Behind the Sound: A Deep Dive into Starkey’s Genesis AI

Starkey is at the forefront of innovation, continuing to push the edge of what is possible. If you have ever wondered how hearing technology is developed, Dr. Dave Fabry and Nate Johnson, Starkey’s Director of Product Management, have a detailed discussion on how key decisions are made, how critical feedback from both hearing care professionals and patients is incorporated into product development, and the complexity of hearing aid development cycles. 

Dave and Nate have a candid discussion on how by transforming hearing aids from single function listening enhancement devices into multi-functional and multipurpose health and communication tools with advanced sensors and artificial intelligence technologies, today’s hearing aids have sophisticated and groundbreaking technology that is having a real impact on people’s lives. 

Learn more about the addition of new products to the impressive Genesis AI product line, as well as new enhancements designed to offer unprecedented benefits to both patients and hearing healthcare professionals. 

Link to full transcript. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to Starkey Soundbites. I'm Dave Fabry, Starkey's Chief Innovation Officer and your host. Today we're talking about the need for constant improvement and growth and uh refusing ordinary to really strive for something exceptional. And I can't think of anybody I'd rather have on to talk about this than Nate Johnson. Nate is our director of product management here at Starkey, and he's he and his team are responsible for the product roadmap, really, and we'll talk a little bit about what that means. But really, it touches every part of the organization, including people working on hardware and the form factors, whether it's a custom or in-the-ear style or behind-the-ear and RIC style, whether it's the programming software or whether it's the user applications, which increasingly patients are using that user app as an interface to our products. And you know, Nate, I think one thing that I think of when I think of you is unflappable. And I think that's a a characteristic a good product manager has to have because there's all kinds of commotion. You're on on very critical timelines and they change, and we have to adapt and look at that constant improvement. And I think of you as being unflappable. And so it's a pleasure to have you here today on the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:15

Aaron Powell Thanks a lot, Dave. It's really great to be here, and I appreciate the uh the quick compliment as we get into the get into the weeds here. So excited to be on the podcast and talk about what we do at Starkey and how we make our uh our hearing aids.

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Yeah, this is your first podcast you were saying. So it's a privilege to have have us and SoundBytes host you for your first time on.

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Absolutely. Excited to get into the conversation with you and really talk through, like I said, our our uh physical hardware products, our mobile applications, our fitting software, and talk about we our how we on my team and product management really bring in voice of the customer, whether we're talking about customer being our hearing care professional or whether we're talking about customer being the actual hearing aid user. So on the product management team, we definitely are very focused on bringing both of those viewpoints into our products and ensuring that the products that we push out into the field are well accepted by professionals and patients.

SPEAKER_00 2:18

I think you hit on a very important point. I mean, you say design by professionals, for professionals. And a friend of mine, Mike Maddock, will often say you can't read the label when you're inside the jar. And although we may fall in love with a product or technology or application, we want to make sure, and and that's one of the things that you're responsible ultimately for, to do a gut check with professionals to see if indeed this is something they're looking for. But then that's not it either, because then when we talk about the user app and the way the patient interfaces, we want to make sure that the patients find this beneficial. So the voice of the customer in your case can mean both the hearing care professional and ultimately the end user.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Yeah, absolutely. That's a great point, Dave. So uh interestingly enough, I I'm an engineer by trade, and your your point on uh not getting too enamored on the of the technology definitely strikes home. So, you know, there's as an engineer, I can tend to think that a piece of tech that's future looking and out there is really cool. But at the end of the day, my job and my team's job is to make sure that that technology that we're bringing into the hearing aid has actual tangible value. It's making our professionals' lives easier, it's making our hearing aids better for that end user.

SPEAKER_00 3:33

Aaron Powell Well, so let's start there in terms of it can it can be difficult, it can be challenging, it can certainly be humbling to ask for feedback from end users or from professionals. Uh, because hopefully, I mean, you know, uh everyone likes to get compliments, and and we've been getting a lot of very favorable compliments about Genesis, which was launched just in February. Now here we are six months later, and we're already updating that product, and we'll get into that a little bit more. But you know, we've heard a lot of great things from the market, from hearing care professionals and end users about how their lives have been impacted in a positive way by this technology. But we also I'll admit, you know, I don't learn as much from compliments as I do from complaints. Fortunately, I get a lot more complaints than I do compliments. But but you know, it that can be a humbling experience. Explain how you go about that process of getting feedback from professionals and end users.

SPEAKER_01 4:28

Yeah, absolutely, Dave. So there's really a few primary ways that that my team does that. So one, which is a very important part, and I know you actually have this as well, is something that we call at Starkey advisory boards. So we uh for our Genesis product launch had a very in-depth advisory board. So we had hearing care professionals working with us on the on the front end of the ideation process. So really early on in development, we're targeting uh areas of of the product, the fitting software especially, that is going to make it easy for them, efficient for them, make sure that they're able to provide the best service to that end user. Uh another another aspect that we use very frequently, and probably is more on the complaint side of it that you mentioned is we have this internal tool which we call product suggestions. So it's a it's a Microsoft dashboard that uh the sales reps can get feedback from the field from a provider. You know, it's I don't like X, Y, and Z. I wish you guys had this. Why don't you why don't you do this like this? And the our this this tool when it's when the the uh sales rep enters it is automatically filtered. My team can go in and look, okay, we had this week we had 10 suggestions regarding this, you know, aspect of our of our hearing aid. And what that does is, you know, as as you know very well, Dave, these hearing aids are on a you know an 18, sometimes even 24 month rolling development cycle. Yeah. So something that we're working on right now might not hit the market until 2026. Yeah. So it's important that we get that feedback and and iterate on it rapidly to make that big impact to the field. So those are those are two areas that are that are really uh really important from a professional standpoint. But the one that I I like to fall back on, kind of the tried and true, is just really going out and clin going out into clinics, talking to hearing care uh professionals, and you know, they're out there doing it every day, they're interacting with your products, they're interacting with other manufacturers' products, and there's just nothing that works as well as getting into the clinic, and you you can talk to the professional, you can talk to the patient at the at the same time, and it's it's um amazing the the insights that you gain from from doing that.

SPEAKER_00 6:48

Yeah, and I know you one of the things that really impresses me about you in this role is you've been very deliberate and determined to spend time with the clinician's permissions in their office, often engaging with them directly, or even the ultimate privilege is if they allow you to witness the fittings and the engagement that they're going through fitting our products on patients. And and that really is a partnership that we value and treasure for those clinicians who will do that for us. Because I know as an audiologist, uh in my role as chief innovation officer, which I say I look out the window and think deep thoughts. The other thing is is I do have a patient advisory council uh that I work with with the understanding that um uh I have a lot of things on my plate, like all of us do, but but uh seeing patients is the best way to get that immediate feedback. And um and I expect them to give me brutal to be brutal in their candor.

SPEAKER_01 7:45

Right.

SPEAKER_00 7:45

And um and so I uh you know I really appreciate that you have made that attempt to go out as often as possible into the wild, into the real world for those patients.

SPEAKER_01 7:55

Yeah, absolutely. No, that's that's what that's what's been in in my experience, especially you know, coming out of the engineering side of the organization, not having that that clinical background that you yourself has uh to that's that's really been the most eye-opening for me.

SPEAKER_00 8:09

Yeah, and you mentioned the focus groups that really began um with Genesis and the establishment of Profit. You know, a lot of people really liked Inspire and they were worried about us um uh taking away something that they've been very comfortable with. But there were uh very candid discussions that came apart came about as a part of those focus groups that led to some things that we'll get to in a minute uh in terms of innovations that might not have uh just naturally occurred if we hadn't been engaged and you hadn't been leading these discussions with clinicians who are fitting our products every day.

SPEAKER_01 8:45

Yeah, absolutely. So my my team did a did a fantastic job of that. So working directly with uh different customers too. So not just uh not just one specific customer segment, but maybe it's a VA audiologist, maybe it's a it's a person who buys a lot of Starkey products, maybe it's a person who doesn't buy that many Starkey products, and doing those focused interviews early on in the process and and walking through early screens before there was even any software, and it's just you know, it's just visuals on the on the on the computer screen, those are excellent tools for us to give feedback on the user experience and help us design the software to again, you know, efficiency and and accuracy, those are the two things that we're really striving for there.

SPEAKER_00 9:27

Yeah, let's let's highlight a couple uh back uh thinking back to February in Genesis. I mean, I can tell you, for me, as much as I did um really uh find Inspire to be an intuitive and logical way to program instruments, one of the pain points for me personally was that if I had RIC devices that were stock units and I wanted to pull them off, uh they were all labeled as left-ear devices. And then I had to uh with my aging eyes increasingly sort out which one was the left and which one was the right, and I put the power of the receiver on. Talk a little bit about what went into uh the enhancements that we introduced with Genesis AI related to that part of the process.

SPEAKER_01 10:07

So the the big thing there was we uh upgraded our receiver cable. So we went from a from a Snapfit 1.0 to a SnapFit 2.0. Pretty innocuous number change, right? But under the hood there, there's a lot of a lot of new technology happening. So the we've added smarts to the receiver, so it knows that hey, I'm a I'm a M size three or I'm a P size 3.

SPEAKER_00 10:33

That used to be a 50 gain, right? Okay, yeah. So we that was another improvement that we have.

SPEAKER_01 10:37

That was another improvement, exactly. So we want to we want to focus on the more broad fitting range of the receiver versus just a specific full-on gain number there. But yeah, the adding in that that technology, so not only does a receiver know what it is, the fitting software, the the profit fitting software, as soon as you connect that receiver, it it highlights that up on your screen. So as a professional, it's very easy for you to know, okay, yep, this is the this is the right aid, this is the left aid.

SPEAKER_00 11:05

Streamline that process like beyond my expectation. We've we were successful in sort of snapping it on, it identifies left, right, the power, as you say, and then I'm good to go in the in the pre-fitting part of this. And I think that's just one example. And that came through loud and clear from a number of the other professionals early on.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

That was very, very loud feedback from a lot of different hearing care uh professionals on what they didn't like about the Inspire system.

SPEAKER_00 11:35

Yeah, we'll come back to some of those other ones, but now let's talk about what people can expect. Like I said, your job is never done. When you're in charge of the roadmap and you're in charge of always ensuring we're staying on the cutting edge, not the bleeding edge of technology. So that as soon as you know you get ready to take a little sigh of relief when Genesis AI was launched, you're already working on the six-month later update. So talk a little bit about what people can expect to see shortly out of this next generation.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

Yeah, no, that's that's exactly it. We're the way that we look at it on the product side is our our work is never done. So we're always striving to iterate and to make new improvements to our technology. And you know, Genesis, like you said, Dave, has been very well received by the field. But there are areas that you know we we knew going into it. Like you can't build every hearing aid style at once. No. It's it's just a it's a you know resource bottleneck. So one of the things that we're super excited about is bringing in a couple of additional zinc air product styles to the Genesis family. So first being a RIC 312, and then the second being a wireless Bluetooth streaming CIC 312. So both of those form factors uh giving giving providers and patients additional flexibility, you know, maybe they don't like rechargeable options for whatever reason. We want we want the ability to give, or we want to give them the ability to have a zinc air and tried and true technology that's available to them in the amazing Genesis line as well.

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Yeah, so you mentioned the RIC 312. Now, will that be close will that uh be a device that uses NFMI and a telecoil, or will it be closer to the MRIC rechargeable now?

SPEAKER_01 13:20

It's actually a bit of a hybrid between the two. So it does have NFMI, so that being said, it'll support cross, uh, but it does not have a telecoil. So we're kind of riding in the middle, okay, you know, uh if you if you will, between the two different rechargeable options.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

Yeah. And we've been committed to ensuring in every form factor that uh as possible uh that clinicians will have a choice of telecoil for those who want it. Absolutely. But then also we don't have to have every product duplicate or replicate others. Why why do clinicians uh want a zinc air option rather than rechargeable, given that we've set the bar uh very high for our competitors in terms of the Genesis rechargeables, with 51 hours out of the RT, 41 out of the microRIC, and 42 out of the custom and and uh you know the ITE and ITC models.

SPEAKER_01 14:14

Right. So I mean you you I I might actually flip the question around at some point and ask you that. But so the the different professionals are the different professionals that I've that I've talked to on this, I would say there's two primary themes that come out. Um one, it again, it comes back to battery, like you said, our our Genesis rechargeable products have unbelievable battery life, best in the industry. But there's you know, there's certain use cases if you're if you're a very heavy cross user, and if you, as that user, have been using the zinc air technology your your whole life, you might just be like, you know what, I know this works for me, and this is what I want. At the end of the day, the user is the one buying the hearing aid. So as a as a professional and a provider, you can tell them the benefits of rechargeability all day long, but that specific person, they might just want that zinc air. So that's that's one. And then the other one, which is, you know, I'd say a little bit less common nowadays, given the the premium battery charger that we have. You know, you can take your charger with you, go off the grid for a few days, still, you know, rest assured that you're gonna have enough power to charge those hearing aids. But it is those patients that you know they have different times in their life where they're not, they don't have access to to power. So it's it's very easy for them to just buy a few sleeves of of zinc air batteries. And you know, I can they they know that I can go wherever in the world I want, I can go for weeks at a time, and my hearing aids are always gonna be working.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

Yeah, I think very important points. The control one in that if someone is indeed, I think the cross-by-cross example is a great one because those are people that really depend on that technology. They need it to work and last all day every day once they start getting used to and depending on that technology. And then the other, I think, is is just that when they go off the grid. And I think one of the other parts that hopefully we'll have a little uh opportunity to talk about at the end is your role in terms of product management is not just for the U.S. market. Totally. Um this summer I had the opportunity to go and assist in the product launch in South Africa, and they have load shedding, uh, and they have varying degrees of load shedding where the power just goes out because of the demands on their grid, uh, and they'll just shut off a region for two hours, four hours, six hours, sometimes longer. And without that power, I think again, it's another area where people feel like zinc air batteries, if they've done worn them in that style for a long time, uh, they can control how long the battery life is and what they're doing, or if they're hunters or if they're going off the grid uh camping, uh, and and without power, they want to be able to think about with confidence that they'll be able to continue to hear the sounds of nature.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

Yeah, 100%. And I'm actually real glad you brought up that international aspect. So this is, you know, the the Genesis launch has been, you know, primarily available to U.S. markets. One of the, I'll say, cornerstones of this upcoming launch is actually a lot of the behind-the-scenes work that goes into doing to taking Genesis global. So if you think about all of the different hundreds of countries that Starkey operates in, and you start to think of user manuals for hearing aids and chargers, the translations on the fitting software, the translations on the mobile app, the voice indicator translations that, you know, if you're hearing personal memory, to be able to say that in Spanish, which I'm not going to attempt here, uh in all the different languages that our hearing aids support, there's an immense amount of work that goes into the behind the scenes side of it to make this uh to make this and truly take this product global.

SPEAKER_00 17:47

Aaron Powell You mentioned the the receiver in the canal and the zinc air uh RICS and that that cross-by-cross capability. I I don't want to let the CIC with a zinc air slide. One of the issues that I've seen from working with patients who want the cosmesis and the cosmetic benefits of a small custom device like a CIC that is still connecting to their smartphone, connecting to accessories, and even ear-to-ear. This is no small technical challenge. The issue as well is with people who want that cosmetic benefit, but maybe use a more powerful receiver, an M or a P if their ear canal allows it. And I I've known from working with a lot of longtime CIC users, they're most comfortable. As long as they don't have dexterity issues or arthritis or visual issues that preclude them getting a battery in and out of their device, they want to control that as well because of the fact that rechargeable in those small packages in the past has sometimes pushed up against battery life on the rechargeable.

SPEAKER_01 18:53

No, totally. I mean, the the the ear is the boss, as we like to say here at Starkey. And I think that's the the reality is when you start combining things like rechargeability, wireless, the the Genesis circuit architecture, all those things together, they just don't mesh with every year. So, you know, by being strategic and intentional in our product line uh architecture, you know, we're saying for for this this uh coming launch, the launching a CIC with that 312 form factor, but also bringing the benefit of uh full streaming capabilities. You know, you you mentioned the challenges that that we we have, you know, the obviously the the human head and and the human body just absorbing uh that that uh Bluetooth frequency is it's it's a very challenging engineering problem that we have to solve here at at Starkey, but I'm pleased to say we've we've we've kind of nailed it.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

So we've really staked our reputation on small custom devices, fitting well, performing well. As you say, entering into the 2.4 gigahertz Bluetooth stage doesn't go through the head. We've got to make it go around. And and the engineering challenge for that, as you know, is not trivial. So uh I know patients are gonna be really pleased to have that option bringing that uh um form factor and feature set into the Genesis world with this with this uh upcoming launch.

SPEAKER_01 20:19

Yeah, so let's let's touch on that a little bit. And actually, be before we jump into the the uh some of the features, I do want to mention with both of these products the improvements in robustness and quality that we've made on the Starkey engineering side. So, you know, similar in in vain to Genesis, we're we we can't quite say the same things about our zinc air products as we do with the rechargeable being waterproof, for example, because you know there's a there's a reason why these batteries are called zinc airs. Right. They need air to function. So we can't seal that off like we can the rest of the uh rechargeable hearing aids. But everywhere on these hearing aids that can be sealed, it is sealed. Right.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

So the same technology coating, nano coating, the the mesh and all of the enhancements that we've talked about to deliver that IP68 rating on the rechargeable custom and standard products is there in this these products. Still applies. But as you say, zinc requires air to operate. If we sealed them off completely, they wouldn't work.

SPEAKER_01 21:27

They wouldn't work.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

Um and then the other point, the reality, just the practical reality, is anytime you have a battery door that's swinging open, there are seams. Those are ingress points that allow moisture to come in. But you say we've still achieved an IP 68 rating on the custom and standard zinc air products. It's not that beyond IP six eight that we refer to when we're uh discussing the rechargeable devices. But simply because you need air and you have seams. But but if someone Jumps in the shower, gets in the tub, goes through a rainstorm, they still are going to have the confidence that these devices will function after being in a meter of water for 30 minutes.

SPEAKER_01 22:16

Totally, absolutely. And I actually inadvertently torture tested one of them on a recent family uh trip and dove in a pool, came out quickly after I realized, shook them off, and they they functioned.

SPEAKER_00 22:27

So I do it all the time too, as you know. My hearing aids go swimming quite regularly on purpose. And um, you know, I I just think that durability really goes hand in hand with uh Genesis and being able to claim and achieve that IP68 out of a zinc air battery is nothing short of remarkable. And I know a lot of work effort went into that.

SPEAKER_01 22:49

Yep. Yeah, it really is.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

So let's then transition a little bit into some of the features. Now, edge mode has been a feature dating back to 2020. In January of 2020, when we launched uh Edge AI, was the first derivation of edge mode. We improved it with Evolve to allow even more, and we saw from uh Michelle Hicks uh and her team that patients increasingly are using edge mode in lieu of manual programs and finding that they actually prefer overall the edge mode application plus the personal program, as we call it, that automated environmental classifier. What about edge mode plus in Genesis and now in this latest era? What improvements can they expect?

SPEAKER_01 23:34

Yeah. So obviously with Genesis, having the ability to control whether you want to control for comfort or speech clarity, that was the that was the game changer for Genesis. So now with this launch, what we've done is further trained our DNN algorithms with more data, because that's the thing about DNN. Like it's all about data.

SPEAKER_00 23:53

It's all about data input and scenes.

SPEAKER_01 23:55

The more data that we can collect, the better, the better we can train these these algos. And now where we are in this launch here, we're able to make the the actual um sound quality for the for the patient even better than it was in in Genesis while utilizing those same settings that they really like. So whether they're trying to hear in comfort, you know, you have a selection for that. Whether you're trying to hear speech in a in a coffee shop, you have a you have a selection for that. So we're we're super excited to get this out in the field.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

So it's great to hear that we've continued to double down on DNN and using that onboard uh DNN accelerator in this case now, too.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

Yep, absolutely. So that's a that's a big feature of our Genesis neuroprocessor, obviously, is doing taking some of that processing away from the cloud and doing it on board the hearing aid. So when you're able to do things on board, it's just it's smarter, it's faster, all the above.

SPEAKER_00 24:49

Well, and it really is no accident that this mode began as edge mode, as edge computing, in the sense that for individuals who want to use the double tap, um, they don't even need to have their smartphone with them. People may not realize that that edge computing, that edge mode in that sense, can all be done at the level of the ear. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 25:08

Yeah, that and I think on top of the different sound quality benefits that you just highlighted, to me that's that's one of my favorite things about this feature is it's it's the quick double tap. And if you like it, awesome. If you want to revert back to your personal, it's boom, you're done.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

I like it. And and within the app, we can set we can set it, and even the end user, the hearing aid wearer, can change to make it more or less sensitive from the default position. Right. If they find that they're inadvertently bumping it in the summer, they're putting sunglasses on and taking them off. Um, all of that allows for that personalization. And then fail-safe, they can still just use the app if they want. But the ability to just have everything on the ear and go about their day without always having to think about um bringing their phone with them is a nice feature. And it truly is edge computing in that sense.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: It it it really is. And it yeah, it it just checks all the bot all the boxes for us at Starkey.

SPEAKER_00 26:02

One of the other areas going back to um uh Inspire uh was with regards to the feedback canceller initialization. Uh that was a pain point for me sometimes because no matter what I did, I would I would tell the patient, okay, now I know you know you're gonna hear a loud sound, it's gonna be short. I don't want you to be, you know, I know you can hear it, so you don't need to say anything, and I prefer you didn't. Um but then as soon as you know they'd sit and we're going, and and then they're like, oh, I I heard that, or it uh you know, it's loud. Have we made any improvements in that regard?

SPEAKER_01 26:34

Yeah, we actually have, Dave. So that was that was a that was a uh a great feature in this coming launch that we've modified. So we've modulated that noise where it it starts low at a at a low decibel level, slowly ramps up, and just doesn't rise to that level of uncomfortability that you mentioned there. And we're getting the same results from the feedback canceller. So, you know, in this situation, we're we're helping the patient because they're not you know hearing that, like you said, it's a it's a loud noise that can kind of jar you for a second. And then we're helping the the hearing professional as well, because they don't have to go through and explain, like you just said, here's here's what you're gonna eat, here's what you're gonna hear. I know it it might be a little bit jarring, but uh just don't worry about it.

SPEAKER_00 27:16

Aaron Powell But I know some clinicians have actually in the past not used the initialization stimulus because of that reason. And with Genesis, there now is an important reason for them to always initialize the feedback stimulus. Why is that?

SPEAKER_01 27:32

Given the the um variances that you see in you especially you as a a hearing care uh provider and and professional in the different vent sizes on earbuds, and even if it's a if it's a closed dome, we know they're not perfectly closed. That's right. So those those vent uh settings that that we get from running that feedback initialization are critical.

SPEAKER_00 27:54

Yeah. So every time you fit a new patient with Genesis devices, always use the feedback initialization. I think this will be a welcome adaptation to have that stimulus come on more gradually. And I would encourage people to always do it every time to take into consideration the fact that the slit leaks and the vents and the dome tips or the custom one, um, that that personalizing that is really important. Can you talk a little bit about some of the streaming updates that people can expect? Sure.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

So I mean, I'll say overall, this is this is an area on Genesis that we've gotten a lot of great feedback uh about streaming. So the the uh to today, when you're you know, you're you when you're running through as a professional, you're able to give your patient a bass boost or a treble boost. Uh some of the feedback that we've heard is well, my patient really likes both of them. And the way that we're set up is you can't give them both. Right. So that's that's one of the exciting modifications that we're we're doing in this coming launch is if your patient likes likes the trebles, if they want it bumped up in the high, they want it bumped up in in the low, you can you can do now do them both at the same time with an overall boost.

SPEAKER_00 29:02

That's awesome. Yeah. Yeah, and very welcome because sound is personal. Totally. And being able to adjust that for bass or treble, even within the same individual for different applications, is important. Um we know, and as an iPhone user, I've really appreciated the two-way audio on phone calls. Um, and yet one bit of feedback that I sometimes get from my patients is that it works great. It's really a benefit for the person on the other end, but it works great for situations where it's a low ambient environment like we are now, or even a restaurant that isn't overly crowded. But if it gets a little more boisterous, sometimes that two-way audio limits the audibility for the person that the hearing aid user is talking to on the other end. Right. Um, can you talk about enhancements that we've considered with regards to this?

SPEAKER_01 29:50

Yeah, 100%. So this is this is an again another very exciting feature that's coming out in this launch. It's a feature update. So we're still using that same two-way audio. Your hearing aid microphones are transmitting your voice, streaming it to your cell phone, to your iPhone, and then you know, obviously sending it out to the whoever you're talking to. Like you said, we we have had some feedback where it's been challenging in directional situations or in uh noisy situations. So, what we've done on the engineering side is we're now using both of your hearing aid microphones. So it's in a in a challenging background noise environment, you're able to actually parse out your own voice a lot better than you were with the original Genesis uh software and firmware. And from there, we're doing that same thing, sending it to the phone. And we've heard very good feedback from the listener on the other end where yeah, now they're able to hear you a lot clearer.

SPEAKER_00 30:43

When the hearing aid user is in a noisier environment, this will benefit the person listening on the other end of the phone.

SPEAKER_01 30:49

Absolutely. Terrific.

SPEAKER_00 30:50

Offline and airplane mode. Um, why why did we introduce that and explain that a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 30:56

Yeah, this is this is an interesting one. So uh we have we and we we have feedback especially from our our VA customers. They have you know veterans who maybe work in these sensitive, um they're sensitive workplaces, they're not able to have connectivity features on their phone and and on their hearing aid. So what this feature does is you can using uh user control so the the hearing care professional can go and program in offline mode. You know, I do a I do a long press, say, I go into offline mode, and my hearing aid shuts off all wireless communication until it's power cycled. So what this does is it allows us to help those veterans still maintain the usage of their hearing aids. And it's it's a very easy, um it's a it's a very easy thing to do where I go into my workplace, I turn it into offline mode, uh, I and I want to get out of it when I'm done with the day. You know, maybe I have my other user control pope uh uh have my other user control in a power off. I I run that cycle and I'm I'm back online.

SPEAKER_00 31:59

I think that's a great feature, as you said, for travelers or for people working in sensitive work environments. And I know people have been asking for that. So congratulations on delivering that with this latest update. Um in-field firmware updates and in-office firmware updates. Cover both a little bit. I know that for some people that's been uh you know a pain point for all manufacturers in the sense that when a patient comes in, the good news is there's a firmware update available. The bad news is you end up having to get a cup of coffee and maybe engage in more small talk than you're comfortable with, knowing how busy everyone's schedule is. Talk about that.

SPEAKER_01 32:33

Absolutely. So this is one that we're super excited about on the Starkey engineering side. And you know, you you alluded to it in in our uh fitting software conversation about you know Inspire and why we have to make the the switch over to a new new architecture. This is one of those core reasons why is you know there comes a point in time where you're building on something that's 15 years old, software gets outdated just like everything else. You know, there's there's improvements that the engineers make, and they've figured out how to make this much, much faster with our new architecture. So as a hearing care professional, what you're gonna find is for your patients that you may you know maybe you want to have a patient come back to the office for this this update to uh let's just say give them a more detailed tour of the new features and functionality, you're gonna expect three to four minutes. And a binoral binaural, yep, using using no link wireless programmers. You're gonna expect three to four minutes and those things are gonna be fully updated with this new with this new firmware. And that's solely because of our you know architecture decision to move to this new ProFit platform. Now, the other option you have as a hearing care professional, you know, so let's just say you have a patient who's maybe a little more technologically savvy, they're able to do some of these things easily on their own, they can do it all by themselves on the mobile application.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

So MyStarky and it works it's seamlessly.

SPEAKER_01 33:58

It is, it's really awesome. So you'll get a little you'll get a little uh notification bubble from our MyStarky app. It says, you know, hey, I have a you have a new set of uh or a new firmware that's available for your hearing aids. Do you want to update? You click yes. We do something called a uh dual firmware image load. So in the background, it loads it all up, installs it on your hearing aids, it works flawlessly, and it's it's literally between one and three minutes right now from a speed standpoint, you know, depending on the quality, the connection, and and those sorts of things.

SPEAKER_00 34:29

I can tell you I've done it a couple times uh myself on my own devices, and it's been a couple minutes for a binaural set.

SPEAKER_01 34:35

It's awesome.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

And I think this is truly we talk about the transition from the traditional generation to the boomers, and as a boomer, um it's comforting to me to know that although hearing aids still, you know, with all the improvements and all of the reliability and quality improvements, ultimately, you know, hearing aids, the components and uh not only become obsolete by new technology, but they break down. But if I know over the five to six years that I expect these devices to be functioning, that I can stay current or more current on the feature set that is allowed, um, is you know a nice peace of mind for me that to know that throughout the life of the hearing aids, they're going to be performing at their best possible uh function throughout that entire life.

SPEAKER_01 35:22

Oh, absolutely. I would say in today's day and age, with the speed and and the in the the rapidity at which our you know sound quality algorithms are advancing, like we just we just talked about DNN, you know, you bought your Genesis hearing aids six months ago. We're pushing out a new firmware update that's gonna make those sound even better. Right. So that's just that's that's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 35:45

And we're not gonna be pushing these out as often as the smartphone manufacturers do. It seems like every other day I'm doing an update. Right. So so clinicians don't need to worry about that aspect. But when there is an improvement in the DNN algorithms, your patients with confidence um know that they're getting the updated settings either in the comfort of their own home through the app or in the office with the professional, depending upon how they want to manage things exactly. And that's um it's really up to them.

SPEAKER_01 36:12

That's that's exactly it. We we want to give the professional the the tools and the ability to, you know, if you want to counsel your patient to do it on the on their own, great. If you want to do it yourself and have them come into the office, you know, you're you're the uh you're you're in charge. They'll they'll likely uh do whatever you you tell them when it comes to those those hearing aids.

SPEAKER_00 36:30

So Yeah, I I I think you know, chock full of improvements. And I'd be remiss, we're nearing the end of our time, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that September is healthy aging month. And really, healthy aging month uh shines a light on the fact that uh people, you know, we say hearing care is health care, and really looking at every age in our life cycle, wanting to live as healthy as possible, including how hearing connects to the other comorbid conditions and overall health and wellness. We've led the industry in this area since 2018 when we were the first with Livio AI to introduce embedded sensors and hearing aids that can track physical activity and social engagement. Talk a little bit more about how it is that Starkey views this and you and your role with uh director of product management, how it is that you're taking this and without giving away uh uh too much about the future, talk a little bit about how that resonates with your role in our company.

SPEAKER_01 37:30

Yeah, absolutely, Dave. So the the way that I view it as a as product manager is we have two amazing opportunities to help uh hearing aid wearers in more than just helping them here, right? So we have physical aspects, which you mentioned with fall. You know, you you already said Starkey with our with our uh sensors is is the kind of the first and only company who's who's tracking uh falls and actually sending life-saving alerts. And then the other side of it is the the cognitive side. Yeah so by tapping into the the uniqueness of where the hearing aid is on the body, being able to uh help patients and and help hearing aid wearers in both of those uh aspects, it's it's really it's really an amazing opportunity.

SPEAKER_00 38:17

Really exciting developments. And you know, embedded within uh healthy aging month, uh September 18th through this uh 22nd is fall prevention week. First day of fall is the 23rd. So we want to avoid that first day of fall. And and so your point about really a fall detection feature is fantastic and really provides peace of mind to family members and hearing aid wearers alike. But a fall is already too late if it resulted in a broken hip and often a downward health spiral. So uh, you know, I think it's great that you have within your vision that this is going to be something we continue to work on, hopefully with the goal of preventing a fall before a fall occurs. You mentioned um the connection to cognition and overall uh cognitive health. Um just uh earlier, just uh a month or two ago, the initial findings from the Achieve study that looked at patients who were elderly, who had hearing loss, um, and were either fitted or not fitted with amplification showed what may have initially been a little disappointment disappointing to those of us in the industry where not everyone who fit that bill benefited in terms of cognitive function or decline um compared with the control group. But importantly, and central to Starkey's technology was that those at elevated risk of cardiovascular disease, hypertension, diabetes, they reduced cognitive decline by 48% relative to the control population. And embedded in those sensors, in addition to fall detection and social engagement, is steps, physical activity, exercise, and getting up and moving around for musculoskeletal strength. If people are more physically active, they're gonna improve their overall cardiovascular fitness as well as their social engagement, because they're getting out and about more. So, you know, this finding, and we're gonna hear more about the achieve studies moving forward, but it's central to the way that we've and you've been envisioning this uh uh uh technology developing over the last five years, because hearing care is healthcare.

SPEAKER_01 40:28

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, hear better, live better, right? That's our that's our uh that's that's that that's our motto here at Starkey, and and we definitely stand behind that and believe that. So from a from a you know cognition side of it, what we're doing, you know, we're we're doing a few things on the I'll say on the mobile app and then also the caregiver side where we're you know proactively pushing out some insights, maybe some notifications. You'll see on your My Starkey app where we're telling you like, hey, you met your you met your daily, your are your your week's walking goal, uh, great work. Or even things as as simple as usage and interaction. So we're able to we're able to let you know, you know, you use your hearing aids are a recommended amount this week, great work, or you know, maybe you had a you had a rough week for whatever reason and and you weren't able to wear them that much. We'll provide some additional encouragement for you to to use those things more because of all those benefits that we know about that that you just went through, Dave.

SPEAKER_00 41:26

Yeah, and as you said, it really assists the patient and provides peace of mind for their family members and their loved ones. Absolutely. Well, we are out of time. And so uh, you know, I know that many of uh the people listening to the Starky Soundbites podcast are professionals, and so I think you've provided a lot of tips and teasing a little bit about what's coming very shortly and really fleshing out the Genesis AI portfolio is exciting. And I know that they're gonna want to get this on their patients as quickly as they can. I think as well, we have some consumers that listen. I've heard from in the past, consumers that listened and became interested in Genesis AI. And I think the features you've talked about provided by both professionals and end users with optimism for the way that they can hear better and live better, as you said so well just a minute ago. So for those of you who are listening, uh we hope that you enjoyed this podcast. If you did, like it, share it with your friends, your network, someone who has hearing loss, um, and uh as well, we want to hear from you if you send us an email at soundbites at starkey.com about future topics so we can bring on bring Nate back or bring other experts on our team to talk about issues that are of concern to you. So until that time, Nate, I thank you again for being with us here today. It's been a pleasure uh having this conversation. We look forward to seeing and hearing from our audience again in the near future. Thanks, everybody.