Future Ear Radio

Guests: Kat Penno - Audiologist & Founder of the Hearing Collective; Andy Bellavia, Director of Market Development at Knowles Corp

Topic: The Hearing Collective & Pushing the Boundaries of Hearing Health

Kat and Andy return to the podcast this week to continue their discussion from 6 months ago during episode 48. This time, the three discuss Blamey & Saunders, an Australian based company that pioneered a variety of remote services and online offerings, which segues into Kat sharing more about her business, The Hearing Collective, which was largely inspired by Blamey & Saunders. 

Much of the conversation revolves around the notion of constantly pushing the boundaries in hearing health and honing in on various ways to do so. The group speaks about utilizing new software and providing patients with the latest and greatest ancillary solutions to enhance the overall value proposition and increase the patient's satisfaction.

Guests: Nancy Tye-Murray, PhD - Founder & CEO of Amptify; Chris Cardinal - President & COO of Amptify; Amyn Amlani, PhD - Owner of Otolithic Consulting; Bob Traynor, AuD - Longtime Audiologist & Private Practice Owner at Audiology Associates

Topic: Future of Hearing Health Panel Discussion - Business Model Innovation

This week's episode features the second panel discussion that Dave moderated at the Future of Hearing Health virtual conference in March. During this panel discussion, the four panelists + Dave as the moderator, discuss the evolving business models in the hearing health industry and the future economics pertaining to the hearing healthcare provider. 

Topics discussed throughout this conversation include: new technologies and ancillary offerings to include in one's scope of service, new methods of testing and gathering patient data, the role of remote services and different ways to bill for them, re-examining the AuD program and the student debt dilemma, the growing demand for assistants and technicians, business acumen for HCPs, how professional service might be layered onto the OTC offering, and enhanced training programs for specialty offerings. 

Episode Transcript: here

Guests: Annette Mazevski, PhD - Manager of Technology Assessment at Oticon; Kevin Setiz-Paquette, AuD - Director of Phonak Audiology Research Center; Brent Edwards, PhD - Director at National Acoustic Labs; Ryan Kraudel - VP Marketing at Valencell

Topic: Future of Hearing Health Panel Discussion - Hearing Device Innovation

This week features a panel discussion that was recorded in March 2021 for the Future of Hearing Health Virtual Conference. During this panel discussion, the four panelists + Dave as the moderator, discuss the current state of hearing device innovation, and look toward what's on the horizon for hearables and hearing aids. 

Topics discussed throughout this conversation include: artificial intelligence-based hearing solutions, biometric sensor integration and sensor fusion, the role and impact of the Big Tech (Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc) on hearing health, Bluetooth connectivity and proliferation, interconnected healthcare solutions, the rising status of hearing care providers in the broader healthcare ecosystem, and the trajectory of online and remote services.

Episode Transcript

Guest: Lena Kyman, AuD, Clinical Trainer at Phonak

Topic: Life as a Clinical Trainer

Lena joins Dave on the podcast this week to share her journey of becoming an audiologist, working inside a private practice for six years, and now working as a clinical trainer who spends her time training fellow audiologists on Phonak's technology. 

Lena provides a unique perspective derived from her time working in private practice and now within one of the major hearing aid manufacturers. She shares some of the most frequently discussed questions and issues that are had by many audiologists, many of which pertain to Bluetooth connectivity. The two discuss why Bluetooth is a double-edged sword, proving difficult and frustrating in some instances, but a true enabler for a better patient experience and point out that it's part of the patient expectation here in 2021. 

The conversation spans many different aspects of the valuable role that clinical trainers play in the field of hearing health. 

Episode Transcript

Guests: Giles Tongue, CEO at Chatable Apps; Andy Bellavia, Director of Market Development at Knowles Corp

Topic: The Quest for Near-Zero Latency in Hearables

Giles and Andy join Dave this week on the podcast to discuss one of the opportunities that AI-based hearing solutions present, solving speech-in-noise, as well as the biggest challenge that these solutions face, which is latency. 

For a long time, solving speech-in-noise has been at the top of the list of many hearing professionals' wish lists, and finally, we might be at the onset of a new wave of solutions that can harness the power of artificial intelligence to help solve this issue. These solutions however, rely on complex calculations and processing power, which can cause latency, or a time-delay while the sound is being processed. 

The three talk through some of the ways and techniques that latency can be reduced to the point where it's indistinguishable by the wearer, and how these kind of solutions might ultimately manifest in the market.  

Episode Transcript

Dave is joined this week by Bradley Metrock, CEO of Project Voice. In January, Bradley kicked off a tour of 35 cities across the US, Project Voice Coast-to-Coast, where he has been stopping at each destination to meet with members of the voice community. At the point of recording, Bradley had just hit his 25th city, St. Louis, where he sat down with me to share what this experience has been like.

During the discussion, Bradley shares stories from the road, including some of who he's had a chance to meet with, what it's been like traveling during the pandemic, the disparity between cities at this point in time, the future of events, the role of virtual events today and into the future, and more. A long conversation the spans a wide variety of topics.

Guests: David Eagleman, Neuroscientist at Stanford and Co-founder/CEO of Neosensory; Jacque Scholl, clinical Audiologist; Kevin Liebe, clinical Audiologist and President/CEO at HearingHealthMatters.org 

Topic: Neosensory's Buzz and The Next Generation of Hearing Science

Dave is joined this week by David Eagleman, neuroscientist and NYT best-selling author, and two audiologists, Jacque Scholl and Kevin Liebe, to talk about David's company, Neosensory, and the wrist-worn wearable the company has designed for the deaf and hard-of-hearing community, The Buzz.

The Buzz converts ambient sound into haptic vibrations using vibratory motors. The idea is that as the user continually wears The Buzz for extended periods of time, the user's brain will naturally begin to re-wire itself to better process and make sense of the subtleties in vibrations and what each vibration represents. This device stems from the research and work David has been conducting in his lab for years around sensory substitution, which he goes into thorough detail about throughout his newest NYT best-selling book, Livewired. 

Jacque provides the perspective of both an audiologist and a mother to a 13 year old deaf daughter, Jade, who has been wearing The Buzz for months. According to Jacque, Jade has seen a dramatic increase in her speech improvement and ability to discriminate speech. In addition, The Buzz serves as a body-worn alerting device as it helps to notify Jade that there are sounds coming from behind her or in the distance. As Kevin mentions, The Buzz provides "tri-modal" communication as it complements speech and lip-reading as a third modality to provide even more context to the user.

Transcript: here

Guests: Alan Davis, CPO at Nuheara; Andy Bellavia, Director of Market Development at Knowles Corp

Topic: Building a Successful Hearable at Nuheara

Alan joins Andy and Dave on the podcast this week to talk through the first 5 years at Nuheara as the Chief Product Officer and how his team of engineers was able to successfully build and iterate three separate versions of Nuheara's flagship hearing-enhancement hearable, IQ Buds. During this conversation, the three discuss some of the biggest challenges that plagued the hearable industry just a short while ago, how companies like Nuheara were able to solve those dilemmas, and some of the key lessons learned from these formative first years. 

Nuheara is one of the biggest success stories in the hearables ecosystem, as the company not only survived the initial period, but are in as strong of a position as ever coming off the company's best earnings period yet. As the three discuss, there are many exciting innovations on the horizon that Nuheara should be well suited to incorporate into their future product offerings.

Episode Transcript

Guest: Anna Rosen, Enterprise Solutions Engineer at Voiceflow

Topic: Voiceflow 2.0 & The Democratization of Conversational App Creation

Anna joins Dave this week to break down the big update to Voiceflow's conversational AI platform, V2. Voiceflow is a prototyping and design tool that allows teams of designers and developers to bring ideas to life and test their conversational AI creations in robust ways before deploying to various channels & modalities. These channels now include everything from Alexa/Google Assistant/Siri, to SMS, Slack, Twilio, Facebook Messenger, and more, while the modalities have expanded beyond smart-speakers, to in-car experiences and mobile applications.

Anna and Dave talk through some of the major developments that were revealed and how Voiceflow's all-in-one tool is helping to enable conversational AI teams collaborate and work together remotely, whether that be in real-time or asynchronously. As the two discuss, some of the major challenges that conversational AI teams face are rooted in communication breakdowns between designers and developers, which is why V2 had such a major emphasis on building feature sets that enable a more unified language between the two. In essence, V2 enhances speed, efficiency and communication.

Ultimately, what makes Voiceflow so special is that it caters to any level of builder, from experienced developers/designers to first-timers. It's truly helping to democratize conversational app creation and grow the ecosystem. 

Episode Transcript

Guests: Luke Pearce, Market Analyst (Consumer Audio) at Futuresource Consulting; Andy Bellavia, Director of Market Development at Knowles Corp

Topic: Breaking Down Hearables' Massive Growth in 2020 & What's on the Hearables' Horizon

Luke and Andy sit down with Dave this week to talk through Futuresource's 2020 Hearables Market Report, citing the key findings and then talking through some of the major trends indicated in the data. 

Major trends discussed are:

- People buying a second or third hearable device for different use cases and situations

- The current status of voice tech integration into hearables

- The growing demand for "conversational enhancement" and amplification hearable features within the consumer market

- The trajectory of biometric monitoring features, biometric data visualization, and the preventative health use cases built off bio data

The three each share their perspectives on these topics and provide their opinions on what comes next now that the era of hearables is truly upon us.

Episode Transcript