Top Audio & Hearing Health Takeaways from CES 2023

Dave Kemp 0:10
All right, everybody and welcome to another episode of This Week in Hearing. Today we are going to have a CES themed discussion and I’m joined by two attendees of the show. So with me today is Kevin Liebe. Kevin is a practicing audiologist and the president of Hearing Health & Technology Matters. Also one of the key figures here with This Week in Hearing, and I’m also joined by Andy Bellavia, and he is the founder of AuraFuturity, so why don’t we kick things off? Kevin, I know this was your first CES. So why don’t you kind of share your perspective as an audiologist attending the show for the first time?

Kevin Liebe 0:47
Yeah, so thanks for having me on. Dave. You know, after we have over 100 episodes, now, I guess I’m going to sit on this side of the of the table

Dave Kemp 0:55
Yeah, welcome to the podcast.

Kevin Liebe 0:57
Yeah. So yeah, it was I’ve -I’ve wanted to go to CES for for a number of years. And I think we’ve been kind of seeing in trends in the hearing space, kind of, kind of since hearables and that whole concept kind of became pretty popular here, like 2015-2016. So it’s been something I’ve been wanting to do, obviously, the pandemic kind of had some other ideas here the last few years. So this year, I was fortunate enough to be able to attend, I’d say the biggest thing, just in general, I was just completely blown away by the scale of the meeting. You know, I’ve been to some large conferences before, but this is, you know, 10-15-20 times bigger than any audiology conference I’ve ever been to. It is just massive, just a massive… hard, hard to even to wrap my head around how big the event was. So in that context, trying to find, you know, all of the hearing exhibits and things like that was, was kind of challenging, actually, but, but it was it was just kind of really, really eye opening. And kind of just seeing where hearing technology kind of is falling into the broader sort of technology, discussion and exhibit, but it was it was the I feel like I barely scratched the surface after being there for like three days. So it was, but it was it was it was really interesting to check out some of the exhibits and kind of see where hearing is falling in the trends of accessibility and just technology in general.

Dave Kemp 2:33
Awesome. Cool. Well, we’ll get into a lot of what you guys saw. But before that, I’ll kick it over to Andy, I know this is not the first time you’ve been to CES. So quick take on ces 2023. From you.

Andy Bellavia 2:46
Yeah, I tell you what it was good to be back. January 2020, was my last one. I didn’t go last year, the one that was much reduced in size. And I probably had a grin on my face the whole time to finally after three years be immersed in that environment. And I have learned over time that you have to you have to do your homework and be very focused on what you’re doing, because it’s impossible to cover all of it. So you have to know in advance what you want to go see. And then you go attack it. The big difference between this one and three years ago was that more people are moving into suites and having private meetings, there’s still a lot of exhibit space. In the innovation area. Eureka Park in the Venetian was really interesting. And a few people were out with public stands like Nuheara for example. And Eargo also, but a lot of the real work was going on in suites this year more so than I recall three years ago. And so I spent a lot of time in suites. But that means that general people are not wandering into the suites and seeing these things. But it’s meetings that are scheduled in advance. That was the big difference between now and in the past, I think.

Dave Kemp 3:54
Okay, interesting. So, in terms of what you saw, what really stood out to you, we’ll start with you, Andy.

Andy Bellavia 4:01
Well, at high level, I saw two things that were really interesting. One was a general focus on healthy aging and accessibility. Even in the Healthy Aging department. CTA the Consumer Technology Association, who puts on CES, they made a partnership with BBC StoryWorks. And they kicked off a whole series on how technology can support healthy aging. And there was a lot of emphasis there at the show itself. Even for example AARP had a huge booth with a shared space for a lot of people innovating and aging tech. And they also had their own kind of stage and presentation area where they were hosting different talks throughout CES. And then the other one is although there weren’t a lot of people with finished hearing or hearing related products there. There were a lot of people doing allied products they related to hearing and Communication. And there was a lot of people with technology under the hood, for example, next generation chips, a lot of people working on speech and noise enhancement that will find itself into devices and the like.

Dave Kemp 5:15
Yeah, I want to definitely circle back on both those because there’s, I think, a lot to discuss with both of those big observations. But Kevin, what about you? What did you What stood out in your mind?

Kevin Liebe 5:27
Yeah. But yeah, just to piggyback on what Andy’s saying. Really, I was, I was a little bit, you know, having seen a lot of press coverage last several years with CES and the number of hearing specific related companies, there really was, I think, just Nuheara and Eargo, were really the only hearing aid companies that were actually exhibiting in the hall. And both had a pretty, pretty decent sized presence there. But to Andy’s point, there was a lot of kind of, you know, complimentary technology on display, a lot of companies seeming to get into the software space related to hearing enhancement, you know, improving hearing in noise. And so so those those kinds of things I did see there, there were some other interesting technologies, like some of the captioning. Companies out there also in the accessibility realm related to hearing, the company called, or rather there is a product called Badger made by I think the company is named Satellite Display, I believe, is the company’s name. And, really, they’ve been around for a little bit, but I think they’re just kind of starting to get off the ground here with making it more widely available. But it’s a basically, it’s very thin, little card size device that people could wear, like health care providers could wear a badge and it would just caption in real time. Really, really neat product, a lot of application for you know, the population that we’re, as an audiologist, that we’re serving. But you know, some other just kind of interesting ear related technologies. There’s a company that’s working on vagal nerve stimulation through an earbud. And there’s a French company that makes this headset, that little headphones that use air conduction that looks like a bone conduction headphones, but actually uses air conduction instead. And so there’s some interesting, interesting things like that. But yeah, just in general, there was kind of that broader idea of the Healthy Aging and Accessibility and yeah, just kind of interesting seeing some of the peripherally related products to even beyond just hearing aids.

Yeah, I think the Healthy Aging thing is something that I sort of even gathered, just, you know, being home and just seeing some of the press that came out of it. And I think it’s really interesting that, you know, obviously, that plays well into the hearing health space, knowing that it’s skews, you know, older due to the age related hearing loss. But I just think that this whole idea of building, you know, we know, we have an aging population, and you know, in many ways, they’re the least digitally native demographic within our population. So there’s like a really, I think, exciting market that’s building around helping to usher in older adults into technology, you know, from smart home, on down the line with all kinds of different consumer tech. I just find this to be something where, you know, what, what kind of like for you guys, when you were looking at some of the aging tech type things, what was going through your minds in terms of how you could see this relating to hearing health in any way, shape, or form?

Andy Bellavia 8:50
Well, I think the most important thing about the conversation around age tech is that it’s actually taking place in other words, that we can have a natural stigma, free conversation about aging, and all of the things one can do to live the best life possible as they get older, this kind of conversation is not too long ago would be completely taboo. And no, it’s not. And so that affects the larger ecosystem of aging people but it also affects hearing and how people look at hearing as a natural part of the aging process. And just in some small way starts to dial back the stigma a little bit and enable us to have conversations about aging. Without all of that, you know, ill feelings and stigma and depression that goes around having to acknowledge that you’re aging and have different needs as you grow older.

Dave Kemp 9:48
Yeah, I think like I’m going you know, thinking back Andy to some of the different voice technology stuff that we’ve covered before and just like watching that space evolve, you know, looking at like voice assistants like like Alexa and google assistant and stuff like that. And what’s really interesting is that, you know, when Alexa kind of came to market, I think Amazon wasn’t totally sure who their target demographic was because it was so widely applicable. And, you know, a lot of the adoption usage indicates that it’s actually kind of a barbell. So you have, you know, the youngest generation, the, you know, usually kids that maybe they don’t have access to like screens, and so they have a voice assistant in their home through a smart speaker. And so they’re engaging with it all the time. But the other big demographic was older adults. And I think it kind of again, speaks to the fact that like, in many ways, they’ve sort of been sidelined by the recent epochs of, of technology, you know, so like, when the PC came around, it wasn’t like, there was a ton of use cases for them. And so they just sort of dismissed it. And then the phone came around in the phone isn’t like the best use case, or the best modality for somebody that might have, you know, dexterity issues or low vision, something like that. So it sort of makes sense that something like that would be appealing, like a voice assistant would be appealing to older demographics. And the reason I mentioned all this is what’s interesting is if you’ve actually watched the product, that you know, the weight, the different kinds of products that Amazon has been introducing for Alexa, they’ve gradually become more and more skewed toward older adults. And so now they have, you know, like the smart displays that are specifically designed for, you know, assisted living communities and stuff like that, that are operating like a concierge service that can you know, interface with other intercoms within the system or the front desk or something like that. And so I say all this, just to point out that, like, it’s interesting that these general technologies have sort of already began to, you know, some of them are migrating toward appealing to older adults, sort of given the fact that they’re maybe not as savvy with the current paradigms that generations like mine are super conditioned and savvy with. So they’re, they’re more ripe for some of these other technologies that maybe the younger generations are dismissive of, because they’re totally happy with the way in which they’re interfacing with technology today.

Kevin Liebe 12:20
Well, and I know, just as a clinician, and I mean, just you look at you look at relatives and things like that, but just as a clinician, I mean, the last, I don’t know, five, six years, the trend has been in Bluetooth, you know, connectivity in hearing aids is ubiquitous now. You would be surprised, maybe not surprised how many 90 plus year old patients that I encountered daily that have absolutely no problem using Bluetooth connecting with the app, all that stuff, even better than some some middle aged people. I mean, it’s, it’s pretty incredible, just that adoption, and how much more seamless that’s gotten and more kind of more accepted. And maybe it’s covid, maybe it’s been because of COVID. And, like somebody who can zoom now and all these things. But I certainly think that, you know, having sat in with some of these roundtable discussions, while I was at CES, I got to sit in some presentations and discussions with GN and some other folks that I’ve known and finally got to see him in person, which is pretty great. But I mean, these companies like the Big Five, some of these other companies interested in in the hearing space, they’re looking at these technologies and looking at ways that, that their devices might actually be able to work in concert with that, because you got to think like, I mean, just, you just think about it just out loud, you think, Okay, well, if I’m having if I’m wearing a device that has Bluetooth, microphones, like gyroscopes -all these things, you know, sensors in the device. What are things that it can be syncing up with my doctor? What are things that could do that could be actually complementary to if I had an Alexa? Or if I had something that, you know, worked with the healthcare provider? What if I was in a care facility? And I’ve got 20 people in there with hearing aids? What can what kind of data could that hearing aid be feeding to the, you know, the Medical Director, I mean, there’s just all kinds of really, really fascinating and really, you know, pretty amazing kind of possibilities that we could almost do today, but at least we know are possible in the near future, which is, which is really kind of exciting. When you think about the health implications of any kind of device that you’re wearing regularly. And even some interesting outside the box kind of cases. And I think it’s just it’s just pretty, pretty fun to kind of think about those things.

Dave Kemp 14:38
Yeah, and like one thing I’ll just add to that, that came to mind is like, you know, look at the Starkey hearing aid that now has the integration with the Amazon FireTv cube. So this is like the first native integration where you can like, actually pair your hearing aids with your Smart TV or the set top box that you’re using whatever smart top box you’re using, but like, that’s gonna be, we’re gonna see that cascade all the way down. So you’re gonna have this probably be these kinds of integrations all over the place. And so again, it’s just like I think it, it’s, it’s all like, sort of there’s collaboration happening with big tech, with the different hearing aid manufacturers, all these things are becoming more and more feasible. And I think the end result is that, like you said, you know, on the surface in there will be, you know, portions of the potential patient demographic that probably won’t find these things appealing, because they’ll find them to be too cumbersome or hard to do. But there will be, I think, a portion of people that will find these to be really awesome, exciting use cases, that will just increase the overall patient experience with the devices.

Kevin Liebe 15:50
I mean, again, kind of getting back sort of saying is like just compared to five or six years ago, people’s comfort with navigating a smartphone, Bluetooth, streaming calls. I mean, it’s, it’s incredible how much that’s really changed in a fairly short amount of time. So I don’t think it’s that far of a stretch that, you know, if you have something that’s a fairly seamless, sort of complementary technology that could be widely adopted, if done in the right way. But I do think, you know, just the broader point of, you know, still the misconception, we all know that there’s a ton of innovation in hearing aids, and, you know, hearing tech, but still, I think, I think the broader consumer population doesn’t appreciate how, how sophisticated these devices are, and how much goes into that little tiny hearing aid. You know, I got to demo the the Resound Omnia’s on the on the floor, just to see how impressive the noise reduction was. And it’s it’s quite impressive. I mean, just I think, I guess my point on this is that I think hearing aids should be- I mean, CES is a great place for hearing related companies and hearing aid companies in particular, to show off their innovations. Because it, I mean, the kind of things that are happening on many levels, chip level, and just processing. I mean, they deserve to be there, you know, like, people need to understand, like, it’s a really incredible little device, you know. And it’s part and parcel of all these other technologies that eventually and hopefully, soon, we’ll be able to, like Auracast and some of these other emerging technologies that were present at CES. That was also something we hadn’t mentioned, but but there’s some of these things on the horizon, I think are really, really exciting.

Andy Bellavia 17:36
Yeah you make two really important points there. One is I think we’re at an inflection point right right now in the hearing space, and that the generation now moving into the need for hearing care is and I hate to generalize, but for the most part, and people moving into the need for hearing care right now are going to be much more digitally adept. They are the people been walking around with earphones in their ears, and streaming music and all the rest. And they’re both more knowledgeable, but they’re also going to have a different set of needs and ones than in the past. And the second one really, is that it pays to appreciate the sheer size and scale of the consumer electronics industry, which you saw from your first visit to CES. Right. And

Kevin Liebe 18:27
It’s amazing, like truly, really quite surprising.

Andy Bellavia 18:32
Exactly. So you like you went down to the to the bottom level of the the exhibit hall in the Venetian where Eureka Park is, right? Yeah, it’s maybe 10% of the size of CES. And, you know, I mean, EUHA could be in that room, right. And so, so this is really important, because it’s the consumer electronics industry moves into the whole of aging and health care and well being including hearing, there are resources being brought to bear that will dwarf anything done in the hearing space so far. And that’s not actually that’s actually to lift up the current state of, of the hearing aid world not to denigrate it because hearing aids are, as you say, the most amazing devices. There isn’t anything with that scale of audio processing and such a small uncomfortable size going on except a hearing aid industry. Okay. And that sort of thing will continue that innovation for people who truly need a prescription hearing device is only going to get better and better, including swallowing some of these things. I spend a lot of time talking to companies working on the machine learning based speech from noise extraction, which is different than ANC. All right ANC is to reduce the noise acoustically, if you will. Where’s the speech from noise extractions actually analyzing the sound coming in Am I able to extract the speech of a nearby person and reject everything else, it’s a complete game changer. And that will find itself both in to consumer devices. For people who only need situational help, and also find itself into hearing devices as the, the chip capability is able to support it, along with discrete size and long battery life. So the fusion of consumer electronics developments and hearing developments, they’re going to meet in the middle and you’re gonna see a suite of products. And I’ll just, I’ll just finish that by saying this is necessary. Because if you think of Brad Edwards report based on MarkeTrak 10. And I’ve mentioned this before, where he identifies about 25 million people who don’t even have audiometric hearing loss, but have auditory processing issues of another kind. Many of those can benefit from SNR improvement, but won’t be helped by selective amplification, because they don’t have audiometric hearing loss. That’s 25 million people, right? They will benefit from these. And of course, everybody would hearing loss wants more SNR improvement under their hearing devices. Like I can tell you unique apart, after three years, I had every little custom trick, I’m wearing Phonak Audeo Life’s now and I and I had tuned up the best possible speech and noise program for myself. And down in Eureka Park, it was a challenge, right? It’s very, very loud, and the noise is coming from all directions. So every hearing impaired person wants more movement than that, right? That’s, that’s going to be my test, what’s the best device to take down to Eureka park next year. So these these things are going to help people at no audiometric hearing loss, they can help people with severe and profound hearing loss and everything in between, and really bring a broader scope of products, those consumer and prescription that are going to meet more people’s needs where there are.

Dave Kemp 22:00
And I think that point about you know, kind of like the there being this upswell of innovation happening in the consumer level that will inevitably make its way to the more medical clinical grade devices. And I just think that like this is a point that I think is just so fundamentally important to understand about, like today’s times, which are, you know, you look at just the, you know, we’re talking about the scope of CES, you know, well, what about the scope of like, air pod sales versus hearing aids sales? It’s, it’s not even the same ballpark. I mean, you know, we’re talking about a handful of a few million hearing aids, and we’re talking about hundreds of millions of air pods. And that’s just one brand. And so, my point is, is that like, you know, we’ve talked about this a lot end of you know, the peace dividends of the smartphone wars, you know, the idea that as there’s more demand for the components inside these devices, largely from the consumer arena, it actually yields a dividend that like everybody gets to reap, which is that the innovation, there’s demand for the innovation to take place. And so you have like, you know, what’s happening right now to your point is, there’s all of this focus around speech and noise reduction, well, like what what are gonna be the innovative breakthroughs that facilitate that, it’s probably going to be new processors that have the ability to, you know, do some kind of machine learning or AI specific algorithm that’s running in low power. And again, like, all of these things are made feasible, because there’s now because of the consumer market, there’s a ton of demand for it, that we in the hearing health space get to benefit from, you know, that like, I don’t know if this innovation would really exist, because there isn’t nearly as big of a demand for it if you’re just operating in isolation there. And so I think, yeah, harmony between consumer electronics and medical, like the real bull case. And the advantage for the medical side is that you get the economies of scale that the consumer market brings.

Absolutely, and that’s why I brought up the scale of the consumer electronics industry. So imagine the first major audio brand who adds speech from noise extraction as part of their ANC system, okay? You’re not even talking about hearing loss. What you’re saying is my depth of AnC works well on the train, it works well on an aeroplane and works well in the street and works well in the restaurant. And they actually start to advertise that as a feature. Okay, now, you’ll get economies of scale. Now, you’re gonna get audio brands that sell millions, right developing along these lines, and that’s going to do exactly what you said it’s going to filter throughout the industry at all levels of hearing loss. Everybody benefits when the scale of the consumer electronics industry and the infrastructure around it comes properly to the hearing space.

Kevin Liebe 24:56
I couldn’t agree more. I think we need to applaud every major company that gets into the audio space because I mean, you look at look at this last few years, and just how much change has happened like in spatial audio and, you know, there’s been a lot of investment in kind of augmented reality, but some of that stuff is bleeding into, better, you know, better functionality. Like, there are things we’re learning and we’re going to be able to take advantage of because you’re having millions of dollars of investment in understanding how all this stuff plays out in the metaverse is actually going to help us in real life. You know, same thing with – Yeah, to your point, Andy, I mean, like, just just the massive number of things in people’s ears, and people are going to demand a higher quality and if you know, this company gets, you know, make some innovations in speech extraction – Absolutely, that’s going to help everybody. So we should all be super excited about that. So I mean, just having Apple, you know, be so successful with airpods, I mean, that’s that fundamentally changed everything, you know, just a company like that, like, overnight can change the industry. So I think we should, we should all be very happy that, you know, innovations are happening in the, maybe we don’t look at it as related, but in the audio space, that’s going to have bleed over to hearing health. So I think we should, yeah, we should all look forward to that.

Dave Kemp 26:13
So Andy, you know, you’re, you’re one of the more technical people I know, in terms of like, you know, what’s actually happening? from an innovation standpoint, what’s significant? What do we really need to be looking at? What What’s your sense right now, based on what you saw at CES, like, here in 2023? What are you sort of forecasting as like, kind of the next big breakthrough? Or next big break or I should say not the next, but just in general? Like, what do you think we’re on the cusp of right now, that is worth keeping an eye on this year,

Andy Bellavia 26:48
I think it’s the speech in -from noise extraction, because we’re getting to the point where we can actually run a neural network in-ear. And so then you can really have advanced noise extraction techniques in the ear. And that’s going to just take the level of SNR improvement, up to a whole new level, that’s definitely coming. It’s only a matter of when and who implements a first class solution. First, you may see some incremental benefits beforehand. But all of a sudden speech and noise is going to improve by greater leaps and bounds. Right now, people are fighting over a DB or 2 trying to extract every last with classical acoustic techniques. And now you’re gonna go to a whole new level. And that for both consumer devices, and then in prescription devices, is really going to be a game changer. in improving the hardest part of hearing loss at all levels.

Dave Kemp 27:44
What what’s changed? I mean, like what breakthroughs have happened recently that are really enabling this, is it primarily the chip architectures that are being deployed? Or what? What is it that we’re now that’s making this feasible?

Andy Bellavia 28:01
It’s both chips and software, even the mass market chips processing power is increasing to the point where people can start running solutions on them. And there are next generation chips being developed. Right, that take it up another notch. And it’s also the algorithms being able to create efficient algorithms that will run on a smaller space. I mean, you can see it so for example, meeting platforms like zoom, do noise extraction in the cloud, then you have people doing it, you know, in the, in the, what’s the name of the hearing aid company, Whisper who’s doing it in the ‘Brain’, right, they’ve got a low latency communication with the brain, and they’re running a noise extraction in the brain. And soon you’re going to have it in ear because of both the chip technology and the software development to run it in a smaller space.

Dave Kemp 28:50
Okay, so as we kind of come to the close here, closing thoughts about this year show, maybe Kevin, you want to share just sort of like the perspective of an audiologist and your takeaway from that standpoint?

Kevin Liebe 29:02
Yeah, I mean, just kind of wrapping up with bringing everything together here is that I think, you know, instead of being like, concerned, that hearing is getting more to the consumer side, we really should be embracing that. Because that’s just going to bring in more innovation. And I think, just like, if you’ve ever gone to a conference, you know, a lot of the great things happen, because you have a good conversation that spurs an idea. So if you have if you’re, you know, any one of the big five, and you happen to be at CES and then you might come across technology that all of a sudden sparks an idea of like, oh my gosh, like that could really help the people we serve. And so I just think that just recognizing that we’re part we’re just a tiny part of this broader, you know, innovative technologies sort of space. You know, within this all of this innovation happening, I think we should all be excited about everything on the horizon, so that’s number one. But number two, just recognizing that being a part of that’s important, because I think that’s just going to help, you know, the space innovate more to help more people. You know, as, as all these technologies are getting better, I think it’s just exciting. I think it’s just we should be just pretty excited about, you know, what the future holds, just based on the small amount that I saw and the conversations that I had. I think, you know, there’s there’s just so much, so much exciting stuff that’s going to be coming down down the pipe soon.

Dave Kemp 30:33
For sure. Andy, closing thoughts.

Andy Bellavia 30:35
Yeah, I’m going to I’m going to riff on Kevin’s opening description of CES for a first timer and leave everyone with a takeaway that if you haven’t been there before, and you’re considering going, decide what you want to focus on in advance, do your homework, book meetings into suites where necessary and have a focus plan because it’s really easy to just get lost and flounder around, you know, going old, looks terrific. And oh, that’s interesting. Whereas if you have a focus, then you’re going to learn the most about those things that matter the most to you. It’s the kind of show that demands that it’s like for anybody who’s gone to the Louvre try doing a loop and one day, okay. It’s totally impossible. You have to pick your shots. And I definitely recommend you do that with ces if you go for the first time.

Dave Kemp 31:22
Fantastic. Well, thanks so much, guys. It’s nice to get a first hand account of this year CES. I’m sure we’ll have to tune in again next year for a 2024 recap, but thanks for everybody who tuned in here to the end and we will chat with you next time. Cheers.