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Hearing Aid Revolution: Unlocking the Power of Waterproof Technology

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What if you could protect your hearing aids from moisture damage, ensuring their longevity and reliability? Join us as we uncover the secrets behind waterproof hearing aid technology with Starkey's Chief Innovation Officer, Dr. Dave Fabry, and Brian Dahl, Vice President of Quality and Regulatory at Starkey. Discover the fascinating history of hearing aid technology, the journey of miniaturization, and the groundbreaking features of Starkey's new Genesis AI hearing aid, designed to be truly waterproof.

Dive into the world of IP68 waterproofing standards and learn how Starkey pushes the limits of their devices to meet these rigorous requirements. Dave and Brian discuss Starkey's extensive suite of tests, simulating real-world patient use, and share their approach to waterproofing that involves multiple layers of protection to keep moisture out. Delve deeper into the engineering and testing behind this revolutionary technology.

Finally, get practical tips on maintaining and protecting your waterproof hearing aids. As miniaturization continues to push the boundaries of what's possible in hearing aid design, it's essential to understand how to properly care for these devices. Don't miss this episode packed with valuable information for anyone interested in the latest advancements in hearing aid technology.

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Blaise Delfino:

You're tuned in to the Hearing Matters podcast, the show that discusses hearing technology, best practices and a growing national epidemic hearing loss. Before we kick this episode off, a special thank you to our partners Cycle, built for the entire hearing care practice. Weave, the all-in-one patient communication and engagement platform. Redux faster, drier, smarter, verified FaderPlugs the world's first custom adjustable earplug. Welcome back to another Hearing Matters podcast episode. I'm your host, blazdel Fino, and we have quite the surprise for you all today.

Blaise Delfino:

You might be a hearing aid user and you enjoy hiking, kayaking, really anything outdoors. or maybe you just live a very active lifestyle and you're on this hike and your hearing aids start to kind of cut out. Maybe they're not sounding as clear or crisp. Well, chances are, you may have flooded the hearing aid with sweat perspiration. or maybe your hearing aids are so comfortable you accidentally jumped into your pool And now you're going to start to get the bag of rice out and just hope that your hearing aids are not dead.

Blaise Delfino:

Those days are over, because Starkey just released or I should say recently released the Starkey Genesis AI hearing aids and drumroll, please. they are waterproof. However, did I ever think in my years as a hearing care professional and or audio file. think that hearing aids would indeed be waterproof. and how are they waterproof? I thought you couldn't go beyond IP68. Well, those are just myths. at this point, because Starkey did release their waterproof hearing aid, they re-engineered this hearing aid from the inside out And, without further ado, i would like to share the conversation that Dr Dave Fabry, starkey's Chief Innovation Officer, had with Brian Dahl, vp of Quality and Regulatory at Starkey. So, without further ado, dr Fabry and Brian take it away.

Speaker 3:

So it's interesting, waterproof moisture. That problem has been around ever since the beginning of hearing aids And, as a bit of a historical fact, if you want to dive into that a little bit, 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, 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 reemerge with themselves. So it's been a problem ever since the 50s, in the early beginnings of hearing aids.

Speaker 2:

Even before that I mean, i would argue as a Wisconsinite, many good things have Wisconsin in them And Kilby, after graduating from the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, got his first job 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 a fair child 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 improved on in many ways, as you say.

Speaker 3:

And it's an interesting problem too, because you have to ask the question why miniaturize? Why is it important to do so? And 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 not seeable by others. The other thing is, by having it miniaturized it provides you different benefits, So you use less power.

Speaker 3:

Now we could think of two scenarios. right, We could think of our new genesis, which is very, very low power consumption compared to a old tube amp hearing aid which used to be the size of a refrigerator, very different power profiles. So it isn't just make it smaller, it's make it more efficient, use that limited power in better ways. So in a way, when we think of the moisture problem, as we will call it right now, it's been there forever And we usually see it reemerge when we reach a new plateau of new technology. So then that brings us to lithium ions. So five years to about a decade ago, that's when we started to see the emergence of those lithium ion batteries in hearing aids. you reach now a new plateau where what was once OK is now no longer, given the new factors and given the convergence of those technologies.

Speaker 2:

Indeed, and that rechargeability that you mentioned. you said zinc air was sort of the commonplace battery. 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 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 3:

Right, and that's a really good comparison Zinc air to lithium ion.

Speaker 3:

With zinc air, you had an opening, so there was always a pathway for water to be in order to be power And also if something went wrong you could just throw away the battery, so you were disguising problems through a consumer behavior. So 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. 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.

Speaker 2:

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.

Speaker 2:

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, 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 driven the engineers on the quality team to ensure that we're encapsulating that battery fully.

Speaker 3:

Right And that you know. If we want to then focus on the Genesis product with our pro-aid hydroshield, we've taken a very distinctly different approach to waterproofing this device 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 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 2:

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

Speaker 3:

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 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, you're actually claiming against a very strict, highly defined set of conditions.

Speaker 3:

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 its 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.

Speaker 3:

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 issue with the standard, though, is that when it comes to the IP68, the eight part, the standard actually instructs all users to use fresh water. Now we know that our patients don't sweat fresh drinkable water. 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 2:

So let me just ask a couple of clarifying questions. So Genesis devices, custom and standard, are both IP68? Yes, so you mentioned that waterproofing hearing aids has been a goal for a long time. What took Starkey so long to get there?

Speaker 3:

It's a really good question And I think we would just first start by saying 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, but when you start to dig into it it has a rather loose definition, and so Starkey wanted it to be waterproof for our patient's life. And as a bit of another historical tangent, the idea of proofing something, proofing a product you could trace that back to the Greek philosophers when they were doing our favorite 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 weaponry. They literally shot a bullet at the armor. So there was some objective criteria they were testing against. 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 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.

Speaker 3:

Now, what we mean by that is it isn't meant for scuba diving, for multiple reasons. One you won't have any benefit, the sound won't go to your ear. But it also isn't designed for that 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.

Speaker 3:

Now you might ask the question if we're saying IP68 is just one of many, how do we define waterproof? 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 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. These tests are focused on cyclical repetitive wear, not only from the water or the moisture itself, but also introducing physical stresses. So in some consumer electronic areas, which is a close cousin of hearing aids, 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 patients do And there's no standard testing available for that.

Speaker 2:

Correct IP68 is in a controlled laboratory environment. As you said. The water component that 8 measure is with non-salinated water, fresh water.

Speaker 3:

But we wanted to extend that into the real world 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. So our tests, 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, 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.

Speaker 2:

Outstanding. Yeah, 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 for 20, 30 minutes while streaming, pulled them out, dried them off, run self-check and we're good to go. Maybe the most I have to do is blow a little on the mic port, maybe 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 think the other point you raise is a very practical one for patients.

Speaker 2:

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, were 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 or 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 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 3:

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

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and then you bring up Kilby Noyce. I mean, i think we have to throw Gordon Moore in there too, in terms of he just died earlier this year, kilby a few years back. But 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 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 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 gonna keep functioning.

Speaker 3:

Right, and you brought up another point drying. So we're asked a lot of questions. Well, if it's waterproof, do I have to dry it? And 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 yourself in a situation where you've had 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. But we've designed it for those outside cases.

Speaker 2:

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 to the standardized tests of IP68 that were in excess of IP68. Right, does IEC need to update its standard to give some measure of a waterproof rating, or are we going to push them to, say, include more and more of these tests that we know, by comparing to competitive devices, we do really well, yeah.

Speaker 3:

So I think there's a couple of things to think about with that is it's useful under the circumstances which you want to use it.

Speaker 3:

So if, let's say, we're designing a enclosure for a electronics box that's outside So 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 think what's important to note, though, is that, as 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 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. We do have a bunch of tests that we're proud of, and we have finally calibrated to real-time use, so maybe, maybe, at some point you could convince me, but we like to keep them for hours, because we want to develop faster than committees. Sure.

Speaker 2:

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

Speaker 3:

Yeah. So first I'll say there's a huge engineering team that's behind us, so they're the smart ones doing all the hard work which just gets a talk about it.

Blaise Delfino:

Yeah.

Speaker 3:

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 thought of the most is that our users are using push buttons, but 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, 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 pre-test and then you subject it to stress and then test it again And, while good and effective, you lose these little subtleties where 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.

Speaker 3:

So now, if we start to see a hint of a deviation, that's now worthy of action, as opposed to it works before, it works after. We're looking for very precise attributes that now classify performance. Got it? But again it matters. We have to go to that level because things again are smaller and smaller. Our patients want more And those two trends aren't going to stop. They're going to continue as long as they have so far and continue far into the future.

Speaker 2:

Love it So pragmatic tips, any user tips for professionals or end users related to that pro-aid hydroshield. One of the things I notice is that, at least on the Rix, in some cases getting used to that additional force needed to separate 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, right. So if you've, ever, that's just me.

Speaker 3:

No, it's intentional. So we have raised the force a little bit 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 a bit of a burden that we've paced onto our professionals, but ultimately the intent is it's best for our patients And it's just until you get used to it.

Speaker 2:

It was the first time I was like, oh okay, I got to tug a little more, And always my first instinct is and I'm going to do something wrong. But now that I've been comfortable with it, it becomes commonplace And, conversely, you have to push a little bit harder to get it in Snap And it has to go further in.

Speaker 3:

But that's intentional too.

Speaker 2:

We wanted it to be as recess as possible, because the less surface you have less risk of getting moisture in, and so on and so forth, and with the new SnapFit receivers that are intelligent, you'll know instantly whether you've snapped it on all 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.

Speaker 2:

All of that is smart now, but unless you do that additional little snap, 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. Now 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 the micro RIC 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 electric vehicle has a shorter battery life in the winters in Minnesota when it's 20 below zero. How about for hearing?

Speaker 3:

aids. Yeah, so 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 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. We'll go back to bread and yeast. 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.

Speaker 3:

Now we've taken that all into consideration. So that way, within the operating temperatures which you find on the box, it will function just fine. 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 or 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 bears.

Speaker 3:

Things can break down. Think of it like you're tire on a car where you drive a lot. Things just start to break And that breakdown causes resistance to having lithium atoms move. If they don't move you don't get electrons. 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. So over time you will see this characteristic degradation of a lithium ion's capacity. Now we work with our vendors. We work with some of the best 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, you put your own 40, 41 hours at year five Quite a lot of charge.

Speaker 2:

Still, 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, and it kinda hints at our thesis we've taken with this product.

Speaker 3:

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 wanna go multiple days without charging Or cross by cross 29 hours.

Speaker 2:

Right.

Speaker 3:

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 2:

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's 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.

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Blaise M. Delfino, M.S. - HIS

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