At EUHA 2025, Oticon introduced its newest in-the-ear hearing aid, Oticon Zeal, bringing the company’s second-generation AI sound processing and BrainHearing™ technology to a smaller, ready-to-fit form factor.
In a discussion at the conference, Anja Nagel L’Harraki, Senior Vice President of Global Marketing at Demant, and Ole Asboe Jørgensen, President, Hearing Instrument Group, described Zeal as offering the same audiological performance as Oticon Intent, but in a more compact design. The Zeal features always-on AI-based sound processing, binaural beamforming, and a refined feedback management system that maintains clarity and comfort even with a single-microphone setup. Asboe noted that by positioning the microphone deeper in the ear canal, the design takes advantage of natural pinna cues while minimizing internal reverberation, allowing performance comparable to dual-microphone models. The device can accommodate fittings for mild to moderate hearing loss, offering both same-day fittings with domes or custom earmolds for a more personalized fit. Connectivity was a key focus of the launch.
Zeal supports Google Fast Pair for Android devices, enabling quick pairing directly through native phone controls, and is fully compatible with Auracast™ broadcast audio through the Oticon Companion app. In addition to its compact size, Zeal includes rechargeable power, delivering up to 20 hours of use with four hours of streaming.
Initial rollout began in Denmark, the U.K., and Switzerland, with U.S. availability expected in early 2026.
Full Episode Transcript
Speaker 1: Hello, everyone, and welcome to this edition of This Week in Hearing, live from the Oticon booth at EUHA Thank you for joining me today. I’m really excited to talk about the new hearing aid model, the Zeal. Please introduce yourself and tell everyone what you do.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Thank you for having us. So my name is Anja Nagel L’Harraki, and I’m the senior vice president for our global marketing at Demant being responsible for, yeah, of course, all of the marketing and the Oticon brand as well.
Speaker 1: Thank you.
Speaker 3: Yes. And hello, my name is Ole Asboe, and I’ve been working within this industry the last 17 years. I’m heading let me say, global functions such as R&D, global marketing quality assurance commercial operations, kind of a chief operating officer role.
Speaker 1: And thank you both for spending some time with me. Now, the thing that attracted me to the Zeal is that it normally, in in-ear design, connectivity has been pretty rare. And for me, who lives his life online, having meetings all the time, listening to podcasts, taking phone calls, that was always a barrier, but you’ve now solved that problem. Tell me more. On what level of connectivity? How easy is it to pair with phones? Tell me about the connectivity part.
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I don’t know if you paid attention to it during the last two days here.
Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3: for Android users we’ve introduced what is called Fast Pair. I’m, I’m just mentioning it because it’s, it’s a feature that, that will be available on Android phones in the native controls. And for pre-, people… I, I used the example earlier today, my, my mother is 87. I will never be able to bring her to understand to use the app, but the native controls, I might have luck with. And it’s just putting the hearing aids just within 15 centimeters of the phone, and then a button appears on the front page of the screen, and boom, then you’re connected.
Speaker 1: So there’s really nothing to do except the hearing aids next to the phone and then the Fast Pair automatically appears?
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 1: That’s brilliant. That’s probably the fastest connectivity scheme I’ve ever seen.
Speaker 3: It is. It is. And I think it’s an example of where… what modern Bluetooth can take you towards. And it’s an example of things to come. There will be more but it requires a collaboration between tech companies. You know, the big tech companies need to also understand the needs of the hearing impaired people, and that’s where we come in and help them understand that, and we support them in developing these features.
Speaker 1: And you’ve been working on partnership basis with other tech companies on Auracast and so on, but now you’ve actually done it, correct? This device is now fully Auracast capable and you have an app so that iPhone users and Android users can access Auracast through that device? Excellent. And of course, the question I have to ask is, are you gonna backfill that into the Intent as well?
Speaker 2: It is in the Intent as well. So it’s available in the, the Intent family and it’s of course available for Oticon Zeal as well.
Speaker 1: Okay, excellent. So really, really, the news is that you’ve now made the app available and it’s working with all those platforms.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 2: upgraded.
Speaker 3: You know it will require if you already have Intent then you need a firmware update but that’s all it, it takes. From now on, it’s available.
Speaker 1: So get the firmware update on your
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: download the latest app, the Auracast tuners in the app.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Excellent.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Excellent. And then audiologically speaking what does this bring? I, I gathered that it’s similar to the Intent in functionality, but now you’ve squeezed it into an ITE design. Is that correct?
Speaker 2: Exactly. So it has the same capabilities as the… as the serious platform on the Oticon Intent. So it’s the, the same AI sound processing that you will experience also from the Oticon Zeal that you already know from the Intent family. So that’s really superior in the, the AI sound processing.
Speaker 1: Okay. So there’s actually really no difference in the audiological performance between the Intent and the Zeal, you’ve just managed to crush it down to this sort of size.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Exactly. So you can see we have been very excited to bring this out because this is really, you know, putting together all of the great things into one small device. And that’s, you know, why it’s so unique because we have actually been able to do that, to combine everything in one. ?
Speaker 4: This to
Speaker 1: That’s, that’s really impressive that you’re able to boil it down to that small size. Now, when you talk about one-day fitting, what exactly does that mean?
Speaker 2: It means you have the flexibility and you have the flexibility in your options. So you can fit it with a dome, which would be a same-day fit, but you can also customize it with an ear mold. So you have the flexible options of how to fit the device.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: Options.
Speaker 1: Okay. So that’s what you meant. I can get the Zeal as a fully custom
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 1: but if I want my Zeal right away, I can wear it with a dome. It’s… yeah, essentially, that’s, that’s the end of a RIC on the hearing aid. You can see it, so. But then you… then what you do do you take the… if I do custom, you over-mold the custom?
Speaker 2: You have it on the set on the hearing device at the end. So, so you have the ear mold put onto the device.
Speaker 1: Okay. So it’s a, it’s a micro-sized custom ear mold that will still fit on the end of the rigid one.
Speaker 2: Exactly. Exactly.
Speaker 1: Okay. And is there a difference… Since it’s a, since it’s a tiny mold, is there a difference in performance between the dome and the mold or why would I use a mold?
Speaker 2: I guess…
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, the mold will help you in certain situations to achieve a a good fit in the ear. Better comfort could be. Maybe there’s a personal preference. And and then in the end it’s also with a, with a product like Zeal that sits deep in the ear you also want to be able to have… Avoid occlusion. That means that you would like as… Open a fitting as possible. You can do that both with the dome and also with the mold. And then the feedback management systems actually allows us to provide quite a lot of gain relative to an open fitting which makes it a lot more comfortable. So that means that most mild or moderate hearing losses will be possible to fit with this with this hearing aid.
Speaker 1: And how high up in hearing loss? I mean, what kind of thresholds can you handle with this device?
Speaker 3: Well, we we still need to build some s experience here. In our tests, we see a a… We can provide a gain level up to between 80 and 86 dB. And I would say 86 is probably at the high end. 80 is sort of the average.
Speaker 1: That’s 86 dB threshold?
Speaker 3: Yes.
Speaker 1: Okay. And so it might be, might be a good idea just for everybody watching just to summarize the audiological features, especially the speech in noise features that are common between the Intent and the Zeal.
Speaker 3: Yeah. If I, I should go… I would say that for audiologists, when you look at the, the Intent and the Zeal, then they would say the notable difference is that the Intent has two microphones which for many is equal to better sound processing performance. Whereas the Seal has one microphone. The reason why well, it actually has the same performance is that the encapsulation production method makes it a very, very stable construction. So it’s much less reverberation… Internal reverberation in the instrument. And the microphone sits in a, a placement that’s unusual so we have a longer feedback path. And then we have a pretty unique feedback management system. So that combined and that it sits deep in the ear canal means that your natural pinna effect compensates for just having one mic.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Always an advantage for an in-ear design is to catch your pinna cues.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, yes.
Speaker 1: And are you doing binaural beam-forming or you relying on pinna cues for improved speech and noise?
Speaker 3: We do the binaural beam-forming as well.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 3: But as you know, Maybe you don’t know, but since 2016 when Oticon Opn was launched we, we left behind the idea of a central beam-forming. And we can pick up noises in all directions so we can actually create a beam form in real time in any direction. And Oticon Zeal is also capable of doing that.
Speaker 1: So this, the Zeal is capable of doing that as well. In other words, if I’m looking this way and you’re talking to the
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: right, it will focus on you while still rejecting noise here just like the Intent?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 1: Okay. So in that respect, even though it’s only one microphone per side, because you’re doing binaural, with your technique you’re able to deliver very similar noisy situation performance with the Zeal?
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: It’s pretty impressive for a small package. And now how is it rolling out? In which countries and where?
Speaker 2: So we had the great launch here yesterday at EUHA. So that was kind of our global announcement and, and launch. So we have started with launching in Denmark, in the UK, and in Switzerland. So we Those are the countries where we market the product at first. And then we will slowly market in, in other markets as well.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say every German at EUHA today wants to when they can access this.
Speaker 2: we have some in Germany as well.
Speaker 3: But, of course this is completely new, so we are building our experience step by step. And the better it goes, the faster it will expand. So but yeah, of course, we can’t be in a situation where we run out. So every market we open up, we need to be assured that we can actually fulfill demand. And right now, it seems that demand is, is pretty high.
Speaker 1: I am not surprised. And then, of course, I’m an American. I have to ask you when is the US launch?
Speaker 2: I think you can expect early ’26.
Speaker 1: Okay. Very good.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So thank you very much for spending some time with me. Is there anything else we should know before we close it off?
Speaker 2: Nothing. think maybe one point that we didn’t touch upon is really you could say the power in this small instrument, because even though it’s so small, we managed to get a 312 battery into that small size of, of hearing instrument. So it means that you have the same capacity for full day use within that small instrument as well. And that’s also a very important point,
Speaker 1: Which is actually a point I neglected to ask. Is it rechargeable or…
Speaker 2: It is rechargeable.
Speaker 1: It is rechargeable. Okay. And you can get how many hours in typical use?
Speaker 2: So we say, like, up to 20 hours with four hours of streaming.
Speaker 1: Okay. That’ll do it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I rarely wear my hearing aids for 20 hours in a day.
Speaker 2: Exactly.
Speaker 1: Although with these you could probably fall asleep in them.
Speaker 2: Yeah,
Speaker 3: Maybe there’s the The once One party once in a while that you might go once in that too.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So thank you very much.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Andrew.
Speaker 1: And thanks to all of you for watching or listening to this edition of This Week in Hearing.
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About
Anja Nagel L’Harraki is the Senior Vice President, Global Marketing, Hearing Aids Wholesale, Demant.
Ole Asboe Jørgensen is the President, Hearing Instrument Group, Demant.
Andrew Bellavia is the Founder of AuraFuturity. He has experience in international sales, marketing, product management, and general management. Audio has been both of abiding interest and a market he served professionally in these roles. Andrew has been deeply embedded in the hearables space since the beginning and is recognized as a thought leader in the convergence of hearables and hearing health. He has been a strong advocate for hearing care innovation and accessibility, work made more personal when he faced his own hearing loss and sought treatment All these skills and experiences are brought to bear at AuraFuturity, providing go-to-market, branding, and content services to the dynamic and growing hearables and hearing health spaces.
