With its nFusion hearing-aid architecture featured in a new flagship Destiny hearing-aid family, Starkey Laboratories has taken a giant step forward in the digital world. The American hearing-aid leader claims its new platform entirely eliminates feedback while providing improved understanding of speech in noise along with automatic adjustment to different listening environments. With its new Inspire OS fitting software, the Starkey system also makes it easier for audiologists to communicate with patients, discern their specific needs, and fine-tune the programming of the hearing aids to provide the best possible solution for the individual. While it remains to be seen if the Destiny hearing aids will fully live up to these bold promises, the new architecture and extensive R&D investment make it clear that Starkey, traditionally a sales and marketing powerhouse, is also committed to asserting itself as a bona fide technical leader in a global industry dominated by no more than a handful of vertically integrated manufacturers.
Starkey says its nFusion technology is a software-controlled monitoring system that activates features automatically, providing a more natural or “biological” hearing experience. Its “Active Feedback Intercept” is a new feedback cancellation system that Starkey says is best-in-class; and its “Directional Speech Detector” and “Acoustic Signature” technologies lock into the direction of sources of speech and adapt automatically to compensate for different environmental background noises such as wind or cocktail-party chatter. The Inspire OS fitting software platform “engages users by transforming the audiologist’s office into a virtual reality–complete with everyday sights and sounds like those found in their home, car, or favorite restaurant,” making it easier than ever for the audiologist to program the hearing aid, according to a Starkey news release.
With its nFusion launch at the American Academy of Audiology’s annual Audiology Now conference in Minneapolis last week, Starkey is knocking heads with the other majors for digital technology bragging rights. To name just two: Widex, the first to market with digital hearing aids more than a decade ago, recently introduced its next generation Inteo architecture with an ad campaign featuring Albert Einstein; and Sonic Innovations, which burst on the scene in the 1990s with an advanced, high-powered digital signal processing platform, is pushing the boundaries of open-fit performance with its new Ion mini-BTE (behind-the-ear) family of hearing aids.