The annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) took place this past week in Las Vegas, bringing together 184,000 attendees and a whole host of vendors in the consumer electronics space to showcase all of the new, innovative things each is working on. Once again, smart assistants stole the show, making this the third year in row where smart assistants seem to be gradually dominating the overall theme of the show. Along with the Alexa-fication of everything, there were a number of significant hearable announcements, each in some way or another incrementally improving and expanding on our mini ear-computers. Although I was not in attendance, these are my five takeaways from CES 2018:
1. The Alexa-fication of Everything
It seemed like just about every story coming out of this year’s show was in some way tied to an Alexa (or Google…but mainly Alexa) integration. We saw Kohler introduce the “connected bathroom” complete with a line of smart, Alexa-enabled mirrors, showers, toilets (yes, toilets), bathtubs and faucets. First Alert debuted its new Onelink Safe & Sound carbon monoxide and smoke detector with Alexa built-in. Harman revealed an Echo Show competitor, the JBL LINK View, powered by Google’s assistant.
My personal favorite of the smart-assistant integrations around the home, was the inconspicuous smart light switch, the Instinct, by iDevices. By converting your standard light switches around your home to the Instinct, you enhance the utility of the switch by an order of great magnitude, as it allows for motion-detection lighting, energy savings, and all the benefits of Alexa built-right into your walls.
And that’s just the integrations that emerged for the home, as the car became another area of focus of smart assistant integration at this year’s show. Toyota announced that it would be adding Alexa to a number of its Toyota and Lexus cars, starting this year. Kia partnered with Google Assistant to begin rolling that feature out this year too. Add these integrations to the list that also includes Ford, BMW and Nissan from previous announcements. Mercedes decided it doesn’t need Google or Amazon, and unveiled its own assistant. And finally, Anker debuted a bluetooth smart charger, Roav Viva, that can access Alexa in whatever car you’re in for only $50.
Alexa, Google and the other smart assistants are showing no sign of slowing down in their quest to enter every area that we exist.
2. Bragi Announces “Project Ears”
Bragi’s “Project Ears” is a combination of tinnitus relief and personalized hearing enhancement. This announcement was exciting for two reasons.
What’s particularly interesting about Bragi is its partnership with “Big 6” hearing aid manufacturer Starkey, and the byproducts of that partnership that we’re beginning to see. Last week, I wrote about Starkey’s announcement of the “world’s first hearing aid with inertial sensors” and how that was likely a byproduct of the Bragi partnership, as Bragi has been on the forefront of embedding sensors into small, ear-worn devices. Fast-forward one week to CES, and we see Bragi’s Project Ears initiative, which includes “tinnitus relief” by embedding tinnitus masking into the device to help relieve the ringing in one’s ears. So, we see Bragi incorporating elements of hearing aids into their devices, just as we saw Starkey incorporating elements of hearable technology into their hearing aids. The two seem to be leveraging each others’ expertise to further differentiate in each’s respective markets.
The second aspect to this announcement, stems from Bragi’s newly announced partnership with Mimi Hearing Technologies. Mimi specializes in “personalized hearing and sound personalization” and as a result, Bragi’s app will include a “scientific hearing test to measure your unique Earprint™.” This is ultimately to say that the hearing test issued by Bragi’s app will be iterated and improved via this partnership with Mimi. Bragi wants to match you as accurately as possible to your own hearing profile, and this announcement shows that they’re continuing to make progress in doing so.
3. Nuheara Unveils New Products & Utilization of NAL-NL2
Nuheara, the hearable start up from down-under, introduced two new products at this year’s show. The first was the LiveIQ, a pair of wireless earbuds that are priced under $200. These earbuds will use some of the same technology that Nuheara’s flagship hearable, IQBuds, use, as well as providing active noise cancelling.
The second device introduced was the IQBuds Boost, which will essentially serve as an upgrade to the current IQBuds. The IQBuds Boost will use what Nuheara has dubbed “EarID™” which will provide for a more “personalized experience unique to the user’s sound profile.” Sounds familiar, right? Bragi’s “Earprint™” technology and Nuheara’s “EarID™” both aim to serve as a way in which the user can further personalize their experience via each company’s companion app.
In addition to the new product announcements, Nuheara also announced a partnership with the National Acoustic Lab (NAL), “to license its international, industry-recognized NAL-NL2 prescription procedure, becoming the only hearable company globally to do this.”
Here’s what Oaktree Product’s in-house PhD audiologist, AU Bankaitis, had to say about the significance of this announcement:
“Kudos to NuHeara for partnering with the National Acoustic Lab (NAL), the research arm of a leading rehabilitation research facility that developed the NAL-NL2 prescriptive formula commonly applied to hearing instruments. It will be interesting to see how this partnership will influence future IQBud upgrades. Whether or not this approach will result in a competitive advantage to other hearables remains to be seen. Research has clearly shown that relying on a fitting algorithm without applying objective verification with probe-mic measurements often times results in missing desired targets for inputs and frequencies most critical for speech. “
4. Qualcomm Introduces New Chipset for Hearables
Some of the most exciting innovation happening in the whole wearable market, and in particular the hearable sub-market, is taking place under the hood of the devices. Qualcomm’s new chipset, the QCC5100, is a good representation of the innovation occurring inside the devices, as these chips will reduce power consumption by 65%, allowing for increased battery life. Per Qualcomm’s SVP of Voice & Music, Andy Murray:
“This breakthrough single-chip solution is designed to dramatically reduce power consumption and offers enhanced processing capabilities to help our customers build new life-enhancing, feature-rich devices. This will open new possibilities for extended-use hearable applications including virtual assistants, augmented hearing and enhanced listening,”
It’s wild to think that it was only back in 2016 (pre-AirPods), when battery life and connectivity stood as major barriers of entry for hearable technology. AirPods’ W1 chip dramatically improved both, and now we see other chip makers rolling out incremental improvements, further reducing those initial roadblocks.
5. Oticon wins Innovation Award for its Hearing Fitness App
Oticon’s upcoming “hearing fitness app” that will be used in conjunction with Oticon’s Opn hearing aids illustrates the potential for this new generation of hearing aids that are able to harness the power of user data. The app gathers data from your hearing aid usage, to allow the user to view their data in an app that looks somewhat similar to fitbit’s slick data readouts. The app will display the user’s hearing aid usage, which can then be used to further enhance the user’s experience based on the listening environments the user is experiencing. So, not only will this empower users, but this will also serve as a great tool for Audiologists to further customize the device for their patient using real data.
Furthermore, this app can integrate other data from other wearable devices, so that all of the data is housed together in one app. It’s important to look at this as another step toward bringing to fruition the idea that hearing aids are undergoing a makeover into multi-function devices, including “biometric data harvesting” to provide actionable insight into one’s data. For example, if my hearing aids are recording my biometric data, and my app notifies me that my heart rate is acting funky or my vitals are going sideways, I can send that data to my doctor and see what she recommends. That’s what this type of app ultimately could be, beyond measuring one’s “hearing fitness.”
What were your favorite takeaways from this year’s show? Feel free to comment or share on twitter!
I will be traveling to the Alexa Conference this week in Chattanooga, Tennessee and will surely walk away from there with a number of exciting takeaways from #VoiceFirst land, so be sure to check back in for another rundown next week.
– Thanks for reading-
Dave
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