Waterproof Hearing Aids - Starkey Genesis AI

Take a deep dive into the research and development behind Starkey’s waterproof Genesis AI hearing aids. In this episode, Dave chats with Brian Dahl, Starkey’s Vice President of Quality and Regulatory about the rigorous testing that went into these devices and why moisture is such a big deal for hearing aid wearers. 

Want to learn more about Starkey’s waterproof Genesis AI hearing aids? Check out this white paper and infographic.

Link to full transcript

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Welcome to Starkey Soundbites. I'm Dave Fabry, Starkey's Chief Innovation Officer, and your host. It's summer in Minnesota, the land of 10,000 lakes, and that means that it's pool time and lake time. With that, for many hearing aid users, can come the inconvenience of jumping into the pool or the shower or a lake. And this often in the past has meant bad news for the durability of their hearing aids. But fortunately, we have some good news in this regard, and that's the topic of today's podcast. With me, our guest is Brian Dahl, who's an expert on this topic, among others, in his role as vice president of quality and regulatory at Starkey. Brian, it's a pleasure to have you on today. Thanks, Dave. Glad to be here. So let's dive right into the deep end on this and talk a little bit about moisture and why is this such a big deal for hearing aid wearers?

SPEAKER_01 0:56

So it's interesting. You know, waterproof moisture, that problem has been around ever since the beginning of hearing aids. Uh and is a bit of a historical fact, if you want to dive into that a little bit. Uh, ever since the first transistor was used in hearing aids, so the Shockley semiconductor, those were plagued by moisture and heat. So in the early 50s, when transistors were now the next big technology, uh, the Zenith Corporation introduced transistors. And given their construction and sensitive electronics, they were failing at a high rate. And so that had to be solved. And so they solved it through different packaging or different sealant methodologies. So that was just a single germanium transistor. Now, fast forward about a decade or so when Kilby and Noyce invented the integrated circuit, so further miniaturizing the electronics, those two had moisture problems. And what we see over time is that with miniaturization, sensitive electronics now become more sensitive and problems re-emerge with themselves. So it's been a problem ever since the 50s and the early beginnings of hearing age.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

Even before that. I mean, I would argue as a Wisconsinite, many good things have Wisconsin uh in them. And Kilby, after graduating from the University of Illinois in Champaign, Urbana, uh got his first job uh uh after college at Central Labs in Milwaukee and started working on miniaturization really in 1947. So I'd say it even goes back a decade prior to when he and Noyce, then of Fairchild and later of Texas Instruments, developed the first integrated circuit. But what they discovered, and really what Kilby had as a personal interest, was trying to work on miniaturization while improving the durability. So, I mean, in many cases, personal experience. Kilby had a hearing loss and ultimately contributed with central labs in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to the first transistor hearing aid. And then later that was, of course, uh improved on in many ways, as you say. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

And you know, it's a it's an interesting problem, too, because you have to ask the question why miniaturize? Yeah. Why is it important to do so? And you know, hearing loss by its nature is invisible. So the addition of a device now makes an invisible condition visible. So there's this inherent desire from our patients to make it smaller, to make it uh not seeable by others. The other thing is by having it miniature, it provides you different benefits. So you use less power. Now we can think of two scenarios, right? We could think of our new genesis, which is very, very low power consumption, compared to an old tube amp hearing aid, which used to be the size of a refrigerator. Very different power profile. So it isn't just make it smaller, it's make it more efficient, use that limited power in better ways. So, you know, in a way, when we think of the moisture problem, as we will call it right now, uh, it's been there forever, and we usually see it re-emerge when we reach a new plateau of new technology. So then that brings us to lithium ions. So, you know, five years to about a decade ago, right? That's when we started to see the emergence of those lithium ion batteries in hearing aids. Um, you reach now a new plateau where what was once okay is now no longer, given the new factors and given the convergence of those technologies.

SPEAKER_00 4:24

Indeed. And that rechargeability that you mentioned, you said zinc air was sort of the commonplace battery uh after the early days back in the 20s and 30s when carbon batteries were used. In combination with transistors and integrated circuits, zinc air really became known as the safe battery because it's relatively impervious to anything really bad that can happen if if those batteries get wet. Lithium ion, as you say, changes the bar in terms of rechargeability. And now, as you mentioned, with Genesis, we're able to deliver between 40 and 50 hours, depending upon the style of battery life, but we do need to ensure that those batteries stay dry.

SPEAKER_01 5:07

Right. And and that's a really good comparison. Zinc air to lithium ion. With zinc air, you had an opening. So there was always a pathway for water to get through. In order to be powerful, it had to be. And also, if something went wrong, you could just throw away the battery. So you were disguising problems through a consumer behavior. But with lithium ion, we can now start to enclose the device better and make it extra protected against moisture. And you brought up Genesis. So our new Genesis product. Um, we've added multiple different layers to keep that lithium ion, the circuitry, and everything as dry as possible, because if we keep that safe and dry, then the device will last 51 hours every day throughout the life of the device. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 5:49

In the summers of Minnesota as well as the winters and the summers in Miami and New Orleans and places where there's high humidity. So I think a lot of people don't really think about that combo of the transistor or the integrated circuit with the power supply to make these things portable. And as you mentioned, with zinc air batteries, by design, there had to be uh uh you know seams that allow air in so that the anode and the cathode of the zinc air and the air from the outside can power the battery. But now with that lithium-ion requirements becomes the need to make this impervious to moisture. And I think that's where we've really um driven the engineers on the quality team to ensure that we're encapsulating that battery fully.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Right. And that, you know, if we want to then focus on the Genesis product with our Pro 8 Hydro Shield, you we've taken a very distinctly different approach to waterproofing this device. Uh and essentially that proof is you know not relying on one layer or one design feature to keep water out, having multiple layers, multiple redundant pathways that we know will keep water out in sequence. So saying it differently, it's having multiple insurance policies uh on a given design, right? One layer, if that fails, we've got another layer if that fails, and it keeps going, because in total, that will keep it dry.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

So talking further about this uh Genesis, the development of Genesis, as you said, moisture has always been an issue with hearing aids. And we now um have IP68 rating. Talk a little bit about what IP68 means to the layperson.

SPEAKER_01 7:35

Yeah, so IP68 is an industry standard. So groups of different engineers or different companies, academics get together and they synchronize on different ways of testing uh classes of products so we can have a common reference. So the IP68 is driven by the IEC committees. So that's a standard methodology that people follow. And when you claim IP68 or whichever different degree there is, uh, you're actually claiming against a very strict, highly defined set of conditions. So the first digit is related to dust or solid objects, and at the lowest level, we're talking fingers. So fingers getting into a high voltage electronics box. And then as you go higher, you start to be more resistant to smaller and smaller objects. And the sixth is dust when pulled under vacuum. So it's a really good tool to say how sealed or how enclosed is this device. The second is water, and it isn't as sequential as dust in terms of it's harder. There's actually different criteria. So in some of the lower digits, you're talking raindrops, and then in the higher digits, you're talking full submersion. Now, the eight, the eight is one meter of water for 30 minutes, or technically it's greater than one meter of water and greater than 30 minutes. Now, the one the one issue with the standard though is that when it comes to the IP68, the eight part, uh the standard actually instructs all users to use fresh water. Now we know that our patients don't sweat fresh drinkable water. Right. It's salinated, it's salty, it's conductive. So the test, while good, it doesn't quite tell us exactly what our patients are doing, and it can be, in some ways, misleading.

SPEAKER_00 9:29

So let me just ask a couple clarifying questions. So Genesis devices, custom and standard, are both IP68?

SPEAKER_01 9:39

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

So you mentioned that you know waterproofing hearing aids uh has been a goal for a long time. What took Starkey so long to get there?

SPEAKER_01 9:52

It's a it's a really good question. And you know, I think we would just first start by saying, you know, Starkey didn't want to use that term lightly. And what I mean by that is that waterproof is a very strong word in marketing and in product. Uh but when you start to dig into it, it has a rather loose definition. Yes. And so Starkey wanted it to be waterproof for our patient's life. And as a bit of another historical tangent, um, the idea of proofing something, proofing a product, you could trace that back to the Greek philosophers when they were doing our favorite, you know, geometry proofs we did in high school, or the idea of bulletproof, which came around in the 15th century, where armorers, another technology change from swords to uh to weaponry to they literally shot a bullet at the armor. So there was some objective criteria they were testing against. Uh the same thing with proofing bread. You're showing that the yeast has in fact activated and you now have what hopefully will be a nice tasting piece of bread. So the general idea of proofing something is having an objective criteria you can measure something against. And when we when we started to look at it as the engineering and marketing teams, we said, well, we wanted to make sure it was appropriate and transparently defined for our customers. And we wanted to make it so that they had a device that was waterproof for what they want. Now, what we mean by that is it isn't meant for scuba diving for multiple reasons. One, you won't have any benefit, right? The sound won't go to your ear. But it also isn't designed for that, you know, very extreme case. But it's designed for the showers, the dropping in the pools, or anything like that. That's an incidental case that it's waterproof for. Now you might ask the question if we're saying IP68 is just one of many, how do we define waterproof? Right. And to that, we have really focused on the primary factor which harms hearing aids, which is salinated, salty vapor, or liquid water, because that will corrode metals, cause conductive uh pathways to have batteries drain out, and you might end up with a bad battery life. So we've developed a whole new suite of tests. Um, these tests are focused on cyclical repetitive wear, not only from the water or the moisture itself, but also introducing physical stresses. So uh in some consumer electronic areas, which is a close cousin of hearing aids, uh, a lot of waterproof claims have an asterisk and say only in laboratory conditions. Now we wanted to start to stress it the way our our patients do.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

And there's no standard testing available for that. You know the IP68 is in a controlled laboratory environment. As you said, the water component, that eight uh measure, is with uh uh non-salinated water, fresh water. Um, but we wanted to extend that into the real world. Aaron Ross Powell, Jr.

SPEAKER_01 12:51

Right. And in saying it differently, we had to meet our patients where they were. Sure. Right. We can't bring them into a lab and show them this highly standardized test and they'll understand it. Uh so our test, our new suite of tests, we do have a white paper that we've released because we want to show everyone what we really mean by it. Uh but the biggest theme is that we're stressing the device, we're pushing the buttons, we're twisting it, charging it, we're really using it the way a patient would in reality. So that way we can make sure that it's waterproof for what they expect. Outstanding.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

Yeah, and and as you know, with my custom devices, when we've been on tours, much to your chagrin, I've dropped them into the tube uh for 20, 30 minutes while streaming, pulled them out, dried them off, run self-check, and we're good to go. Maybe the the most I have to do is blow a little on the mic port, maybe uh replace a wax guard, but I haven't had a failure on my Genesis devices when I put them to that severe test, and that's even in the controlled environment. I I think the other point you raise is a very practical one for patients. Now, throughout my career, 40 years this year as an audiologist, I've never punished a patient when they got into the shower, jumped into the pool, or out in the rain with their devices, because number one, it meant they were in their ears. Number two, in particular, if they hopped in the shower, jumped in the pool, they felt comfortable, natural enough, and sounded natural enough that they forgot to pull them out before they did that. In the old days, I might have had to send them in for repair or at least find a bag of rice somewhere or a desiccant. But for me now, with the improvements that we've made on the acoustic sides with Genesis, in combination with this improvement that is a direct descendant of the transistor and integrated circuits, and the improvements in encapsulating that battery means that we can expect, in the matter, that in the manner in which patients are going to use their hearing aids on a day-to-day basis, they're going to be able to be waterproof for their purpose.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

Yeah, and and you know that's a fun thread you pulled on, right? I mean, ultimately that would be Kilby's dream. True. It's now a device that's waterproof, and it's invisible to the user, the way they don't notice it every day. And they're using it, and they happen upon these instances where at, you know, back in the 50s and 60s, it would have been disastrous. And now it's no longer.

SPEAKER_00 15:18

Yeah. And then, you know, you bring up Kilby Noyce. I mean, I think we have to throw Gordon Moore in there too, in terms of um he just died earlier this year, Kilby a few years back. But um the prediction that was made in 1965 about the number of transistors on an integrated circuit doubling every two years held up far longer than than uh Gordon Moore ever thought was going to be the case. But that's really what goes into then the adaptation of these hearing aids to be able to make 80 million adjustments in the background every hour in response to the different acoustic environments that a a patient could encounter with the confidence to know that regardless of whether they're in the rain or the snow or the sleet in Minnesota, of which we get plenty, that they're they're going to keep functioning.

SPEAKER_01 16:07

Right, right. And you and you brought up another point, drying. Yeah. So uh we're asked a lot of questions. Well, if it's waterproof, do I have to dry it? And you know, I think the quick answer to patients is it's like eating your vegetables. It won't hurt, and it's probably good for you. So if you find you know yourself in a situation where you've had, you know, an incident where you've gone in the shower and you're worried about your device lasting, no harm drying. Just follow what you do, use the desiccants. If you have the dryers, use them because it's just generally good for the device. Uh, but we've designed it for those outside cases.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

Got it. So I'm coming back to then to IP68, which I mean, IP68 in itself doesn't mean waterproof. No. But we've developed our own tests in addition in addition to the standardized tests of IP68 that were in excess of IP68. Right. Does does IEC need to update its standard to give some measure of a of a waterproof uh rating? Or are we gonna push them to say include more and more of these tests that we know by comparing to competitive devices? We do really well.

SPEAKER_01 17:22

Yeah. Uh so I I think there's a couple things to think about with that is if it's useful under the circumstances which you want to use it. So if uh let's say we're designing an enclosure for an electronics box that's outside. So you know the boxes that sit on the side of the house, IP68 might be a very useful tool because it's not raining sweaty water, it's raining rainwater. So it might be useful for that application. I I think what's important to note though is that as you know, intelligent consumers, intelligent buyers, we have to think about why are we buying something. And if we are in a situation that exceeds what something is claiming, we have to find an alternative option. So uh I would say it's a way of showing waterproof for some instances, but not all. And in the hearing aid industry, we found that we need to add something that's sweaty and salty and salinated. Now, on the question of are we going to petition to IEC? I haven't thought about it until this point. Um, we do have a bunch of tests that we're we're proud of, and we have finally calibrated to real-time use. Right. Um, so maybe, maybe at some point you could convince me. Um, but we like to keep them, you know, for ours because we want to develop faster than committees.

SPEAKER_00 18:38

Sure. And that's one of the beauties of with the quality team. For those of you who've who are listening and who've been to Starkey on the tech center tours, you know, the the collaboration between mechanical engineering and quality, if there isn't a test for what we want to subject these devices to, we develop it. Right. And and really, like you said, the the spray tests where we're um spraying water is simulating what it would be, regardless whether you're using fresh water or salinated water to simulate humidity, I guess, um, can really subject these devices to the corner cases that hearing aid users might encounter in their daily life. And then the the water drop test and and then talk a little bit of even about you mentioned and alluded that um the manner in which people are using devices that have user controls on them. Um we're not just testing them uh in a static case, but actually uh talk a little bit about some of the dynamic testing.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

Yeah. So first I'll say, you know, there's a huge engineering team that's behind us, right? Um so they're the smart ones doing all the hard work. We just get to talk about it. Yeah. Uh but but to your point of when we find a use case that isn't accurately represented either in a standard or in our own test, we quickly iterate and make that test. And the one we we thought of the most is that uh, you know, our users are using push buttons, right? We want them to. That's an indication that they are happy with the device. When push buttons are pressed, that can cause stress on seals or gaskets or other things inside the device. Or in some designs we've seen across the industry, it literally opens a hole into the device. And if you think of the IP68 test where it's static, underwater, no movement, uh, you can have an artificial seal. So while it may be sealed in the laboratory, in practice, it may not be. So we're now integrating and combining multiple different stresses or different forces into one test where we're not only combining heat, humidity, salt, force, we're pressing it. And then more importantly, we've zoned in specifically on what is the critical attribute to measure. And in a lot of classic instances, you'll take a device, pass the pretest, and then you subject it to stress, and then test it again. And while good and effective, you lose these little subtleties where you know true innovation can happen. And we're now starting to monitor those in situ. And what it's done is it's really raised the bar for us. So now if we start to see a hint of a deviation that's now worthy of action, as opposed to uh, you know, it works before, it works after. You know, we're looking for very precise uh attributes that now classify performance. Got it. Um but again it matters, right? We have to go to that level because things again are smaller and smaller, our patients want more. Yep. And those two trends aren't going to stop, right? They're gonna continue as long as they have so far and continue far into the future. Love it.

SPEAKER_00 21:44

So pragmatic tips. Any um any user tips for professionals or end users related to that ProAate Hydro Shield? Uh, one of the things I notice is that at least on the RICS in some cases, uh Um, getting used to that additional force needed to separate the the receiver from the body of the device feels to me, maybe it's just my imagination, but it feels like it takes a little bit more force because we're really looking to ensure that that connection also doesn't be isn't subjected to corrosive elements.

SPEAKER_01 22:20

Right. Um so if you've ever just me? No, it's it's intentional. So we have raised the force a little bit. Um and if you think of, you know, if you've ever had like those pelican boxes that are really hard to close and you say, well, this thing is, you know, meant to withstand water. Why is there extra force? It's because we want it to be not removed. And when you don't remove it, you keep our seals and our sealants intact. So it is uh a bit of a burden that we've placed onto our professionals. Um but ultimately the intent is it's best for our patients. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_00 22:51

And it's just until you get used to it. It was the first time it's like, oh, okay, I've got to tug a little more. And always my first instinct isn't I'm gonna I'm gonna do something wrong. But uh now that I've been comfortable with it, it's it becomes commonplace. Right.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

And conversely, you have to push a little bit harder to get it in. Snap and it has to go further in. But that's intentional too. We wanted it to be as recessed as possible because the less surface, you have less risk of getting moisture in and so on and so forth.

SPEAKER_00 23:17

And with the new Snapfit receivers that are intelligent, um, you'll know instantly whether you've snapped it on all of the way or not, because it will identify whether it's a left or right receiver, which power it is, if it's an AP, all of that is smart now. But if unless you do that additional little snap, uh it won't read it. So there's confirmation that shows that you've got everything set up, which is another convenience and efficiency of the new SnapFit receivers. Right. Now I want to, you know, we're talking generally moisture resistance, and one of the other things I know that your team is working on is with regards to the rechargeable battery, we have this phenomenal battery life now, 51 hours, 41 or 42 hours for uh the microRIC and the custom devices. We know that we've built in all-day use out of the box and for years into the future, but we also know, similarly, that battery life, you as an EV owner, know that your uh electric vehicle has a shorter battery life in the winters in Minnesota when it's 20 below zero.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

How about for hearing aids?

SPEAKER_01 24:27

Yeah, so it it all follows the same basic laws of chemistry. So lithium ions or different batteries are quite simply unintelligent chemical reactions. On one side, you have a potential of lithium uh atoms, and then when they kick off an electron, they go to the other side of the battery. In the same way that you have uh, we'll go back to bread and yeast. Uh if it's cold in your house, your yeast won't react, your dough won't rise. Same way with lithium ion. If it's cold or if it gets too cold, you lose that ability for the lithium to move. Now we've taken that all into consideration. Um, so that way within the operating temperatures which you find on the box, it will function just fine. Uh but you bring up a good point over time. And so the biggest question we hear is well, what's my battery life at three, four, five years? And due to the chemical nature and just due to physical breakdown, over time, batteries will reduce their capacity. And there's two primary mechanisms that cause it. The first one, within the materials of the battery, there's separators and different barriers. Things can break down. Think of it like your tire on a car where you drive a lot, things just start to break. And that breakdown causes uh resistance to having lithium atoms move. If they don't move, you don't get electrons. Uh same thing. Sometimes the lithium can get stuck. So chemistry, atoms attracting each other, they can just get stuck and they refuse to go the other side. Uh so over time, you will see this characteristic degradation of a lithium ion's capacity. Now we work with our vendors, we work uh with some of the best uh battery suppliers out there. And what we know with our Genesis products is that at year five, we'll be at 80% capacity. So you do quick math, puts you around 40, 41 hours at year five. Um quite a lot of charge still.

SPEAKER_00 26:24

We at in year five, compared to our closest competitor today, we're still gonna have greater battery life on a single charge than our closest competitor does out of the box. Right.

SPEAKER_01 26:35

And and it's it kind of hints at our thesis we've taken with this product. So a lot of people say, well, why do I need 51? Why do I need 41? And there might be corner cases where people want to go multiple days without charging. Or cross by cross, 29 hours. Right. That's um but the general thesis was just add so much energy to this device that we're raising that bar. We start at a higher level. So when we take into account the natural physical chemical breakdown, we'll still end up at a very, very high level of charge, even at year five.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

Yeah, and coming back around to moisture, I've seen the setup. We're testing in low people don't think that it's humid in Minnesota in the winter, but there's condensation, which is a different type of moisture that can occur if that battery is not encapsulated. I know you're testing at cold temperatures. The body is a pretty good insulator to help the battery life in those cold days, and because of body heat and it's worn in or on the ear. But condensation, again, a different type of moisture problem. I know you're testing those.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

And this again gets on that theme of miniaturization. So when you start to look at the size of our electronic components, you know, one single raindrop, if the device is unprotected. So there's no seals, there's no top case, there's no anything uh nanocoding on the circuit board, one raindrop could be enough to cause problems. And conversely, fog or mist might be enough in some designs to cause problems. So that's why we have to have multiple layers because things are getting smaller, they're getting closer. There's a higher uh burden for signal integrity on those. So, yeah, it's we've talked about the butterfly effect.

SPEAKER_00 28:15

This is the raindrop effect. I like that. And so the raindrop effect can cascade into bigger quality and reliability and durability issues, and I'm grateful for you and your team working on this. And I feel my okay boomer moment for the day is uh from Paul Harvey. Now we know the rest of the story with really a debt of gratitude to Kilby, Noyce, Gordon Moore, and a host of other individuals, acknowledging the team that were really developing transistors, integrated circuits that made hearing aids more dependable, smaller, more reliable in conditions, extreme conditions. I say the ear is a hostile work environment. And um, you know, and I'm grateful uh for you and your team and the expanded team that has been working on making these devices as bulletproof and waterproof as possible. And I'm also grateful to my high school chemistry and math teachers and my college chemistry and math teachers for helping me understand proofs. And thank you for going through that uh history. As you know, I I, like you, uh enjoy digging to the root mean cause of some things and seeing where the genesis, pun intended, of an idea or of a concept or of a product uh was was found. Excellent. So I'm grateful for you to spend the time with us today unpacking this for, if you will, a deep dive on uh the waterproofing and moisture resistance and IEC IP ratings. And for our listeners, I'm grateful for you uh for listening uh consistently and seeing us in this case with Soundbites for those of you watching on YouTube. Um if you enjoyed this episode of Soundbites, please rate and review uh and even share with your friends, colleagues, networks, uh, for those who are interested in really why it is that there's so much technology that goes into developing and designing for the hearing aids, not only at the point of delivery, but for five years down the road. And if you have ideas about other topics or other experts like Brian that we can bring in to talk about the rest of the story, um we'd be delighted to do so. So thank you, Brian. Uh, if you do want to send an email uh with your ideas, send it to soundbites at Starkey.com. And Brian, I'm grateful for you uh in your appearance today on Soundbites. Thanks for having me, Dave. You got it. Look forward to seeing and hearing from you again.