"The World Health Organization reports that a third of the global population over age 65 has disabling hearing loss and that more than one billion teens and adults are at risk for hearing loss, with more than 900 million people expected to have disabling hearing loss by 2050. In fact, the recent Qualcomm Technologies' 2020 State of Play Report found 40 percent of consumers surveyed are interested in earbuds that can provide automatic hearing assistance, as needed. In response, Jacoti has combined its medical expertise with the engineering prowess of Qualcomm Technologies to provide high-quality hearing enhancement solutions," the two companies state in the joint announcement.
"By working with Jacoti, we’re making hearing enhancement and personalization technology more accessible to consumers than ever before. For our customers, who are competing in a rapidly changing and crowded market, exciting technologies like this will provide a really interesting way to differentiate and enrich the end user experience," says James Chapman, vice president and general manager, Voice, Music & Wearables, Qualcomm Technologies International.
"We are excited to have this collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies and be able to integrate our audiologically-based (sic) hearing solutions into this powerful platform to improve the audio experience of all users," adds Jacques Kinsbergen as CEO and Founder of Jacoti. "It will also help us realize our social mission to make state-of-the-art hearing solutions accessible and affordable for those with hearing challenges throughout the world. We believe that hearing loss is both a medical condition and a consumer challenge and therefore needs a consumer-driven and consumer-oriented solution."
Jacoti’s technology comes with a self-administered hearing test that prompts various tones and frequencies, to establish volume thresholds for the user’s level of hearing. As the company explains, two audiograms are then created, tailored specifically to the user’s right and left ears, acting as the user’s individual hearing prescription based on their level of individual hearing. "These personal audiograms, in conjunction with the Jacoti technology, will work on devices featuring the Qualcomm QCC5100 Series SoCs and across multiple devices, with the software intercepting incoming sound before it reaches the user’s ears and then adjusting the volume of the appropriate frequencies to compensate for the user’s individual hearing deficiencies. The software on the device also prevents the user from exposure to sounds that can cause further hearing damage, resulting in a clear, safe, and pleasurable listening experience," they detail.
Jacoti is a Belgium-based company with development resources in Spain and offices in the United States, focused on affordable hearing solutions, and exploring the over-the-counter hearing-aid opportunities. In 2014, the company launched Jacoti ListenApp, an hearing aid app for iPhone and expanded it to a fully featured hearing suite, which was recognized as a CES 2016 Innovation Awards Honoree. The Jacoti Hearing Suite is a set of cloud-enabled mobile hearing enhancement applications targeting users with normal hearing all the way to those with profound hearing losses. That same year, Jacoti started licensing its IP-protected technologies to manufacturers, leveraging its 8 international patents. The Jacoti Hearing Center is CE approved and FDA-registered for self-test hearing applications.
Jacoti also markets an assistive listening solution for classrooms, meeting rooms and lecture halls, streaming audio over consumer-grade Wi-Fi hardware and created a web service that allows users to store their audio profiles in the cloud and share them across devices. Already in 2020, Jacoti Hearing Technologies relaunched its free Jacoti ListenApp as a clinically-validated iOS hearing app.
www.jacoti.com
www.qualcomm.com
