[shariqm]

I agree! We're working on this at AudioFocus (YC S19). You can see an old demo here: https://www.audiofocus.io/demo

There are a lot of challenges with putting this in a hearing aid: low latency inference (10ms), small power budget, consistent performance, fault tolerance, etc. Still a fair amount of R&D to be done, but change is coming.

[newyankee]

Is it too difficult to ask for one that distributes the processes between phone/external device, rims of glasses and in the ear speaker. It will go a long way in addressing the issue of stigma and enabling more people to use it early.

[shariqm]

A big hurdle for doing this is latency, every time you hop from one device to another you're adding at least ~10ms of latency if it's over anything like bluetooth. There might a clever way to do it, it's something I'm thinking about but it's too early to say.

For now it looks like it's going to be a behind-the-ear hearing aid. Maybe in 5-10 years it could fit in your ear canal.

[pkaye]

How many microphones do you need to do this filtering? I wear hearing aids myself and if you can do it that that level on a real hearing aid that would be amazing.

[shariqm]

In this demo there is only one microphone on the phone. But we're working on stereo (2) microphones now. That will help make it more reliable, lower latency, and give you spatial awareness (awareness of the direction of sound).

Glad you're excited about it!