$1 Hearing Aid Could Treat Millions With Hearing Loss 83
Saad Bhamla, an undergraduate in Mumbai, India, has invented a do-it-yourself hearing aid made from inexpensive, easy-to-find parts. "At bulk rates, Bhamla says, it would cost just under $1 to make," reports Science Magazine. "But anyone with the freely available blueprints and a soldering iron can make their own for not much more -- maybe $15 or $20, Bhamla says." From the report: Inspired by his grandparents and a hearing-impaired colleague -- who is the first author on the new paper -- Bhamla and his team set out to develop a cheap hearing aid built with off-the-shelf parts. They soldered a microphone onto a small circuit board to capture nearby sound and added an amplifier and a frequency filter to specifically increase the volume of high-pitch sounds above 1000 hertz. Then they added a volume control, an on/off switch, and an audio jack for plugging in standard earphones, as well as a battery holder. The device, dubbed LoCHAid, is the size of a matchbox and can be worn like a necklace.
Next, Bhamla and his colleagues tested the device. They found that it boosted the volume of high-pitch sounds by 15 decibels while preserving volumes at lower pitches. It also filtered out interference and sudden, loud sounds like dog barks and car horns. Finally, tests with an artificial ear revealed that LoCHAid might improve speech recognition, by bringing conversations closer to the quality heard by healthy individuals. It complied with five out of six of the World Health Organization's preferred product recommendations for hearing aids, the researchers report today in PLOS ONE. There are some drawbacks. The device can't be fine-tuned for individual needs, and the researchers anticipate that LoCHAid's parts will wear out after about a year and a half. It's also bulky, though a smaller version is in development.
Bhamla notes that it needs to be clinically tested before his device can be sold as a "hearing aid" in the United States.
Next, Bhamla and his colleagues tested the device. They found that it boosted the volume of high-pitch sounds by 15 decibels while preserving volumes at lower pitches. It also filtered out interference and sudden, loud sounds like dog barks and car horns. Finally, tests with an artificial ear revealed that LoCHAid might improve speech recognition, by bringing conversations closer to the quality heard by healthy individuals. It complied with five out of six of the World Health Organization's preferred product recommendations for hearing aids, the researchers report today in PLOS ONE. There are some drawbacks. The device can't be fine-tuned for individual needs, and the researchers anticipate that LoCHAid's parts will wear out after about a year and a half. It's also bulky, though a smaller version is in development.
Bhamla notes that it needs to be clinically tested before his device can be sold as a "hearing aid" in the United States.
In America, will cost $100 (Score:5, Interesting)
The Hearing Air business is notoriously corrupt.
First, they have extremely high margins.
Second, they negotiate higher prices for insurance and Medicare than they offer to uninsured retail stores. That is, if you go in to buy one, tell them you have no insurance and they will actually charge you less money than if you give them your insurance.
Re: (Score:2)
> The Hearing Air business is notoriously corrupt.
Hearing aids, prescription glasses, healthcare in general, student loans... see a pattern.
Re: In America, will cost $WASTIKAS!!! (Score:2)
So you are the anonymous coward that has been posting all those swastikas recently? Your parents must be proud.
Re: (Score:1)
Yep, I've noticed it for years. Ever try to arrange cochlear surgery with the hospital and offer cash? They won't give you a quote, even though you are the patient.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Well, the smell of weed emenating from the footlocker of crumpled $20 bills might have given them pause . . .
Re: (Score:2)
Hearing aids, prescription glasses, healthcare in general, student loans... see a pattern.
Yes, the pattern is that they are all heavily regulated industries with government-mandated barriers to competition.
Re: (Score:2)
The Hearing Air business is notoriously corrupt.
So far, this doesn't involve the hearing aid business, except peripherally. Keep watch for lawsuits that claim that amplifying sound for the purposes of better hearing infringes someone's copyright.
Re: (Score:2)
The Hearing Air business is notoriously corrupt.
So far, this doesn't involve the hearing aid business, except peripherally. Keep watch for lawsuits that claim that amplifying sound for the purposes of better hearing infringes someone's copyright.
Patents are more likely what they'll claim it infringes upon. I expect there's some regulation that requires it to be able to be tunable to be declared a "hearing aid" in the good ole US of A, making this effectively not marketable as a "hearing aid". Maybe "Assisted Listening Device"?
Re: (Score:2)
It's not that it would have be tunable, it's the amount of amplification it can provide. If they sell it as a "hearing amplifier", which you can already buy today at Wal-mart, they'll be fine. The difference between those and hearing aids, which are regulated, is the amount of amplification (or how much "volume") it can provide. Of course, this also means it will only be suitable for people with mild hearing losses - for people with more severe hearing losses it simply won't be loud enough.
Re: (Score:2)
First, they have extremely high margins.
Every niche product does by necessity.
Second, they negotiate higher prices for insurance and Medicare than they offer to uninsured retail stores.
That's the USA medical system for you. In 1st world companies product prices are set, not negotiated. This has nothing to do with hearing aid being corrupt and rather is completely standard practice in the USA Medical Industrial Complex.
Re:In America, will cost $100 (Score:4, Informative)
>"That's the USA medical system for you. In 1st world companies product prices are set, not negotiated. This has nothing to do with hearing aid being corrupt and rather is completely standard practice in the USA Medical Industrial Complex."
Yep. Made possible by regulation and insurance. Prices rise and choice evaporates when consumers don't know the prices, can't negotiate, aren't the ones paying, and can't go where they want. Those are overlooked in the name of safety, efficacy, and (supposedly) accessibility. It is hard to have everything you want, but nothing corrupts things more than shifting consumers out of the driver's seat.
Re:In America, will cost $100 (Score:5, Informative)
In part it's because of a stupid decision made in the 1970s, that insurance companies can only earn profit based as a percentage of their expenses. At first glance this looks like a good idea, keep the insurance cartels (there has never been anything like a free market in the US insurance industry) from raising rates beyond what is reasonable. The actual effect has been to encourage waste and inefficiency, since the more they spend the more they are allowed to earn in profit. They would much rather earn 4% of a $100,000 procedure than 4% of a $10,000 one, and the bureaucracy in their internal operations raises the cost even more.
Re: (Score:2)
They would much rather earn 4% of a $100,000 procedure than 4% of a $10,000 one, and the bureaucracy in their internal operations raises the cost even more.
Yes, but the problem there is if they always pay $100k rather than $10k, then they lose money quickly rather than make any profit.
Re: (Score:3)
The Hearing Air business is notoriously corrupt.
First, they have extremely high margins.
Second, they negotiate higher prices for insurance and Medicare than they offer to uninsured retail stores. That is, if you go in to buy one, tell them you have no insurance and they will actually charge you less money than if you give them your insurance.
The entire notion of for-profit healthcare is morally bankrupt.
If a business is for-profit then ultimately getting profits trumps other considerations. And sure one could drag in that in small business situations the owners often make moral decisions over profit motives but that isn't material here because while that can happen at a micro scale, at a macro scale, the one motive that emerges is profit. And in the case of publicly traded corporations, they have a legal responsibility to do anything remotely
Re: (Score:2)
>"If a business is for-profit then ultimately getting profits trumps other considerations."
Which is fine if there is competition and free/informed consumers.
Both are severely suppressed by regulation and insurance. It is why the free market starts to fail. Prices rise and choice evaporates when consumers don't know the prices, can't negotiate, aren't the ones paying, and can't go where they want.
Re:In America, will cost $100 (Score:5, Informative)
they have a legal responsibility to do anything remotely legal to put the financial interests of the share holders above all.
No, they don't. MBAs are taught to do that in their Business Ethics courses, but it's not the law. It is the result of executive pay structures that reward rising share prices above all, not legal fiat. If it were actually the law every company would be Walmart.
Re: (Score:2)
they have a legal responsibility to do anything remotely legal to put the financial interests of the share holders above all.
No, they don't. MBAs are taught to do that in their Business Ethics courses, but it's not the law. It is the result of executive pay structures that reward rising share prices above all, not legal fiat.
Plus one other thing: Shareholders can try to sue if they think the company is not adhering to their fiduciary responsibility to maximize shareholder value. IANAL so I might not have the words exactly right.
--
.nosig
Re: (Score:2)
They can try to sue, but they have to prove dereliction of duty or some such (IANAL either).
Up until the 1970s almost every state had wording in their legal codes to the effect that any company incorporated in their state had a duty to be a responsible "corporate citizen". Of course that's all been stripped out over the years, not surprisingly.
Re: (Score:3)
...Second, they negotiate higher prices for insurance and Medicare than they offer to uninsured retail stores. That is, if you go in to buy one, tell them you have no insurance and they will actually charge you less money than if you give them your insurance.
And I'm guessing that quite a few people don't know to at least try this for every basic medical procedure.
I have insurance. The first question out of my mouth is still "Do you accept cash or check?", just to see the price. Sadly, I've saved hundreds of dollars over the years by simply asking.
Yeah, it does piss me off. Because I pay thousands for that "good" insurance of mine. I don't mind feeding profit. I mind feeding corrupt profit.
Re: (Score:3)
The Hearing Air business is notoriously corrupt.
First, they have extremely high margins. Second, they negotiate higher prices for insurance and Medicare than they offer to uninsured retail stores. That is, if you go in to buy one, tell them you have no insurance and they will actually charge you less money than if you give them your insurance.
Some of them sell the same devices not as hearing aids, but as "hearing enhancement" sporting equipment, for about 1/4-1/3 the cost. The in-ear sort are custom fit to your ear canals and effectively block most external sound. Loud gunshots are attenuated by the canal-filling device, and not transmitted to the ear electronically, while normal-volume sounds such as speech are retransmitted to your eardrums. Apply a tweak to turn up the gain and you have an audio-enhancing device for artificially sharpening yo
Re: (Score:2)
You can get them even cheaper than that.
$17
https://www.dickssportinggoods... [dickssportinggoods.com]
Re: (Score:2)
You can get them even cheaper than that.
$17 https://www.dickssportinggoods... [dickssportinggoods.com]
Yeah, but those aren't factory-adjusted according to a hearing test done by medical professionals. The cheap ones really are just hearing enhancers, the expensive ones like I linked are actually full-on hearing aids, just being sold as sporting equipment as an end run around the costs imposed by FDA licensing, etc.
Re: (Score:1)
what is the BOM? the schmatic? (Score:2)
I didn't want to pick apart a zip of "blueprintd" on my phone. Any short info on the design and components? Is this an op amp and some small SMT filter circuit. Or is it a budget IC repurposed as a hearing aid amplifier?
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Two budget ICs, max9814 for the input, max98306 for the output. So, about $4 for the boards and another $2 for the connectors and you're good to go.
Bonus: it will fit well under your nice silver brain-protection gear.
Re: (Score:2)
Bonus: it will fit well under your nice silver brain-protection gear.
That tin-foil hat might just cut down on RF-induced noise, esp. for people who live near a powerful AM transmitter tower.
At least that's my excuse now.
Re: (Score:2)
Lol that's what I thought. A basic microphone amplifier is a really trivial circuit that even someone like me without engineering education could put it together. Let alone connecting two ICs. The issue really is that this isn't enough to make a good hearing aid because people can have different issues and just making everything louder might not help much.
Re: (Score:3)
An actual hearing aid would be tailored to your hearing loss curve. I suspect it's done via software or a DSP now.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Even old hearing aids had an audio induction loop called a T-Coil [wikipedia.org] that lets you use telephones or hear PA announcements in a doctor's office.
Re: (Score:2)
Guy doesn't seem to understand git or version control, his repo is literally just one .zip file. Does not bode well but I suppose many scientists are really bad at computer stuff.
Re: (Score:2)
This is not a product for corporate manufacture, it's supposed to be something to benefit the poor. I'll guarantee you that 90% of entrepreneurs in India or Brasil don't understand git or version control either, but they can open a zip file and follow basic instructions to make something that will benefit their neighbors and be affordable.
If you want a more complex and higher quality hearing aid this is not for you. It's for the old farmer with a couple of cows and a hectare of pumpkins who can't afford m
Hear's 1 (Score:4, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
Does it support bluetooth 5.1 and aptX? How do these compare to Beats headphones... is the noise cancelling better than Bose Quiet Comfort? /s
Re: (Score:2)
Is it FDA approved? A mock hearing aid will actually cause hearing damage rather than compensate your hearing loss. There's a reason these things cost money. Expect this to be nothing at all like $1 by the time it is finished.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
And a deaf person who cannot hear, stands a good chance of being hit by a car or motorcycle in India, or anyplace dirt poor.
And someone who can still hear slightly stands a good chance of actually going deaf if not *correctly* fitted with an appropriate hearing aid.
The man does need encouragement, but again $1 is either a fantasy or a danger.
Re: (Score:2)
Is it FDA approved?
From the fine summary:
Re: (Score:2)
One of the problem with many cheap mock hearing aids is they just amplify everything. Most people with hearing losses can hear fine at lower frequencies, but have trouble with higher frequencies. Put on a mock hearing aid and turn the volume up so you can hear the high frequencies, and now you're damaging your good hearing at low frequencies. At least with this device they were smart enough to recognize this and threw in a high pass filter, so while it's still going to be one-size-fits-all it's already q
Re: (Score:2)
Here's one that doesn't need batteries (Score:4, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
You forgot to include the tech graphic [imgur.com].
You also seem to think that YouTube as forgotten you!:
Hey, @TeamYouTube
! I still can't set a one-line caption (song title by band name) on two of my music only videos. Your new system can't generate the time settings and I can't manually set the captions. This is my third tweet about the issue and sent feedback on both videos.
Don't worry, my friend who works at YouTube told me that since you enjoy posting the same thing over and over all over the Internet, they will wait until your 64th tweet about this issue to reply to you.
Also, I was on the phone with Casey last night and funnily enough, he told me that he hasn't got time to answer all the no names like yourself who try to gain visibility by pretending they are buddies on Tweeter.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What, no electronics? That cannot be worth anything!
Re: (Score:2)
* I've had Arduino kids swear that there's no such thing as analog electronics anymore. Imagine how much fun it was explaining how digital wouldn't exist without analog.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Harmless Trollololol!
Ha ha.
It's still everywhere actually, but it's not spectacular, it's in places you don't think about like power supplies. They may even be digitally controlled, but they're entirely analog/linear circuitry otherwise. Also even with 'software defined radio' you still have to have an RF section of some sort or another in the front end feeding signals to the DSP. Same goes for WiFi, Bluetooth, Cellular -- anything that uses radio signals. GPS receivers especially, since GPS satellite signals are just a skoosh
Re: (Score:2)
What?
FTFY.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Does that boost certain frequencies more than others? Is it programmable? Can it be used hands-free? Will it pick up sound from multiple directions at once, allowing participation in a multi-person conversation?
Sorry, I'm being silly. Imagine wanting more features than some polished brass can offer.
Re: (Score:2)
There is an App for that (Score:2)
LoCHAid (Score:1)
When your device is called LoCHAid, you have low sales expectations in former USSR countries.
Hear to say this. (Score:4, Funny)
WHAT???
Re: (Score:2)
"Can you hear me now?" --https://duckduckgo.com/?kl=us-en&q=verizon+"can+you+hear+me"
Original Form (Score:2)
An External box with batteries and an amplifier connected to a pair of headphones? Wasn't that the original form of (electric) hearing aids?
My Grampa got a cheap thing like that from some chinese outlet - to watch TV as he didn't want to admit that he needs a proper hearing aid. I later used it as a "spy toy" ...
Useless for my hearing... (Score:2)
... since I need bone conduction types without implants. The digital types are really expensive and not good compared to analog types. :(
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I am using powerful hearing aids like from Oticon (Medical too).
15 dB is not alot of amplification. (Score:2)
For significant loss you need more like 30-60 dB
Re: (Score:2)
Many older people it's not overall loss it's reduction in a narrow band of frequencies that simply make it hard to understand, i.e., they can hear the sounds but have trouble making out exactly what was said because they are losing distinction between phonemes.
Re: (Score:2)
Which this is useless for, because you can't fine-tune it for specific loss profiles.
Let alone not having access to the testing environment and equipment you need to figure out that loss profile in the first place.
The problem with generic amplification is that everything, instead of sounding muddy and indistinct, just sounds muddy, indistinct, and loud.
Citation: wears hearing aids.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, you're right, if they can't afford a $2000 Miracle Ear hearing aid then they don't have hearing loss.
This is not a customizable product for people living in rich countries, this is a tool for people who make under $5,000 a year to enable them to understand what people are saying. This is probably better than the hearing aid my great grandfather used in the 1960s, and priced so that an Andean dirt farmer could afford it.
You need to learn what life is like outside your cozy rich environment, I recommen
Re: (Score:3)
The point I'm trying to make is that for a lot of people, this actually won't let them 'understand what people are saying' any better.
The article says that this is a "1$ hearing aid." I'm trying to point out that it's not a 'hearing aid' in the way the term is used, any more than an abacus is a 'computer.' Yes, you can argue that at it's base, an abacus is in fact a computer, which it is, but it ignores the fact that when somebody says 'computer' they mean an actual PC-like device that does modern computi
Re: (Score:2)
it is not a 'hearing aid'
Then you fundamentally do not understand the relationship between extreme poverty and healthcare. My brother-in-law's neighbor is in his 90's and can no longer hold a conversation because he can't hear the upper ranges correctly any longer. He will never be able to afford what you call a hearing aid, but if he can spend $10 on something that would amplify the portion of a voice that he can no longer hear, even if there is a lot more amplification of stuff he doesn't need, it would change his life.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
You need to learn what life is like outside your cozy rich environment, I recommend traveling for a few months while spending less than $30 a day. (That's what worked for me.)
So that what did it to you, good to know... BTW, is $30/day really poverty-level in many poor countries? There are many countries where people earn a fraction of that per day...
Re: (Score:2)
Poverty level? No, it was actually under $15/day, which was probably double the minimum wage in Peru at the time. I doubled it to account for inflation.
I was poor in the US, it took me seven years to save two grand, and I sold my motorcycle for plane fare, my intent was to stretch it out as long as possible. My plane ticket was good for five months, and by taking local buses, eating at the market, and staying in hotels that cost as little as $0.76/day I flew back the day it expired and arrived in the Sta
Re: (Score:2)
You're correct that you can't fine tune it like the big money options do but it does focus on the higher frequency ranges so your assessment of the results is not entirely correct.
As some others have said, for people where even $100 isn't an option, this could be a life-changer.
Already available (Score:2)
Now you've got me thinking... (Score:1)
My father-in-law is seriously hard of hearing (read: almost deaf). He has hearing aids that ran him >$2400 that he has trouble using, and often don't work well. A low-cost project like this with additional processing to tune the amplification for his particular hearing would be a great thing for his family.
Hearing Aid Filter (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
It just has an AGC. So it can't "cause ear damage" like some of the naysayers above claim.
The interesting part is that it "wears out after a year and a half". Still trying to figure that out. Maybe there's a non-replaceable battery in it.