Losing your hearing can be a real problem, and if you¡¯re young it¡¯s twice as embarrassing. It doesn¡¯t matter that it¡¯s a medical condition, no one under the age of 50 would be comfortable being spotted with an earpiece.?
And that¡¯s exactly why MobileEars believes there¡¯s a market out there for their unique product. The company markets it as an ¡°affordable and attractive¡± solution for people with hearing loss, especially those in a younger age bracket.
¡°More people today will lose their hearing earlier than our ancestors¡¯¡± says VP of sales and marketing for Listen AS (MobileEars' parent company), Arjun Bhatt. He believes one of the main problems with hearing aids in the market today is that they each cost between Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000. To top it off, hearing loss is not covered by most health insurance plans, and the doctor consults are expensive. Another major issue, is the stigma associated with wearing the earpiece needed to return hearing to the person.
Instead, MobileEars hopes to solve the problem in a cheap, accessible, and subtle fashion. Their app uses the microphone on a user¡¯s smartphone to amplify sounds around them, and feed them back through headphones. The kicker here though is that it isn¡¯t just an amplifier. It uses a form of speech recognition technology to pick up and amplify voices, whether a person speaking in front of you or on TV, and dim out the ambient noise.
MobileEye has also made provisions for variations in user¡¯s extent of hearing loss, based on statistics of the condition. When you start up the app, it collects a few details like your age and gender to optimise the experience, but you can always fine tune it later.
Right now, the app needs a user to have their headphones connected, though the next logical step is improving the hardware, Bhatt says. The idea is to one day replace hearing aids entirely, though that may be a ways off.
For the time being, MobileEars is happy to just be a cheap alternative to expensive medical aids. And by cheap we mean the app is free to use on iOS, with an Android version likely incoming in the near future. It even works offline so you don¡¯t have to worry about your data where your well-being is concerned.
And the company supposedly doesn¡¯t have any revenue plans in the near future. If that does eventually happen, Bhatt believes it¡¯ll either be by adding extra features to a premium version of the app, or by manufacturing companion hardware. ¡°Right now, the focus is on getting the word out,¡± he says.