Exploring Widex Allure Hearing Aids: W1 Chip, Cloud Fitting, and Advanced Sound Control

Welcome to this Week in Hearing. I’m Shari Eberts, co author of Hear & Beyond lives skillfully with hearing loss. Today’s guests are from Widex, one of the world’s leading brands for hearing aids and part of WS Audiology. Dana Helmink is a doctor of audiology and the Senior Director of Clinical development at Widex USA. She has worked in clinical practice, product development, as well as in education and training. And Soren Nielsen is the president of WSA Wholesale US Leading the commercial functions which include marketing, business development, sales operations, clinical development and service excellence. So thank you both for being here today to discuss your latest product launch, the Widex Allure. Thank you for having us. My pleasure. So what is special about the Widex Allure? I can start here. I’d almost say what is not special about the Widex Allure? And I’m saying that tongue in cheek. But the reality is Widex for some time have talked about the Widex difference. And we are at Widex, very proud of doing things differently when we do it, when we basically are able to make a bigger difference to patients and the HCPs in terms of the core sound performance of our hearing aids. We are known to have a different processing technology than any other hearing aid that you can buy today. And that is also the starting point for Widex Allure. We have made significant improvements and upgrades in the hearing aid itself that allows patients people with a hearing loss to hear better and experience and benefit from the Widex natural sound without compromising other parts of it. And maybe Dana, you can give a few more details and specifically what that means. Sure, yeah, I think to expand on that a little. I think of it as innovation to change the experience that wearers have in noise, to change their speech and noise experience. And you know, when we talk about that, I really think a lot about how you think about hearing in noise. Right. And of course it’s looking for speech clarity while also still being connected to your environment that you’re in. Feeling, you know, immersed in it but not overwhelmed by it is sort of the goal that I think most individuals with hearing loss have when they think of hearing technology and what it can do for them. And so when I look at the technology that we bring forward with Allure, it is really that focus on improving the speech and noise experience for wearers. And we do that with something called precision hearing technology. So with an all new chip, an all new W1 chip. We use this added power, this computational power and memory of that chip to create new technologies and to bring new technologies forward that improve that hearing and noise experience. There’s many of them. So you know, I don’t know how long your podcast is so there’s many of them but I think there are you know, some things to highlight. You know a key element of what we are bringing forward is something we call our Speech Enhancer Pro. And as the name implies, the design of this feature, the intent of this feature is to enhance speech when you’re in a noisy environment and to do so in a way that noise is softened to, at or below the threshold of the wearer and speech is boosted. And the strategy that what Speech Enhancer Pro brings to this technology is a new input analysis that is super fine grained. So we’re analyzing that incoming signal in 52 discrete bands for a really accurate separation of speech and noise identification and analysis of that incoming signal. So we begin to separate speech and noise signals from each other and then we’re able to go on and do a complete optimization, a full optimization for speech intelligibility. And we do this on a speech intelligibility index based calculation. And so then we optimize in that situation for the wearer for their hearing loss and for the environment that they’re in. And the end result of that is an experience where noise annoyance is reduced, where preference of the wearer for being in that noisy environment is improved and where they experience what I would describe as clarity awareness and naturalness in their environment which really makes for, and all of that is done in real time automatically within the hearing aid. So you know, and I think it’s one of many things that are part of Allure, but maybe one of the most important things, knowing that it is that speech and noise experience that drives most individuals to seek solutions for their hearing challenges. Right, Absolutely. And can you talk a little bit more about what you mean by the natural hearing experience? Yes, for sure, I’d love to. You know, I think when we look across technology in the industry, you certainly see a trend towards more and more sort of aggressive noise reduction and noise management strategies. And while these can be effective in you know improving the signal to noise ratio I think there’s more to an experience in noisy environments. Right. So it’s that, that ideal balance between the clarity of speech and the ability to understand what you’re hearing while still being connected to the environment. If you’re in a restaurant, then you want it to sound like a restaurant. You just don’t want to. Right? Yeah. Like you should hear some of that. I, you know, as a normal hearing individual, I hear the restaurant, you know, I hear that there’s some mariachis over the corner, right. Serenading another table with their amazing you know, expertise musical skills. Right. I want to be aware of the environment. But then at my, with my group, with the people I’m engaging with, I want to catch all the words and I want to hear their, the, the punchline of their joke. I, I want to get the point of the story. And I think where Widex stands alone and has always dared to be different and with Allure brings that to the next level is our relentless sort of drive to find the balance. Right. You can be very aggressive with noise management, but you will give something up if you are too aggressive. And so we strive for this balance. And with Speech Enhancer Pro, I think we’ve hit it. It’s likely the most innovative thing that we have done as a company. And the experience what we hear from wearers who are listening to Allure is exactly what I’m probably not describing in the words that I would like to, but that they tell us is just clarity, that they’re hearing better than they have ever heard. And I think that word clarity is a really powerful one. Right. Nobody purchases a hearing aid based on decibels or dB this or that they really purchase on their experience and that clarity and naturalness of the sound in every situation. Right. No, thank you for explaining that. And I think noise is so subjective as well. And so that’s part of, I think what’s interesting about discussing about noise reduction and I think a lot of companies have turned to AI and machine learning to sort of tackle that really difficult listening challenge of the speech understanding in noise. Is, is Widex Allure using any of this type of technology as well? We don’t do a DNN or AI noise reduction strategy directly. We similar to some of those systems. We do have a system where of noise classification and identification of environment where we that has been pre trained through AI type of strategies to you know, to, to, to make sure that we could identify the environment that the individual is in. With Allure, we’ve improved that system for more accurate Identification of the environment and better use of the controllers that adjust the parameters. And then we rely on that speech Enhancer Pro that I just explained to you to kind of do the magic of delivering that balanced speech and noise experience. What we find is important to us is that our system is effective in producing speech clarity and reducing noise annoyance and that it retains that naturalness and also that is automatically active all the time in every environment that a wearer is in, not just extreme environments and that it doesn’t require a manual activation on the part of the wearer. Those are important things to us that we don’t feel the technology of DNN and AI today achieves yet. So and then we also feel that it’s extremely important to address both moderate and high noise environments, not just you know high noise environments. So kind of that hearing aid that you really put in your ears in the morning, wear all day, forget you’re wearing. And then ultimately we have to preserve sound quality throughout that. And again sometimes some of these you know, more aggressive technologies can be a little challenging for us from a sound quality standpoint and not align with the Widex philosophy. Anything to add on that Soren? Yeah, so I may add that AI plays a key role for us. In fact Widex was the first to launch an AI based solution. It was a machine learning algorithm in the Evoke hearing aid. And it’s now seven years ago, we have seven years of longitudinal data from users basically optimizing the sound in their hearing aids in a situation and providing critical information. So this is what we are using today when we are programming and updating our hearing aids and the fitting software. But there is a bit of a tendency of putting sort of equaling AI and DNN and DNN processing in a hearing aid. And actually AI I think has much more important applications as things are now. So we also with Widex Allure is offering actually an updated AI based machine learning algorithm that helps users improve the sound and sound experience and actually save it as programs and continue to use it in a given situation. Okay, no, thank you for that, for explaining that in a little more detail. I appreciate that. Sure. So you touched on it a little bit, but what’s the response been so far in the development testing? I think Dana spoke to some of the almost unexpectedly strong positive reactions to the sound. Maybe, maybe I should start out by saying that because Allure is a completely reimagined hearing solution, it’s very rare. I’ve been in the hearing industry for nine years, and I can’t give any other examples where anybody has actually totally redesigned the chip and the chip setup and the entire fitting software solution. Widex has done both with Widex Allure and that is what generates as big a step in clarity and clarity of sound as what we just talked about before. And a lot of our testing has actually been around in a way, system maturity testing, understanding that it technically works and does what we expected it to do. But even without us asking, we’ve had very strong customer or patient reactions to the sound in Widex Allure. And I can say that there were test subjects who were trying it out, who were very, very sad to be handing them back the test devices. So thank. We’ve experienced in any hearing aid testing before. So for us this is really, really exciting to get out. We’ve tested it much more extensively. We’ve actually had more than 200 users and that’s an unusually high number for any hearing aid manufacturer. Test this real life and we can’t wait to get it out to a much broader group of patients and hopefully have the same type of reactions there. Excellent. All right, great. Well along with the devices Widex is also rolling out a new clinical platform. Right. Which includes a cloud based fitting solution. So can you tell me a little bit more about that? Yes, if I maybe add a couple of things around going into the cloud. But I think Dana if you will first talk about the fitting improvements and functionality that we’re providing with the solution. Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s an all new fitting software platform for us and we’ve really designed with the intent of delivering successful outcomes with a intuitive user interface and a really clear process for how the fitting is executed. What this does along with improvements within our something we call our true acoustics algorithm that’s an acoustic measurement we do with the hearing aid on the ear during the fitting that helps to assign to prescribe appropriate gain and settings for that individual and their ear canal and how that device fits in the ear. So with improvements there and improvements in our fitting rationale and the general power of this centralized computing cloud based software we find ourselves at a point where we can have really successful first fits, very minimal follow up fitting adjustments requested or needed and a super intuitive user interface so that hearing care professionals can spend a bit more time with the patient and a little less time in the software. Right. Which is really I think where they want to spend their time and what patients will appreciate as well. And so we see just successful outcomes of those first fits. And I think as a aware of hearing aids that you want to have those hearing aids turned on for the first time and it sounds good and you feel that you have made the right choice. And so that is certainly what we have seen in those fittings that Sarin was speaking about. That have been conducted up To this point I can add. So the choice of basically moving fitting into the cloud is a choice that we made many years ago. It’s a very, very extensive development effort that’s required to doing so. But it was also an obvious choice Widex has led the way many times before when it comes to hearing technology. All the way back to the digitally programmable hearing aids, the first all digital ITE hearing aids to much more. Recently I mentioned with, with the use of machine learning and, and zero delay sound processing. So Widex has a lot of industry first innovations and, and we are also the first to market with a, a cloud based solution. I’m sure that others would be thinking and wanting to go in this direction but it’s not a very easy thing to do. The benefits of it is when you centralize the processing you can actually provide more power and intelligence. You can do it in a way that is always up to date. So an HCP does never have to actually download any new software. It is automatic. When they log on they get the newest software that has the newest firmware and therefore making sure that the hearing aids are always up to date when they fit a patient. And it actually allows us to increase the security because all of a sudden there is one place where we basically centrally has to protect everything rather than on every single machine. We are not storing the data, I can say of the hearing patient in the system that is in the nor cloud. So for us it’s more on our database. So for us it is really about protecting it at the time when an HCP is working with the patient. And there we have the highest level of security cybersecurity measures in place that we’re using a very recognized cloud based platform from Microsoft. So you could say there’s a big effort that goes into developing it, but once you have it it creates much more flexibility and some very intuitive benefits to the HCPs. Well it’s good to hear that you’ve done a lot of thinking about some of the risks you know, in terms of patient confidential confidentiality and it sounds like you have thought that through. So I’m sure that any consumers listening to that will feel much better about hearing that. Yes, we are meeting not just all regulatory requirements around this, but we’ve gone even further in many of the security measures that we’ve been taking and are very confident in, in the protection of privacy and data with this solution. So yeah, a lot has got into that. But it is really critical. We know that it is for us as a company, it is for our customers as well. Absolutely. So we talked a little about AI and machine learning as being sort of some of these latest Advancements in hearing aid technology. But what else should consumers be thinking about when they’re choosing the right hearing device for them? I have some passion around part of what the Allure launch is an all new user app that goes along with their hearing aid. Widex has been known for many years as having one of the best, I don’t even think one of the best, the best consumer app for hearing aid use, extremely powerful giving that machine learning, AI driven customization in an easy to use. It’s often been the reason that Widex will be recommended by hcps to their patients. And with Allure we’ve completely redesigned that app. I get excited about the fact that we did an extensive usability testing where you look at, you watch users use your product and you discover where they might be getting confused or lost or underutilizing features and then you fix it right and you improve it and you make it better. And so with this app I think with the Allure app we have redesigned it in a way to make it easier for all wearers to learn how to use it, to engage with the features of it, to really maximize their outcomes. So we have two new AI assistants within this app. One is the AI Quick Assistant that really allows for that person who’s in a situation thinking I’m not doing as well here as I wish I was. I want to do something really quick to help in this somewhat extreme unusual situation but I don’t want to play with my phone for a while trying to find an answer. And so a very quick solution and then a new generation of our AI driven customization where the individual does comparisons a B comparisons to find their perfect sound for the situation they’re in. But that completely that user interface completely revolutionized to make it easier to engage with. And so what I think of and then other features around vision so if you’re like me a certain age, you are increasing the font on your phone and you like when those settings carry over into all of your apps so that you can see what you’re looking at. So you know little things that have a big difference on the user. Looking at that access ability looking at making it easier to interact. And I’m calling it saying that if this app, if you are interested in using an app, this is an app you can use. There is no barrier to App use with Allure. So that gets me you know, excited. And then of course the hearing aid design itself that we’re launching with this new platform is a device that just checks a lot of boxes for wearers. Theres a button if you like to use a button. There’s an LED indicator light on it if you like to have indicators of what your hearing aid is doing. It has wind and touch resistant microphone covers to improve the comfort there, many streaming options and call control options available to you and amazing battery life so that 25 hours of battery with seven hours of streaming. So truly a full day of you know of use and streaming for everyone. So you know it’s just makes it really easy to feel confident that if you pursue Allure as your hearing solution it will meet your needs. Wonderful. I think probably one of the key words of this and what I would think about as a patient or consumer buying a hearing aid is to get a truly future proof technology. And this is a future proof technology. Both the things Dana just mentioned on the connectivity and connectivity options on the platform itself. This is an extremely powerful chip. It is a dedicated chip that has been developed specifically for the purpose here of a hearing aid. And we have actually fundamentally changed the chip architecture in order to get the performance out of it that we are that we wanted. And when it comes to the fitting software as I mentioned before, it will be up to date all the time. And you can say the functionality of it can expand. Application of AI and other things within the software itself can change over time. So both from an HCP point of view and from a patient point of view, this is a truly future proof technology. And that would I think be another important factor to consider. I love that. And speaking of the future, we haven’t really talked about Auracast or T coils. How do these new products relate to these exciting listening technologies? So the Allure device has a T coil in it. So we’re, we’ll be that technology will be available to wearers. We’ll be activating the, the HCP programming of that a little bit launch, but it is ready for that technology. And similarly with Auracast we’ve introduced LE audio streaming with Allure and LE audio streaming as you may be aware is the foundation of the Auracast capability. Although the ability to receive an Auracast broadcast signal is a little extra something that you have to develop on top of LE Audio and certainly the path that we are going in the future as well. So I think when we see that Auracast systems are becoming more prevalent in communities and places where hearing aid wearers are engaging with them and that the industry develops a clearer understanding of what is required for that communication and control of interacting with those Auracast systems. This product is ready to do that. Cool. Well, any final thoughts that you’d like to share? We did cover a lot, so I didn’t know if there was anything else you wanted to mention. From my side. Firstly, we really appreciate the opportunity here to share more about what is new about Widex Allure. I think you can tell we’re very excited about it. It is very rare that so many things are actually new and completely redesigned in a hearing sol. And we just can’t wait to get it out to many, many more patients across the country and for them to get the benefits of it. And I think I’ll add that sound is difficult to describe. Right. Clear, seamless, transparent sound. I would encourage everybody to pursue an opportunity to hear it because it’s that sort of thing where you know it when you know it. Right. So when you experience it, you’ll know what we’re talking about. Wonderful. Well, thank you both for being on the podcast today and sharing these exciting updates and people can learn more about this at widexpro.com so thank you both again. Thank you very much for having us.