Yesterday was a groundbreaking day for the hearing aid industry. Starkey have announced the launch of the first ever Multi Purpose Hearing Aid the Starkey Livio AI. This is the worlds first medically prescribed Hearable!
Hearables are the future
I am clearly very excited by this as it is the first step to Hearables becoming mainstream products for the hearing industry. It won’t be long before other manufacturers follow suit and the word ‘Hearing Aid’ will be a thing of the past.
Auditory Training and Brain Health
Auditory training has always been expensive and difficult to implement. However, with the Starkey Thrive app and the Livio AI you can now track your brain health. It challenges you everyday to have social interaction to get as many points as possible. The details of exactly how it scores you are vague at the moment but I am pursuing this to get more detail.
Body Health
It is able to track how many steps you take in a day much like your smart watches. No extra devices needed now though. You can track your daily activity using the Thrive app and your Starkey Livio AI devices.
Integrated Language Translation
Language translation has been built in to the hearing aid. The microphones listen and dictate what is being said in the app and then the phone does all the processing and translation. The translated speech is then transmitted up to the hearing aids and spoken by the hearing aid directly in to your ears. At present, I’m not certain what langauges are being offered.
Fall detection
If you are worried about a loved on falling over, these may be the devices for you. The devices detect if a person has fallen and will alert an emergency contact. I am not sure if it goes directly through to emergency services at this stage. I suspect not due to risk of false alarms. However, it would be an invaluable tool to some.
Wireless connectivity
The devices include bluetooth and say that they can be connected to TV’s, amazon alexa, and your phone. I look forward to trying all of this out when I get my demo set in the post.
Summary
Starkey have a huge offering of new features on the Livio AI hearable. Let’s hope that it hasn’t compromised on the performance of the sound and the usual hearing aid features. Unfortunately it isn’t officially launched in the UK until Spring next year but you can see a teaser video for the Starkey Livio AI below.
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