In terms of shape, the Orca One is very reminiscent of AirPods—but they’re hearing aids!
Apple in 2010 After announcing the original AirPods in 2016, the Cupertino-based company has been making a conscious effort to emphasize that its flagship headphones are meant to be heard. Computers for your ears, basically. With new software features such as live listening and chat enhancement appearing more and more, Apple is working harder to send messages to any last-name AirPods. no i don’t Designed to replace medical grade hearing aids. There are many iPhone hearing aids that integrate tightly with iOS for people who need better hearing. AirPods are not designed to dramatically improve a person’s hearing.
One of the first things to clearly stress out in my AirPods briefings with Apple over the years was the AirPods’ ability to listen to music and podcasts. Again, they are. no i don’t As a replacement for hearing aids – they are very stylish headphones.
For health technology firm Orca, his Orca is one. for sure Hearing aid.
“[We’ve] In an interview with me via video conference last month, Orca founder and CEO Ben Sun talked a lot about changing the conversation around hearing loss — that it shouldn’t be stigmatized. When we start this new job, she [co-founder Xinke Lu] What do we think about the product? [hearing aids] must be: [it can] Be something that not only helps people hear better, but be user-friendly and more user-centric. This is definitely part of our DNA. “
The first spark for Orca came in 2008. In 2017, Sun returned to China to visit relatives for the holidays, and it was during Christmas. His grandmother noticed that she was hearing impaired and decided to get her a pair of hearing aids. The expensive hearing aids cost Sun more than $1,000, and his grandmother stopped using them after a month. At the time, Sun was working at Apple, helping to build products such as keyboards and trackpads for MacBooks, as well as the Apple TV’s Siri Remote. He envisions hearing aids that look just like AirPods and have a top-shelf user experience to match. One of his grandmother’s comments was that, even though she used hearing aids, she had trouble keeping up with people when conversing in noisy environments. That was a matter for Sun to learn.
Orca One has been recognized as an Innovation Award nominee at CES 2021 in the Health & Safety category. The device has been hailed in part as “the world’s most proprietary hearing aid.” [patent-pending] AI DeNoise technology that uses a server-level neural network powered by a headset-level CPU to automatically detect, filter, and improve speech understanding in real-time.
The desire to hear health is not limited to Sun and his grandfather. Another Orca co-founder is Zinke Lu, who suffered hearing loss at a young age and now wears cochlear implants. Sun Lu explained that she was drawn to her vision to improve hearing aids because of her own life experiences. Along with co-founders Chauncey Lu and Linkkai Lee, the quartet set out to reimagine hearing aids and, in addition, remove much of the stigma associated with hearing loss.
In the heart of an orca – what else? – Artificial intelligence and machine learning. Sun and team have used the founders’ experience in various technologies to build a product that more or less resembles AirPods, but they’re pushing harder on the AI department than Apple does with their headphones. The Orca One is controlled via a smartphone app on iOS and Android, similar to the Watch app on iOS. Both companion apps work as motherships on their respective devices. Okra One receives software updates over the air and is applied via the app. There’s even a compact AirPods-esque charger for the Orca when the battery is running low on juice.
The most interesting part in terms of technology is the AI component for Orca. Orca is using artificial intelligence and machine learning in new ways, not just for technology. According to Sun, one of the main reasons to rely on AI is to filter environmental noise so that voices are more intelligible. This is more or less the same as what Apple has done with live listening in recent years. What’s more, it’s the kind of solution that Grandmother Sun desperately needs.
“AI can do a lot to refine human speech in real-time,” said Sun at Orca One of the benefits of using AI and ML technology in this way. “That’s the hardest part. [figuring out] How can you do that in real time on a very small device – very small, with a small battery and a small processor chip. How can we [implement AI processes] It is difficult in real time. “
In the same way that Apple telegraphed the AirPods’ core mission, Sun was clear in setting expectations for the Orca One. Apple, however, has said that it is developing wearable headphones for consumer use only for cognitive purposes. Soup Hearing organs, Orca is offering a good medical device.
“I think [Apple’s] The core customer they’re going after is the mainstream market — they’re going after people who have no or very mild hearing loss,” Sun said. “For us, we see ourselves as [a] 100% health company; Now we only deal in medical devices. We are focusing on providing medical devices that help people with mild to moderate hearing loss to hear better. This is our goal.
Practically speaking, finding an Orca One starts, naturally, with a visit to the product’s website. He told me that Sun and team thought deeply about “not just innovating the hearing aid itself.” They’ve taken a very Apple-like approach to managing the entire stack, from the design of the product itself to the website to customer service and more. One area of particular focus for Sun is economics: the team at Orca is well aware of not only the high costs of conventional hearing aids, but the costs associated with running brick-and-mortar audiological clinics. Manufacturers and health maintenance organizations must somehow recoup what they spend; Charging customers more money is certainly one way. Orca, on the other hand, tries to keep prices as low as possible by selling directly to customers with no middlemen involved. In addition to shipping the Orca One to someone’s door, the company offers services such as a virtual “unboxing” with an audiologist who performs an audiogram remotely and teaches how to use the product. The remote nature of these types of facilities makes hearing aids accessible beyond the hearing ability, to the extent that a person in need of hearing aid may find it difficult to travel to a community clinic. There is also a post-purchase consultation for customers as a way to test and establish a sort of “paper trail” in terms of progress. “We noticed the first two months. [of use] They are very important – check that [people] They wear hearing aids for a long time for comfort [it] So you can get the most out of the device,” Sun said. “By doing this, we can reduce the overall cost.”
Price-wise, Sun estimates that the Orka One will eventually cost around $1200 to $1300 in the United States. The number represents “what we believe is a more accessible price point for consumers,” he said.
Looking ahead, Sun’s main goal is simple: keep pushing.
While it’s all about being complex, cool and nerdy, it’s easy to get into the weeds about details. why Orca’s one functions. As Steve Jobs often says, technology alone is not enough. Sun and his team are running a business, but they’re too dependent on altruistic thinking to really help people hear better. They want their device to be the ultimate wearable computer, saying, “Once you wear it, you forget it.” The team is committed to playing its part in making the healthcare industry more modern and incorporates such cutting-edge technology in Orca hearing aids. They want to make their dent in the universe by making hearing aids affordable and accessible to everyone.
“We want to be very focused on that – we want our hearing aids to move the healthcare industry forward,” he said. “We want to change the conversation around this product category [hearing aids]. Once the product is super functional, we can do what we set out to do with the hammer: make people. want Hearing aid [instead of being] Because people need something they are forced to have. We want to confirm [hearing aids] For people to have or even something they like… [we want to] It makes them desirable to people. They can be very cool [fashion] press release”
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