Signia Pure Charge&Go BCT IX: Taking a Closer Look

Hello, everyone, and welcome to This Week in Hearing. When I first heard the news, I was a little bit surprised that a second hearing aid manufacturer, Signia, decided to go with Bluetooth Classic in their new variation of the IX platform. I was curious to understand why they chose that path. So, with thanks to Signia for inviting me, I flew out to the TWA Hotel at JFK Airport to attend the BCT IX launch event. Let’s go learn what it’s all about and what else is new with the BCT. I have with me Mike O’Neill. He’s the US President wholesale for WS audiology, and Lisa Perhaps, she’s the senior Manager of Clinical development. Thank you for joining me today and congratulations on the launch. Thank you. We’re excited about it. So it’s interesting because if I understand it correctly, this is the Signia IX with additional functionality. Correct. So let’s talk a little bit about the audiological performance first. And I’ll add that I had done an interview with Brian Taylor for the IX original launch, so we don’t have to go all the way there. But why don’t you share what the key features of the IX are and anything that’s been done differently in this version? Okay. I would say the key feature of the IX platform is split processing technology, where it has three form beams that are able to track speakers so that we can help our, our patients hear better in speech and loud noises. And then it’s got one background beam where it really helps split the focus between speech and background noise without having to make compromises of either. And that’s one of the main benefits of IX technology? Oh, absolutely. It’s built upon that split processing. And by having those focus beams, as Mike said, it’s you’re able to seamlessly follow the conversation with multiple talkers in noisy situations without having to turn and look at who’s talking. And that makes listening so much easier for, for the patient that they can just participate and be part of the conversation. Okay, so then really we should look at this BCT model as an extension to the existing IX. Or did you do anything different otherwise in the whole process? In other words, fitting and training and all the different things that go into fitting somebody with a hearing aid. Do you think of this as an IX with additional features, or have you done anything else? Definitely, IX is the technology behind it, and we’re super proud of IX, and we feel like it still helps patients hear better speech and noises than any other technology that exists today. For hearing aid wearers. I wouldn’t say it’s just an extension of IX. I think that would minimize some of the innovation and thoughtfulness that’s gone into the creation of this product. So from an audiological standpoint, we still have the IX platform, but then there’s been a lot of thoughtfulness that went into the design of the product of the new BCT. I mean, if I just to say some of the few things that are really interesting, I think about uniquely on the BCT is one, we’ve got this new LED light, which is interesting. We’ve also got this new tactile button that can help for dexterity, those things. And then one thing that providers are really going to like is, and patients alike is the ability to be able to see the serial number that has a nice little glass window to give visibility into that for when that needs to be seen. So there’s some of those things in addition to the IX platform. And of course, connectivity is the big kind of breakthrough that we’ve been able to add to it. So just in terms of an extension IX, it’s that it’s built on that audiological platform, but definitely is a little bit more than an extension. Well, and it’s interesting in the main presentation, the amount of cheering you got over the led, like, things you don’t think of. Right. And yet apparently patients, you know, and audiologists who are serving them, you know, react very positively to be able to look at the LED and see whether it’s on or off charging, whatever. Right. And one thing that was not surprising about the cheer for the LED light is, I think one of the beautiful things of Signia is we really are so intentional about listening to patients and providers and designing products that they actually want to wear and want to use. So when we came out and had the ability to innovate with all these things added into it and the LED light, something that we have heard about, we were pretty certain that we would actually get some tears. Absolutely. We knew, we knew that it was going to be a big wow. And the whole thing with the IX platform is it has been groundbreaking on what it can do with sound quality and it is an industry leader. So we knew that we wanted to bring this wonderful advancement, these great additions to the IX line. We didn’t want to compromise what the chip could do and we didn’t want to reduce the audibility to add Bluetooth Classic. So we actually redesigned the IX chip and it’s a whole new chip. So that way we can maintain the great sound quality and still have these amazing advancements. Well, then you mentioned getting customer patient feedback and clearly that led you to decide to go with Bluetooth Classic. So let’s explore that a little bit. Right. Tell me the rationale because we’re at an interesting time with LE coming, but one major phone platform doesn’t support LE Audio. That would be Apple. So tell me how you were thinking about connectivity. Why did you decide to go Bluetooth Classic? Besides, I get why you didn’t do it versus LE, but why did you feel Bluetooth Classic was better than ASHA and MFi, for example? Lead me through the process that led to that decision. I think there’s probably two data points and I’ll let Lisa jump on if more, but one is that Bluetooth classic connects to 99% of Bluetooth devices. So it’s a highly relevant technology and platform and a very reliable Bluetooth connection platform. And so with that in mind, the other kind of insight that we took is that on an annual basis, we receive almost 7,000 calls from wearers of hearing aids with our LE audio ready type connections asking for assistance. And that doesn’t count all the additional, you know, conversations that are having within practices. So connectivity is still a challenge in many, for many users. And with Bluetooth Classic, we believe it’s the most reliable, most stable connection that we can offer to somebody for now and for the next foreseeable future. We know some of those other technologies that you mentioned they will become more and more relevant as more devices begin to become more capable for them. But that’s not today. So today we’re launching a new device that’s able to connect reliably, simply to 99% of devices without making compromises in audiological platform, battery life, size. And that is the innovation. That’s the innovation that we’re able to do this without compromising our core values of audiology first and consumer centric designs and designing products that patients want to wear. Absolutely. I mean, I back up 100%. The patient’s want ‘easy’. I know, I know. The patients want easy. And if we’re getting that many phone calls into the connectivity line, clearly there’s a disconnect. We as providers, we in the industry, we know how to connect to Bluetooth. The end user, the patient, the one wearing the hearing aids may not be as savvy and they’re struggling. So we wanted to make sure that we had connectivity to all and that we weren’t limited by what phone do you have or how, how well are with your phone, you go to the Bluetooth menu, you connect. Easy, simple, done. It’s not a million different steps. It was trying to give the best hearing possible, the most accessibility. And that’s why we went with Bluetooth Classic, because that way there was no compromise, there was no choice. You didn’t have to look and see what the patient had, what they were comfortable with. They didn’t have to worry as a provider and choose technology based on the phone. Okay, so you’re solving a problem today by going with Bluetooth Classic. That’s the rationale. But then you have the existing IX, which is also capable of doing LE Audio along with ASHA and MFi. Correct? Yeah. And that’s a little bit of what we’ve tried to do with our portfolio. We’ve tried to design products that really gives providers and wearers the best of all worlds. So we still have the LE Audio ready Pure Charge&Go IX and our entire IX, you know, I guess, portfolio of products. And then today we are launching, you know, BCT with Bluetooth Classic and just the pure charge and go. But yeah, so still we, we, we believe that in today this will provide people with the reliability of connectivity without compromise. And that’s our BCT launch. But we still remain and we’ll have available our LE Audio ready IX platform. And how do you see that roadmap, that timeline rolling out? Like, what’s, what’s your vision for LE Audio and Auracast? How do you see that playing over time? It’s coming. It’s absolutely coming over time, and we’ll be ready for it. But we wanted to solve the problem now and fit the solution now. Right now it’s for assisted listing systems, it’s the telecoil, and it’s the induction loop system. And we wanted our, our patients, our customers to have that accessibility right now, when the market or when, when the technology changes and Auracast is more implemented as the standard, we will absolutely be there. Okay, so you answered a question I was going to ask. And that is all forms of IX have a telecoil in them. Almost. Yes. There are many. It depends on the form factor that you want. But we have an IX with a telecoil in different RIC devices to support different Bluetooth. That’s what I meant. Right. Both the existing IX and this one, the BCT has a t-coil in it. Correct? Right. I understand some of the form factors will not because of the form factor, but you have a telecoil option in both versions of connectivity. Absolutely. Because we’re looking at connectivity for all. We don’t want to say, oh, you have this, you have to go with this. Oh, you have that, you have to go with this. We want to say this is our platform. We have something that suits everyone’s needs. And how about accessories then? Will this device support your current line of accessories? TV connectors, remote mics, or so on. Or how does that work with this version? Well, we’ll have a new TV connector for this version. It will be out soon. It’s backwards compatible, so it’ll work with the previous technologies as well. We are implementing new accessories and of course it works with the app and you have our deep live neural network with the Signia app and Signia. And it all boils down to that. We didn’t have to change what we offered in technology. We’re very reliant on the NMFi. Near field magnetic induction. It is how we’ve connected the ears for years. And we’re on our fourth generation of NFMi. That is what enables us to have that clear sound quality with the streaming. Because Bluetooth Classic, there’s always a dominant ear, it’s sent over to the other ear. And there is a lag in other products that are out there that may not be as synchronized to give you the clearest sound quality. By using the NFMI, we are able to have, I believe it’s a 4 millisecond delay between the ears, which is imperceivable. So that way both ears stay synchronous and that really makes a difference with sound quality. We wanted to make sure that we weren’t compromising what we can do with NFMI NFMI lets us do that that’s beam forming that we talked about with the real time Conversation has been tracking the multiple speakers. It lets us have long battery life, it lets us be able to do the CROS. We wanted to have all of those capabilities. Yeah. So that’s, that’s worth exploring a little bit and probably worth explaining for people who don’t quite understand that you have the near field magnetic system going between the ears and its primary use is for the beamforming microphones. Because if you only have these two microphones, beamforming and these two doing it separately, it’s hard to get good directionality correct. But if you have the two ears talking to each other, you can get much better directionality and much better steering when you have the microphones farther apart. So that’s your primary use. You’re exactly right. And that’s what makes IX so interesting and so remarkable, is that when you’re talking to people, not all environments are like this. It’s not quiet, they’re not stacked, they’re not just sitting. Like people move closer, they move further. And then you want to not lose your background, your depth. And with that speed where it’s analyzing the environment 190- 192,000 times per second, it is. It’s able… It doesn’t require even movement to be able to almost see people, to be able to hear and be focused in the right areas. And that’s really what has made the IX such a popular platform and be able. And then again, the split processing. So you’re processing that fast and you’re able to split it, so you’re able to not lose your depth and still have focus and hear clearly what you’re intending to hear. And this was something I don’t remember Discussing with Brian. But you can also adjust the beam width, correct? Well, you could. You could do that manually within the app. Absolutely. You can go from 180 to narrower. It does it all automatically. Yeah. So in your universal. The way that we have designed the technology is that it works all on its own. So you can have one program, you have a universal program that does it all, that you don’t have to switch when you’re in multiple environments. You don’t have to look at the person talking. You could just sit back, relax, and enjoy the conversation. So if you wanted to have a manual override, you certainly can in the app. And that’s a wonderful feature that you could change the width of the beam. You could do just a front focus, just a side, just the back and really have. Have fun and play around. Or you can just let it be all automatic and it will do the same thing. Well, and… And I’ll tell you, fun in playing around. When I did the headphone demo at EUHA last year, and so I was having. I was having some fun with it. This, with. I think you have it here too. Right? You have the mannequin, and you can spin the mannequin. Right. And so I’m wearing the headphones, and there’s a couple of Signia people there, and I was making them move around, and you had the TV screen. You know, you could see the beams. But then it was a corner booth, and two people came and talked on the other side of the rail, and one of them was loud, and the third beam shot out. Right. Well, this is where I would want to then narrow it to kick that loud person out of the beam. And I can do that through the app. Absolutely, you can. Absolutely. And thank you for trying our technology. That’s great. You had that experience. Yeah, that’s a fun demo that we’re able to do. And we do that almost at every event or show that we attend because we want people to experience the technology because it is so unique and so different that you can tell and advantageous in that respect. And it’s the first time you could ever actually see what the hearing aid is doing as well as hear it. It’s actually a very nice demo to watch the beams move around. That was, you know, that’s the thing. But then you’re also using the near field magnetic for Bluetooth to go ear to ear. Correct. So that you’re We have both built into our hearing aids with the Bluetooth for the stream. The near field magnetic induction to keep the ears in sync. We wanted to make sure we kept all of the advancements that we have with our near field magnetic induction and we developed this brand new audio codecs so that way we can still keep the benefits of the ear to ear and still have our Bluetooth Classic. Okay, so you’re going to say that perfect synchronization. I’m not going to have the sound wavering between one side or the other. This sort of thing, this is what. You have ya the near-field yeah solves that so you don’t have it bouncing between the ears. You have that balance that, that, that stereo sound that, that you want and we expect with, with any type of streaming device. So because the patient does not, they won’t tolerate compromise with their hearing aids when they know that there are other earbuds that are out there that have great sound quality. So we didn’t want them to have a disappointment in the streaming. With our IX capability, the Bluetooth Classic, the BCT IX, you have that great streaming, clear stereo sound and still have the Bluetooth capabilities. Okay, and how is the handoff between devices then? So I’ve got, I’m on my computer, I’m streaming from the computer, I have my phone. How is the handoff between different devices work? With this one, it’s a one to one device, but it is a one touch to go to a next device. So it is a one touch connection. So super simple that way and then reliable. Right. So you’re paired, you could be paired to many devices, but you’re connected to one at a time. And do I use the app then to switch between them or how do I. Well, you just choose the Bluetooth on which device you want to connect to at that time on your Bluetooth menu for if it’s your iPad or your phone or whatever that you need. So if I’m say on my computer, say I’m editing this video on my computer in, a phone call comes in, how do I handle the handoff? You would then unpair from the computer and pair it to the phone. Okay. Yes, yes. Okay. Got it. Yep. That way it saves battery life if you’re paired to multiple devices all at the same time. That’s one of the big battery draws. And that’s why we see with Bluetooth Classic people weren’t able to get a full day’s worth. With our capability we have 54 hours on a single charge and then with streaming that’s 36 hours which would include 5 hours of streaming, which is unheard of. This is groundbreaking in Bluetooth classic. So we’re so excited that we can offer you this long battery life. So most people will stream maybe about three hours a day. So with five hours they’re getting the time they wake up to the time they go to bed. And if they want to stream even more, so they’re still going to get it. So we’re excited to offer that. Yeah, that’s me. I’m a five hour person easy because I can have days where I’m four or five hours online and then I’m washing the dishes at night streaming a podcast. So I would put. I think I would be the same too. We want you to do that. And then this is kind of cool. Is on our portable charger. It also includes three additional charges inside of it. So you can be disconnected for quite a bit of time. And we think we’re pretty proud of our battery consumption or lack thereof or the efficiency of it. And so that’s been something that was a really big breakthrough. And then to keep it really small, you know, it’s still a really small. Yeah, it’s the same size. It’s actually the same size as the Pure Charge&Go T IX. So we didn’t make the size any bigger. We have longer battery life. We added a great push button design, the viewing window for the serial number, the LED light and it. And was still able to keep the contact. The small compact size. It just. We’re excited. We think it’s, we think it’s a great answer. Your passion for this is infectious. Well, it’s just so fun. I mean it’s just funny that you mentioned just the applause that we got when we revealed the product about the light. And I reflect on that. It just is like people just want stuff that works. They don’t want like the complications or they want something that works and is reliable. And that’s why we feel like we’ve created almost the perfect hearing aid. Well, and you have another really interesting thing too, and that’s the AI assistant. Like take me through how I would use the AI assistant or the expert on that. That’s. I love that it’s part of the Signia app and it’s a great advantage for the end user that they can make adjustments to their hearing aids in real time. So they may be out in a situation that maybe may not be as pleasant for them as their hearing aids are set currently and maybe they would want to change rather than have to wait to go in to the hearing provider and have them change it and have to be able to verbalize what needs to be changed. They could take out their Signia app and through very easy prompts, it gives them the verbiage so they don’t have to type in exactly what’s wrong. They’re able to pick what they want adjusted and Signia app will walk them through and they make changes in real time in which the patient then decides if they want to keep those changes or go back to where it was before. In making these changes, the Signia assistant is using a live deep neural network, which is a way that learns as more people across the world use Signia Assistant, it learns better and better solutions. All right, so hang on a second, I have to interrupt you, all right, because. All right, so you’re actually. What you’re saying is I’m training the deep neural network on the fly when I use the AI assistant? Correct. But then are you also collecting that data so that you’re now crowdsourcing. What people are doing, how it’s collected? It’s all anonymized as so it’s all in zeros and ones. It’s not patient’s name, it’s not their hearing, but you are crowdsourcing. People’s experience are keeping just in zeros and ones. This is the problem. This is what they adjusted, this is what they liked. So that way Signia Assistant gets smarter and smarter and smarter. It’s not a pre programmed solution that this happens, it does this, this happens, it always does this. It’s going to learn and learn the better solution for each problem that a person encounters. So that way the solution gets smarter and smarter over time and it’s more pleasing to the end user that they get the solution immediately. And what’s beautiful about it is that the hearing care provider can see exactly what the changes are. So they can go into the connect software when they read out the hearing aid, they see signing assistant was used, they can see the date that the patient made the changes, what the problem was, what was adjusted, and then they can then choose if they want to keep that in the program or revert back to what they had prior. Okay, so it’s not a black box at all, but it’s a great way that the end user can make these adjustments. We actually started with our Signia assistant during COVID when, when people couldn’t get into the office. And that was a huge help actually. Is that you’re, you’re more or less helping to automate that process. Right. Because I can take, you know, a lot of the modern hearing aids, and I can get into the app and I can twirl all the settings. Correct. Like, you have an AI assisted process. So a person who has not been in audio their entire career and who is not afraid to twirl the bass into treble and all the rest, you’re giving that person who isn’t really familiar with all these things and will now go tooling around the app. You’ll ask them some questions and give them some choices and get them to that better place. And it’s really speaking human to them. Right. It’s like I’m having a hard time listening or hearing in this restaurant and then I’ll ask another question. So it’s just a more natural way to arrive at a better environment for. That wearer at the moment, using normal verbiage. Like you said, is it too loud? Is it too boomy? And the patient just has to pick because that equalizer that you described can be very intimidating for some that’s not a sound engineer. And many people want their hearing aids to work so they’re afraid to make adjustments. I have had patients that were afraid to use the volume control because they didn’t want to make any changes. So with Signia Assistant, they can make these changes, but there’s an easy way that they can revert back because we have it built into the app as well. So if they feel like, oh, I’m not sure, not sure if I’m in the right place, they can go and revert back to their hearing care professional settings and have that safety net that they can make adjustments and they didn’t ruin their hearing aids. Okay. But, yeah, ultimately you want them to get to a better place, but if they feel like maybe not so much correct. I can go back and so I don’t get lost in there somewhere. They can use it in a situation that the hearing aids are not really programmed for. Let’s say they go to the bowling alley and they never go bowling. But now this is a very loud, boomy environment. They’re there with the grandkids. They want to hear, but they can’t at all because their hearing aids are. Weren’t set up for an environment like this. So they might want to make a ton of changes and adjust, adjust, adjust, so they could hear in that bowling alley. When they leave the bowling alley, they just have to go up to settings and revert back to their hearing care professional settings. So that way they have that safety net. They can make the changes for these extreme environments. The 50th, you know, college reunion, the, the, the wedding, whatever it may be. And can you save that setting? So if I go back to the bowling alley a couple of weeks from now, I can go back there? It actually, no, it’s, it’s all part of the universal program. So if you take it off, it takes it off. Because most people aren’t going to take it off. Most people are going to make adjustments for where they want to hear. But in these extreme environments, they have that ability that they can’t. Okay, yeah, yeah. All right. No, thanks for explaining that. That’s an interesting way to go about it. In other words for people to have a safe way to optimize because, and you can look at the audiogram, but everybody’s actual hearing and understanding ability is different. So you give people that latitude. Anything else that we should know about the BCT IX? Yeah, I mean I think when you think about all the benefits that we’re talking about, we, you know, you look at them as their benefits for the user. You know, you talk about the Signia assistant, you talk about connectivity, you talk about battery life, you talk about the small size, you talk about the thoughtfulness and the tapering of the hearing aid so it can fit better with, and the way the receiver comes out so it can fit better with glasses. There’s just a lot of thoughtfulness in this hearing aid. And you think about it and you’re saying, you know, the portable charger, that these are such good things for the wearer, but it’s also really great things for the provider. These are things that providers give the opportunity to help patients with each and every day, but they also are busy seeing other, you know, if they could have a hearing aid that works like this, might free up some time on their day too, to be a little bit more efficient, a little bit happier with patient outcomes. Absolutely. Because the whole point is to give the provider more time and to have the time to spend with that one on one with their patients. And if they’re constantly seeing the same people over and over again for battery life issues or fit issues or trying to manipulate it draws back away from the hearing care provider. So with Signia BCT IX, we feel like we solved a lot of those issues and made it easy, had the easy light to tell when it’s on the easy serial number to see the great fit, the optimized shape as Mike said for glasses or oxygen or whatever the end user might be wearing and having that long battery life and knowing it’s going to to keep up with them regardless of what they’re streaming from and any device, whether it be their TV, their tablet, their phone with Bluetooth, classic. It connects to everything. Well, great. I really appreciate you guys spending some time with me. Congratulations again on the launch. Appreciate being a part of it. And thanks to everyone for watching this episode of This Week in Hearing. Thank you. Thank you very much.