MENLO PARK, CALIFORNIA — The Earlens® Contact Hearing Solution was named among TIME’s Best Inventions of 2020. The 2020 list from the influential news and current affairs publication recognizes 100 ground-breaking inventions that are “changing the way we live”.
“Most hearing aids do a decent job of amplifying mid tones but struggle with the highs and lows, resulting in sound that is flat and dull. That makes it hard to follow conversations in a crowd—the so-called cocktail-party effect. Earlens ($6,000 per ear) upends the process, nixing the amplifier entirely and instead using a tiny lens that sits next to the eardrum. A microphone housed in the device’s over-the-ear processor picks up sounds, which an algorithm converts into vibrations that are transmitted to the eardrum. Put another way: rather than turning up the sound, Earlens actually re-creates the effect of the sound waves.”
—Marjorie Korn, TIME Magazine
About Earlens
Earlens is a privately held medical technology company committed to transforming the hearing experience for millions of people who suffer from hearing loss. The company has developed the Earlens® Contact Hearing Solution, which directly activates the hearing system, delivering the broadest bandwidth available today and superior sound quality. This revolutionary, nonsurgical hearing solution uses a small lens to vibrate the eardrum, replicating the natural hearing process. The Earlens® Contact Hearing Solution received FDA clearance in 2019 for a second generation of the Earlens technology
