Comprising an audiology-based pure-tone hearing test, NAL-based hearing loss compensation, and Medical Device company registration in both the US and Europe, OTC Ready software technologies enable companies to create unique, powerful, and affordable hearing devices for the vast untapped market of consumers with mild to moderate hearing loss.
“Because they are so expensive and require visits to an audiologist, conventional hearing aids are rarely used by the nearly 25 million Americans with mild to moderate hearing loss,” says Jacques Kinsbergen, founder and CEO of Jacoti.
To encourage wider use of hearing technology, the US Over the Counter Hearing Aid Act of 2017 requires the FDA to create and regulate a category of medical-grade over-the-counter (OTC) hearing aids suitable for mild to moderate losses. The final guidance is expected to be published in 2021 and many manufacturers have already signaled aspirations to enter this significant new market.
To help address the challenges of OTC hearing aid capabilities, Jacoti — as a well-established registered software medical hearing device manufacturer — partnered with Qualcomm to embed its technology in Qualcomm’s QCC 51XX series, a family of System on a Chip (SoC) devices that is widely used to create wireless stereo headsets and earbuds for the consumer market.
In order to differentiate their products from competitors and to enrich the overall consumer experience, many companies see an opportunity to “tune” their headsets and earbuds to the precise and unique needs of their customers. Many of these devices also have ear-level microphones and built-in signal processing to drive active noise cancellation (ANC) features as well as a “live mode” in which the mics can capture environmental sounds and personalize the sound.
Leveraging those microphones and processing platform, Jacoti’s algorithms enable developers to create hearing-assistance features that are of genuine benefit for those with mild to moderate hearing loss. In addition, unlike traditional hearing aids, which typically have a frequency response of up to ~8 kHz, Jacoti’s OTC Ready platform takes advantage of the full frequency range of consumer technology (up to 20kHz), an improvement over conventional hearing aids that will provide additional enjoyment to music lovers.
The Jacoti OTC Ready software family offers Hearing Loss Compensation (HLC) that uses Jacoti's HearingKit audio signal processing technology focused on compensating the hearing loss of individuals by applying a series of algorithms such Automatic Gain Control, Spectral Shaping and Limiter. It also offers the DuoTone, a patented pure tone audiometry procedure that employs pairs of pure-tone stimuli at different frequencies, and integration with Jacoti earCloud that allows to store audiological medical data and is prepared to connect hearing experts with users. A companion mobile control app, Jacoti Connect+, showcases the interaction of a smartphone remote control app with Jacoti Inside running on-chip.
"For manufacturers who wish to enter the wide emerging market of direct-to-consumer hearing aids, the combination of the Qualcomm QCC 51xx SoC and Jacoti’s OTC Ready software technology provides the ideal platform for rapid market entry," the company states.
www.jacoti.com
