Exploring the Future of Hearing Aid Technology

At Pacific Hearing Service, we want to educate our patients and the community about the importance of hearing health.

That’s why we held a symposium with Dr. Achin Bhowmik about how the future of hearing aid technology is more than just a hearing aid.

Dr. Bhowmik (formerly General Manager of Perceptual Computing Group at Intel) compared the past ten years of cell phone technology.

In 2007 cell phones were just telephones. Now? They are calendars, cameras, music players, computers with Internet access, games, Tesla keys, Books, calculators, weather reports, newspapers, wallets, credit cards, radios, and so much more.

Smartphone sales have increased tenfold in the past ten years, whereas hearing aid sales have been flat.

The good news is that’s about to change. 

The newest hearing devices will provide exceptional hearing and also offer many benefits to tracking your health.

For example, they have sensors to detect if you fall. 911 will be called, or your relative notified.

You can track your steps, exercise, and monitor ‘brain health’ by how much you are engaging in conversations with others.

The hearing device will also translate 37 languages.

Many of our patients will benefit from having a hearing device that also monitors their health.

Artificial Intelligence is only beginning to influence our lives strongly. In hearing devices, it will learn a patient’s individual listening preferences and make adaptations to help them hear more clearly in challenging environments.

Patients of all ages were engaged and asked lots of questions about how the technology works and how it will improve their lives.

This is an exciting time for us and people with hearing loss.