearing aid technology, if you understand the listening intent, you can deliver the amplification to meet that intent. Let's look at what the Oticon Intent offers.
Firstly, the Intent will be initially available in the smallest rechargeable miniRITE (receiver in the ear) form factor that Oticon offers. That discreet and popular model offers a telecoil and is designed to provide 20 hours of battery life even when streaming. Under the hood, they are building further on their BrainHearing™ technology with a device they say will capture and enhance a person's listening intent with motion sensors in the hearing aids, which pick up head aspect and movement.
Oticon says they can use the data from those sensors to understand better what the user is trying to hear in the moment. It allows them to layer this information upon the foundation of their BrainHearing™ technology, designed to deliver a full 360° soundscape with less listening effort and better speech understanding.
Motion detectors, or, to be more exact, accelerometers, have been around in hearing aids for a while. Until now, none of the hearing aid manufacturers have used them in quite this manner. Oticon says that it allows them to deliver outstanding speech clarity in complex sound situations while giving full access to surrounding sounds.
In fairness to them, since the introduction of the Opn, that is what they have been attempting to deliver. The goal of the strategy first delivered with the Opn, and built upon in the Opn S, Real and More ranges was to provide access to the full 360° soundscape with less listening effort, better speech understanding, and the capacity to remember more of what was heard.
The Intent technology takes that one step further, delivering a hearing aid that strives to understand the needs and listening intent of the user within changing sound environments and then adapts its signal processing according to their unique listening needs.
Auracast & DNN 2.0 and much more
The Intent also features a new Smart Speaker, Bluetooth® LE and Auracast™-ready technology, and a second-generation Deep Neural Network (DNN) system. DNN 2.0 is a type of machine learning system designed to allow the hearing aid to work more like the brain—having learned through experience—enabling more accurate representations of sound in the brain and better access to even soft speech sounds in noisy situations.
The new DNN is built from the ground up for the Intent as opposed to being an upgraded version of the original. The original system proved effective in the More and Real, so I expect great things here.
It is also equipped with a new MoreSound Intelligence 3.0 which provides higher clarity and better balance, with up to 12 dB noise suppression. They say that due to this innovative processing, which ultimately provides users with clearer speech, Oticon Intent delivers 35% more access to speech cues compared to Oticon’s preceding premium hearing aid.
If you are interested in the Oticon Intent range, or if you are looking for hearing aids at the best price in Scotland, honest advice and care, call me on 01506 420519 to arrange your appointment now.
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