Intention-based personalisation - a perfect pitch from Demant's hearing aid brand?

The idea behind Oticon Intent’s 4D Sensor technology is “to understand each user’s listening intentions and seamlessly support individual listening needs, while giving access to the full sound environment”. For Oticon, this is a new step forward in its proprietary BrainHearing technology story.

With the launch of Intent, Oticon is arguing that hearing aids themselves should interpret “how individuals behave within a sound environment and adapt signal processing according to their changing listening needs”. These new devices, says the brand, give access to the full, 360° sound environment, but adds a tech leap to provide individualised support for users within the same complex environment.

4D Sensor technology provides intention-based personalisation

Oticon Intent features a novelty: user-intent sensors that aim to capture a person’s unique communication goal and then seamlessly provide the brain with the right hearing support in any situation. The aids monitor conversation activity, head movement, body movement, and the acoustic environment and Oticon says that Intent is “the first hearing aid in the world to recognise when the user’s needs change”. The claim is that 4D Sensor technology alone improves users’ speech comprehension by 15%.

Balancing attention

Furthermore, the outcomes of an Oticon brain imaging study showed that the 4D Sensor technology helps users balance their attention towards the sound sources that they intend to listen to.

New Deep Neural Network enables better access to all sounds

Oticon Intent is also debuting a second generation Deep Neural Network (DNN 2.0) which has been trained using a greater diversity of complex sound scenes as well as a whole new way of learning from the sound it is exposed to during training, says the brand.

Thomas Behrens, Vice President of Audiology & Research, Oticon, comments:  “At Oticon, we believe in personalised solutions for those with hearing loss to engage in conversations and social interactions, despite barriers. Oticon Intent is designed from the ground up to do exactly this. With revolutionary technologies, it supports the brain in a natural way. It offers future-proof connectivity in our smallest design yet within this hearing aid category, allowing users to engage in life and the digital world.”

More new features in Oticon Intent:

SMART SPEAKER: Oticon Intent has a self-calibrating speaker designed to make speaker inaccuracy a thing of the past. The new miniFit Detect delivers gain accuracy within 1dB, providing up to 57% more precise gain compared to previous speaker units by the brand. Meanwhile, Oticon Genie 2 provides hearing care professionals with all relevant speaker unit information, from the serial number and fitting power level, to wire length and left/right information. Additionally, they will get an immediate speaker unit status, enabling them to see if a speaker unit is correct, missing, faulty, or incompatible.

FUTURE-PROOF CONNECTIVITY: Oticon Intent supports all modern connectivity standards, including the next generation of Bluetooth® audio; LE Audio Bluetooth. Now users can enjoy direct streaming and hands-free communication to not only iOS devices, but also to compatible Android phones and tablets3 and Windows PCs. Importantly for future communication technologies, the devices are ready for Auracast broadcast audio.

NEW DESIGN & IMPROVED RECHARGEABILITY: There is a sleek new design, making it the smallest, most discreet rechargeable miniRITE style Oticon has crafted to date, yet it’s packed with both a telecoil and a large battery. The size 13 lithium-ion battery gives users more power between charges and provides faster and more stable charging. It offers 20 hours of battery life when fully charged, including streaming, while a speedy 15-minute charge delivers users 4 hours of battery life.The new design also includes touch control for call handling and a single easy-to-use push-button for quick and intuitive hearing aid control.

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Source: Oticon