The new Livio Edge AI may be more evolution than revolution but it still represents an important leap in hearing aid technology. It builds on the revolutionary Livio AI which Starkey released last year and which, for good reason, was hailed by Time magazine as one the top 100 inventions of 2019.

You can read my review here.

The new Edge version builds on the Livio technological platform by tweaking sound processing to improve performance in noisy environments, adding rechargeable batteries and updating the Thrive app.

But perhaps the most interesting new feature is “Edge Mode”, designed to replace the often inconvenient mode settings that had to be manually adjusted for different acoustic environments such as “restaurant” or “car”.

Instead of having to pull out your phone and fiddle with the app, with “Edge Mode” a simple double tap on the hearing aid is all you need to do.

I asked Starkey’s Chief Technology Officer and Executive VP of Engineering Achin Bhomik if I would notice the difference in a crowded restaurant for example.

“Yes, you would because the Edge Mode increases the ‘smartness’ of the hearing aid. A double tap and the hearing aid instantly captures an acoustic snapshot of your environment and then it feeds it to the AI system which creates the optimally recommended settings of the hearing aid, which will be better for you. So this is a step up from what we and others have in the industry. 

(For more on Achin’s research into hearing in noisy environments, see my interview here.)

For anyone who relies on hearing aids the news just keeps getting better and better.