Oticon Opn, Internet of Things Hearing Aide

The Internet of Things leaves no stone unturned and this time for a very good reason. Meet Oticon Opn – a hearing aide connected to the Internet of Things.

Oticon Opn, Internet of Things Hearing Aide

The Oticon Opn is great use of the Internet of Things, in my humble opinion. The whole point of the Internet of Things is to make life simpler. So why not combine this revolutionary technology with a device fashioned to do the same for the hearing impaired?

Exactly! The Oticon Opn will be able to recognize when someone rings the doorbell, the smoke detector is going off, or an infant crying through the baby monitor. With the use of If This Then That (IFTTT) Network, the hearing aide will also be able to connect to and control a range of daily devices—from emails and alarms to TVs and laptops – or even movement detected by home security systems. Impressive!

The Oticon Opn will still function as a hearing aide, though rather sophisticated. With the use of Spatial Sound LX, binaural data is transmitted at streaming speed from one ear to the other, ensuring wearer’s are able to receive precise spatial information regarding their environment. The aide is also optimized with OpenSound Navigator which performs a full 360 scan of the sound environment more than 100 times per second. This removes noise and balances sounds, so listeners can focus or switch attention when desired.

The overall benefits of Oticon Opn is 20 percent less listening effort which is actually a strain on the brain in noisy environments. The Opn also allows for better speech understanding while in the most noisy environments, without suppressing surrounding sounds through narrow directionality. As a result, wearer’s have 20 percent more capacity to remember by freeing up their mental resources.

As of now, I’m unsure of when Oticon Opn will hit the market, but I think this is definitely an Internet of Things object worth investing in… if needed.