The news of an acquisition for a company that just recently resorted to a (so far successful) equity crowdfunding campaign may seem confusing, and even more controversial would be seeing a strategic technology company such as Sonical selling hearing aids directly to consumers. The story itself is even a bit more complicated as audioXpress found out.
As the announcement details, the acquisition of key assets from Hue Hearing results from Sonical's ambition to drive forward the next generation of intelligent audio wearables — or hearables, which Sonical defines more broadly as Headphone 3.0 to expand to the consumer market. The vision is that headphones and earbuds should function more like smartphones, offering personalized, app-enabled audio experiences via Sonical's open CosmOS platform.
As a direct-to-consumer hearing solutions company, Hue Hearing has built a substantial customer base of people seeking accessible and effective hearing solutions. Through ongoing engagement, the company identified a clear gap in the market: customers are looking for more than basic sound amplification — they want smart, adaptive, and customizable hearing technology. This understanding is what led Hue Hearing to approach Sonical, recognizing the potential of CosmOS as the most advanced and scalable platform to address these needs.
"Our customers have consistently asked for more than traditional hearing aids can offer — they want smarter, more responsive, and personalized control of their hearing," says Andre Lavell, CEO of Hue Hearing. "Partnering with Sonical and integrating the CosmOS platform enables us to deliver truly intelligent hearing enhancements to the people who need it most."
The company announcement also says that this strategic acquisition provides Sonical with highly valuable consumer insight, product, and technology requirements, and distribution capabilities to support the development and launch of new hearing enhancement products powered by CosmOS.
"We are very excited about this acquisition! This accelerates the adoption of our platform to put the user in control of their hearing. Hue Hearing has listened to their customers’ needs, and together we can deliver the next level of hearing enhancements to the people that need it most," explains Gary Spittle, Sonical's CEO and co-founder. "Hue Hearing has cultivated a strong and trusted relationship with a significant number of people underserved by today’s hearing solutions," he adds.
audioXpress reached out to Sonical to better understand the company's plans on how to leverage these assets as a supplier to companies in the hearing products space. According to Gary Spittle, the idea is to combine hearing enhancement plugins in CosmOS, allowing companies to quickly build products that help people with mild hearing loss, and to launch wireless hearing accessories. "Once we've proven the performance and use cases, we will provide this platform to OTC and other product makers for full integration," explains Spittle.
Sonical also intends to test the solution directly on the soon-to-be-released Remora Pro accessory, which is the first product that is based on CosmOS. Originally intended to be just an evaluation design for Sonical's operating system and app-loading platform, Remora received enough market interest from high-end headphone enthusiasts, audio professionals, and music producers to encourage making it available to everyone. This inspired the spin-off and creation of Remora as a separate company, launched in 2024.
The First UWB Multichannel Audio Platform
Recently, Sonical also confirmed that Remora Pro will also be launched as the first ultra-wideband (UWB) multichannel audio streaming solution, enabling unprecedented audio quality and latency performance. Speaking during the recent 2025 AES Europe conference "The Advance of UWB for High Quality and Low Latency Audio," that took place in Warsaw, Poland, Gary Spittle conveyed the news to an excited panel of experts and audience. As UWB is progressing as an audio standard within the AES, Sonical has identified Spatial Audio as a critical market opportunity.
"Our mission is to solve the fundamental problems with current audio experiences. We've taken our lossless audio streaming using UWB radios and are using its capabilities to deliver multichannel immersive audio by bringing home-theater-quality sound directly to your headphones, with imperceptible latency," Gary Spittle stated.
This strategy targets entertainment enthusiasts and gamers with specialized setups who will recognize the advantages of personalized uncompressed multichannel sound on headphones, allowing users to select from a variety of spatial rendering algorithms, and creating an effective workflow that is independent of acoustics and room conditions, allowing full immersion without disturbing others. At the same time, Sonical also offers users the freedom to customize audio preferences beyond the limitations of the source device, supports different dialogue enhancement solutions, and will include personalized audio options and compensation for those with moderate hearing loss.
As Sonical continues to work with a vast ecosystem of strategic partners, including numerous software and algorithms providers, the company believes these strategies will accelerate its proposition and enable real market use cases. Also strengthening Sonical's position as a leading platform for innovation in the hearables sector, while expanding its reach into health, accessibility, and consumer wellness applications.
www.sonical.ai
