AAA 2026: The Innovations Shaping the Future of Hearing Care

Hi everyone. Welcome to This Week in Hearing. My name is Maria Pomponio. I’m an audiologist and a board member of the American Academy of Audiology. The American Academy of Audiology is the collective voice for audiology. It is the nation’s, the world’s largest organization of by and for audiologists. We support evidence-based practice. And advocacy efforts and really helping audiologists practice at the top of their game. We are here in San Antonio for our annual convention, which brings together researchers and clinicians and practice owners and industry experts to really come together, collaborate, network, and do all the things that we can’t do online, all the things that you miss when you’re not in person. So once a year, thanks to our amazing volunteers, we come together for 4 days to have fun, learn a lot, and move our profession forward. Thanks. AAA was a great place to experience the changing face of hearing care, both in the presentations and also the innovators on the show floor. Come inside. We’ll take a series of quick takes on what’s new and interesting. So I’m Dan Scarfe. I’m CEO and founder at xrai Well, thank you for spending a little time with me. No, thanks for coming by. You’re welcome. Tell me a little bit about what XRAI does. So, I spent 20 years in technology. I was very fortunate to sell my previous company and whilst I was on my gardening leave trying to do as little work as I possibly could, I was back in the UK with my granddad who was 96 at the time. And my granddad had been losing his hearing for many years, but one particular Christmas it had got so bad that he just couldn’t hear a thing. We just saw him daydreaming, staring around, no idea what was going on. And in that second I had this epiphany. About why can’t we combine real-time subtitles with augmented reality glasses to create live subtitles? And that was the genesis of what went on to become XRAI Glass. Interesting. And so how does the product work today? So we have a pair of smart glasses. So these look almost like normal glasses and you kind of pop these glasses on. They have 4 high-powered microphones built into them. So they can do both directional noise cancellation, and then they will subtitle in real time exactly what is being said around you. These do not look outlandish at all. No, they’re almost like normal glasses. So in a couple of generations’ time, they will be almost indistinguishable from normal glasses. A couple of nice points about these. The most important is battery life. So to give you an idea, the previous generation of these glasses only had a 1-hour battery, which is kind of quite fun, but practically useless. These ones have an 8-hour battery, so all of a sudden these are now a viable device that someone might be able to use all day long. Yeah, so how long does it take to top them back up again if I use them for 6 or 7 hours, say? So they come with a charging case, which is quite nice. So you just pop them into this case and they will actually charge up from the case. They will go from flat to full in 30 to 40 minutes. The case will charge them up 12 times. So you can get up to 96 hours of usage out of a single charge. And the idea is whenever you’re not using them, you just pop them back in the case so they’re always 100% charged, ready to go. Right. Okay. So can I get prescription lenses with those? You most certainly can. So we can see these little lenses here. And one of the nice things about these lenses is that you just pop them straight into the glasses just like this. Oh, so meaning I can order from you prescription lenses? Exactly right. And pop them into there? Exactly right. And they’re interchangeable. So if your prescription vision changes, for example, you just have to replace this tiny piece, not the rest of the glasses. We support single vision, varifocal, trifocal, so any kind of optical correction that a customer needs, we can support. That’s really interesting. And since they— you can top them up so quickly, it means basically even if I want to wear them for 12 or 16 hours, yeah, I’m having a quiet coffee for 15 minutes, put them back in the box, I’m good to go. Exactly right, exactly right. Yes, nice. So now this is your first correct? It is, it is. And wow, what a conference, my goodness, the The scale of this thing is incredible. Well, and you did a very nice presentation here at the Haarbande exhibit floor. Thank you very much. Congratulations for that. Thank you. But what actually were your goals for coming here? What do you hope to get out of it? So we like to think of ourselves as a hidden gem. Like, we think we have incredible technology, but unfortunately no one’s heard of us because we’re a tiny little startup. So our ambition for coming to AAA is really to spread the word. Most of the people that have come and visited us have never even heard of these things. They never even knew that they existed. We want to share that knowledge with the community and help get the word out to the patients that this technology exists. But more importantly, we want these things to be resold through audiologists because the challenge with augmented reality is it’s impossible to describe to someone what it’s actually like putting the glasses on. People ask, well, how do you read it if the text is coming up on the lenses like a millimeter in front of you? Like, no, no, no. it projects. It’s like a hologram. Yeah, so you have to try it to know. Until you’ve tried it, you have no idea. And then within half a second of putting it on, you’re like, oh my God, this is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen. Well, I think that’s an important thing to understand, is that the words actually kind of stand out. Exactly. In front of you. So I can be looking at you quite naturally and glance down at the subtitles when I need them. Exactly. And you can set the position as well, which is quite nice. You can have it above the person’s face, right in line with their lips, or underneath their face as well. Okay, so you have an app that goes with it. Exactly right. So one of the, or rather the only way that we’ve managed to get the weight down to 49 grams and the battery life up to 8 hours is to remove as much processing as we can from the glasses. So there’s a Bluetooth link from the glasses to the phone. The phone is doing all of the heavy lifting. We can either run the AI models on the phone if it’s a sufficiently powerful phone, Or if it’s not, we can send it up to the cloud and back. Okay. And what other features do you have aside from straightforward transcription? So translation, of course, is a fun one. So we support over 300 different languages. And one of our flagship features is automatic language detection. So you can put it from auto to English, for example, and then you can wander around and it will automatically identify which language is being spoken and you just read it in English. Other features like AI assistant, for example. So you can connect this to ChatGPT or Gemini and you can ask for summaries of the conversation or general knowledge trivia facts and whatever you like. Alright, so now I have to ask you about data privacy. Yes, well, in fact, that’s one of our big differentiators versus some various other well-known providers that create these glasses. So we are myopic about user privacy. We do not store, process, train our AI models, anything on the data from the glasses. If users choose, they can store the conversations on their phone but we have no access to it whatsoever. And that’s something that’s incredibly important. And so you’ve had a lot of audiologists trying it? We have. It sounds like a goal is to then have audiologists selling it in their clinics as an ancillary device? Exactly right. And we very much position this as augmenting—no pun intended—hearing aids. This is not a replacement for them. This is another modality. So many of our users are hearing aid users, and they work in many situations, but Perhaps in a noisy environment they might not work, or perhaps you miss a word. And so this ability to have a backup of being able to glance up at the captions in real time, that’s where we see the most value from these. And one of the other things that we’re of course very excited about is our upcoming Auracast support. Tell me about that. So Auracast is just incredible. I mean, it’s just such a special piece of technology and we wanted to find a way to integrate it with the glasses. Now there’s hardware that we will need to put into the next generation to natively support Auracast in the glasses. But for now, we have the ability to use a dongle on the phone where you can actually receive Auracast broadcast straight to your phone, and then the phone can then transmit up to the glasses. Well, we’ve had a long conversation about that. Exactly. You introduced me to the dongle. In fact, I was trying it during your presentation. Thank you for wearing my Auracast mic to be able to do it. Yes. I think that’s really valuable because like in my train station example, I can be oracasting the station stops, you know, like in the ticketing hall, right? But if I’m profoundly hearing impaired or just even not so profoundly hearing impaired, but there’s so much noise going around, I still don’t understand it. That’s right. I can get— and the captions won’t work, right? If I’m listening to the speakers in the hall, it won’t work at all. Exactly. Like me towards the back of your presentation was not working all that well with live because I’m far away and there’s some reverberation. Yes, yeah. Tune into the orchestra It was like bang on, amazing. For example, so the glasses will automatically tell the difference between different speakers. Brilliant. I really like it. I like where you’re going. Appreciate you spending some time with me. Thank you, Andrew. Thank you. You’re welcome. My name’s Carolyn Mee, and I’m the CEO and founder of SoundScouts. Well, thanks a lot for spending some time with me. Give everybody a brief overview of what SoundScouts does. SoundScouts is a digital hearing health company, and we provide tools that screen and deliver APD diagnostics. And we’re also working on an auditory training program that should be available in the coming months. So when you say screen, what kind of screening are you doing? So we have an app-based screen, so you can download it from all of the app stores, and Depending on where you download it from, you can either do what we’ve called our Triple Factor Hearing Screener. So that’s a bespoke way of testing hearing that we’ve developed with Professor Harvey Dillon, and it incorporates a test of listening difficulties in noise as well as a test of speech in quiet and tone in noise. So the results from that test can both indicate the type of hearing loss someone may have, but also if they have listening difficulties in noise. In the app, if you’re working off an iPad or an Apple device, you can also have access to an audiometer, so an automatic audiometer. Also gamified, so non-threatening, fun for the person to play, and that’s showing really good results. So are you aiming primarily at pediatrics then? We initially started out, you know, focused on pediatrics, and now we’ve been, we’ve been around now for nearly 16 years, and we’ve recently, with the addition of the automatic audiometer, moved into aged care, adults and aged care. So we’re, you know, seeing a wider adoption for our product. I think we’re seeing more and more now the spotlight on listening difficulties, and whether they be caused by auditory processing or speech-language issues or memory issues, there is a large number of children impacted by these issues and they need to be tested for them. We’ve incorporated that screening component into the SoundScouts Triple Factor, and now with technology, we’ve already localized in Australian English, American English, British English. We’ve got a Latin American version. We’ve got a Mandarin version. We’ve got a Modern Arabic version. And where, you know, with technology we can do the research that’s required relatively efficiently— efficiently, sorry— to add more languages to that test. Well, and then, okay, so if we’re talking about screening in schools then, How suitable is this app for bulk screening, if you will, when you’re trying to do a large number of students in a short period of time? Is it easy to set up, administer? Like, how does it work? Yeah, it’s been designed working with educators to ensure we make it as simple and efficient as possible. Our test takes around 7 minutes. It, it is automated. There is full management platform where you can send out digital parent permission notes. Everything is supported in the backend. Reports can be sent out via PDF. It’s all designed to ensure testing in a school environment can be effective and efficient. But at the heart of it all is doing a test that looks at as many things as possible. And yeah, that’s what we pride ourselves on. So the argument is that the screener itself is a little bit longer than just doing a quick 4-tone, but you’re catching more problems, more auditory processing issues and so on. And the whole workflow, all the backend stuff is also sped up because you’ve integrated. Is that the pitch? That is the pitch. That’s a great summary. Thank you. So since we’re in the US, I’ll ask a US-centric question. How do you gain traction for your system when pure tone screening in schools is so entrenched? That is indeed a challenge. So I think the focus on and awareness around listening difficulties is increasing, and I think the tide is leading us in that direction, and we’re there, you know, we’re ready to go. So we’ve got hundreds of thousands of results in Australia. We have the tools being used at a state level. In Australia running statewide programs. So I think it is a challenge to shift the thinking in, in America, but I think there is a lot that, you know, there are increasing number of forces that are, you know, driving awareness around listening difficulties and, you know, and understanding that a pure tone test doesn’t tell us everything we need to know. Well, I wish you the best of luck here. I hope it’s a successful show for you, and thanks for spending some time. Yeah, thanks for the opportunity. You’re welcome. Hi, Andrew. I’m Jason Rude. I’m the president of Simeon, and thank you for having me. Thank you for having me. Appreciate it. I’ve been wanting to see this system for a long time, and now is my first chance. So tell me about it. Well, fantastic. So first of all, we are the manufacturer of the world’s first Auracast-enabled sound field system. What really makes it special is the fact that it is portable, and it’s designed for these medium-sized congregate spaces. So what do you mean by sound field system to begin with, for people who don’t know? Sure. Well, let’s show it to you. So you can see that it’s portable. It’s got a battery that will last for 8 hours, and it’s a 3-microphone system, which is important. And this is a speaker? This is the speaker, which is important because it’ll help let’s say you have unaided individuals with hearing loss and they don’t have hearing aids for whatever reason. It’s going to provide at least a baseline level of amplification for the room. Which frankly benefits everybody. But then for individuals that have the most recent hearing aids that are Auracast-enabled, they will get a beautiful crystal-clear audio signal to their hearing aids, to the cochlear implants that are coming that are Auracast-enabled, and fully be able to be immersed in Auracast sound. Okay, so how about— do you have receivers? Do you have neck loops? Like, how do you accommodate? Because the minute you amplify, you’re subject to the ADA. Here in the U.S., right? So how do you actually accommodate that when the ADA calls for receivers and headphones and neck loops? Absolutely. That’s a great question because right now, since there’s only a certain number of hearing aids and cochlear implants that are fully Auracast enabled, we’re in sort of that world where we’re going to be accommodating a wide variety of different accommodations. So let’s talk about neck loops. For the hearing aids and cochlear implants that have T-coils, We have tested our Audita III with our Simeon neck loop, and this is just an off-the-shelf Auracast receiver. This one happens to be from Bettear, but it works with Williams, it works with Listen, it works with all of the manufacturers of Auracast receivers. And that’s the great thing about Auracast, because it’s manufacturer agnostic, it’s a worldwide international standard, it all works together. Together. So we have tested this particular one with our unit, so any individuals with T-coiled hearing aids and cochlear implants can simply ask for a neck loop and an Auracast receiver. Okay, but you’re not selling the receivers yourself then, are you? Well, Bettear will allow us to. Oh, so you’re partners with Bettear? But you can get them from anywhere, and it really won’t matter. But yes, it’s our Simeon neck loop that happens to be paired up with any of the Auracast receivers, and the Bettear works great. Okay, so if I want to buy a complete ADA-compliant system from you, I can buy the receivers too? That’s correct. Yes, we can work it up with a quote. And then one other thing as it relates to accessibility, we are acoustically transparent with the remote mics that many hearing aids are able to connect to. So this one is the Edumic for Oticon aided individuals, and multiple individuals can connect with the Edumic We can connect as many as 5 remote mics to the Audita III So you can actually connect multiple remote mics to that? That’s correct, to the audio hub. And let the proprietary systems also stream for people who want a direct stream with those? That’s right. And that’s really particularly important in classrooms because of course kids are now being fitted with Auracast-enabled hearing aids like the new Play SI, but the older models of Oticon hearing aids, for example, will still need the EduMic. And then you get the benefits of a sound field system which includes multiple pass-around mics so that an aided student in classrooms can hear their peers, or in a library or retirement community you know, all of these types of congregate settings, the pass-around mics are super important so that everyone is included. Yeah, so in other words, if you’re taking questions from the floor, they can have a pass-around mic. Absolutely. And 2 of them so that one person is going to be speaking, the next person is raising their hand, and so one can always be in rotation. Okay, terrific. And of course, unaided people can buy earbuds that AuraCast too if they want to be discreet about it. They can. Absolutely. So let’s try it. Actually, I— I happen to be wearing— I brought all the Auracast-capable hearing aids to try in various circumstances. I’m wearing ReSound Vivia right now. Okay. We’re gonna give it a latency test. All right. So fire it up. Okay. Well, it’s already on, and the great thing about our Auracast transmitter is it’s on whenever you turn on the speaker. So now I’m gonna unmute, and you’re gonna get a crystal clear audio signal to your hearing aids that you just made possible through your Auracast assistant on your ReSound 3D Smart App. And the fact is I’m standing less than a meter away from you and about a meter away from that speaker and the latency is quite acceptably low enough. Yeah, you’re actually getting 3 different sources of audio. You’re hearing it from my mouth, we’re pretty close, and then the speaker’s on It’s projecting and then you’re getting Auracast directly through your ears. Sure, and now if I walk over here to the other end— You’ll still be able to hear me. In fact, you can walk 200 feet away and you’ll still be able to hear me through Auracast. Yeah, you sound quite clear where now I’m not getting your voice nearly so much. Yes, yeah. So that’s terrific. And that’s the magic of Auracast. It certainly is. In fact, what I like about Auracast is because it’s a standard system, it opens up innovation. So you can have folks like you addressing certain markets with it. Yeah. So terrific. I’m also looking forward to hearing your presentation tomorrow. And likewise, I’m looking forward to yours. Thanks. Thanks for spending some time with me. Appreciate it, Andrew. Hi, Andrew. I’m Dave Hogan, Managing Director of ELEHEER. Thank you for visiting us with us today. You’re welcome. Thanks for spending a little time with me. I have a question for you because we’ve already done a podcast on Beyond Pro. And what I want to know is, what are your goals for rollout in the US, and how does being at an audiology conference like AAA fit into that? That’s a good question. As you know, Andrew, we’ve been in business now for almost 4 years in the OTC space. We use audiologist service with our own people every day. You know, as a user, you can download the app, you can go through your hearing test, you can make an appointment with an audiologist. And that’s what has set us apart as an OTC brand. That care model has proven successful for us. It’s kept our returns down, and we want to expand upon that. And why we’re here is because we have a lot of good partners developing in the audiology space. We do think there’s a home for OTC in clinics. We’re trying to tell that message and how we could be partners and to bring affordable, accessible health at a certain price point to the clinics. And frankly, it’s been successful. We’ve been introduced to some nice new potential customers and service providers, and we’ll continue to grow that space as much as we can. And we look forward to participating this year and in future years to come. Oh, wonderful. It makes perfect sense. Now I have to ask you a question because tomorrow I’m presenting with Juliette Sterkins on Auracast. What are your plans for rolling out Auracast? You’ve been a big proponent of the Auracast feature. We’ve listened to that and that is on our roadmap and we’ll be announcing that across our product line very soon. Excellent. Well, thanks a lot for spending a bit of time with me. Yep. Thanks for stopping by. Hi, this is Stella and I’m in charge of the marketing teams in the United Imaging hearing aid department. And United Imaging has been formed in 2011. So we are a medical device equipment company. So we produce like CT machines and MRI machines, and we have been selling our medical equipment in over 20, 90 countries in the whole world. And so we also have a headquarters in Europe country and also have a headquarters in Houston, United States. So, and this, this time and the United Image to become here is that we want to— most of the product we produce is for treatment, for diagnosis and treatment. And now we want to do a business for rehabilitation, so make an ecosystem for the whole medical health service for all the patients. So these are reasons why United Imaging decided to make a hearing aid business. So we start this business, start from 5 years ago with a dream to help people to hear, a revolution of hearing. So now we come out with a success product 2 years ago in China. So now we have served over 5,000 patients in China, working with over 500 retailers, 500 hearing centers in China. So now this year we come to United States, and this is our first time to be AAA. We are very— we are curious how is the marketing thinking about hearing aid, a new prescription hearing aid coming from China, how the product is going well. So we want to come here to visit to see how the audiologists, the feedback about our products, and if any business partner would like to working with us to start the United States market. Okay, so you’re relatively mature in China. You have 500 hearing centers already. Yeah. And these are prescription hearing aids. Yes. And so you’re not coming as a startup company to the United States. You’ve already established— you’ve got hearing aid products of different kinds. You’ve got a large customer base. And now you’d like to replicate that here in the United States. Yes. I want to mention the 500 centers do not belong to us. I mean, I’m working with the dealers and all the dealers. I think they have over 500 centers. No, I mean I look terrified. I didn’t own this one. Yeah. And so of course, yeah, I forgot to mention, we mail, we produce, and we sell prescription hearing aids. So includes the RIC products and with battery types or with rechargeable one. And we also have our own ear lab to mail a custom-made hearing aid, including very small IIC or to the CIC products. And so the best part that we have our own team to do the algorithm. So we do very improvements on the algorithm and the formula to making sure it’s fit for the Chinese languages difference. So this is best things we have done and we also get very good feedback from the market. So then, as I understand it, you have a couple of goals for being a AAA, right? Yes. How will you actually use AAA to help come to market in the United States? What are you aiming to do? Yeah, the first, we all know AAA is the biggest festival for all audiologists in United States. So we are truly to be here as a newcomer so we can bring our product here to have audiologists to try our product. So by listening to a demo or to try our fitting software so they can experience the products by themselves so we can get more feedback about them. So how do you think if this product is good for English-speaking speaker? Maybe it’s good for how you to operate the software. So it’s very good so that we can get this opportunity to have to get collect more feedback for the audiologists. And the second part, we know there are too many business person, they were coming here and everyone is seeking for the new opportunities in this industry. So we bring the products and we bring the service Solutions, and then we bring the team to see if we can find maybe some cooperation and some strategic partner to working with to for this United States market. Okay, so you’re, you’re looking to get feedback from audiologists here and learn from them? Yes. What works in the U.S.? Yeah, right. And then you’re also seeking potential business partners? Yes, right. Well, I wish you success. I hope it’s a great show for you. Okay, thank you, Andy. Thank you for spending some time with me. Yeah, thank you.