Interview with Jerry Yanz, Director of Audiology, Hansaton Acoustics

Topic: Hansaton Rechargeable Hearing Aids

Jerry Yanz

SMAKA: Today I have Jerry Yanz from Hansaton talking with us about what's new with Hansaton. First off, Jerry, can you tell me about your background and your role at Hansaton?

YANZ: Sure thing. I'm the Director of Audiology here at Hansaton USA. In a startup company like ours, any title requires a person to wear many hats, and this one is no exception. My primary role, however, in addition to interacting with engineers on R&D issues, is to develop education and training programs for staff and customers. In this position I draw from 16 years of experience in a variety of roles in the hearing aid industry.

After finishing my Ph.D. at University of Iowa and before joining the industry, I spent a number of years in academia and the audiology clinic. Fitting many patients with hearing aids piqued my interest in new technology and motivated my switch to the industry side of our field. I refer to these years in the industry as my third life in audiology, and, with all of the technology that's developed recently, it's been a rewarding role.

It's an exciting time for us at Hansaton with the release of our new AQ in-the-ear hearing system.



SMAKA: Yes, I'm sure it is! I got to see the AQ system at AudiologyNOW! What was the feedback from the show?

YANZ: Extremely positive. We came back from the show energized by the feedback from professionals who got to see the AQ system firsthand.

As you know, Carolyn, for many years, both professionals and consumers have known that a rechargeable hearing aid is a good idea. The unfortunate reality, though, is that over the years the available rechargeables have been plagued with problems and have not been as successful as we might wish. With our AQ hearing system, we've been able to solve those long-standing problems.

AQ is a smart, inductive recharging system. Let me describe what that means. An inductive coil inside the charging station sends a current to an inductive coil inside the hearing aid, which recharges the battery.

The battery is completely sealed inside AQ custom products, which offers several benefits. First, it removes the rather unattractive battery door from the faceplate of the hearing aid, giving AQ a smooth, natural appearance in the ear, improved even further by a custom sculpted contour. Eliminating the battery door reduces the potential for moisture to get into the inner workings of the instruments. Moisture ingress is one of the leading causes of instrument failure, and the battery compartment is a point of considerable moisture ingress. As a bonus, we'll never again see a broken battery door.

In addition to these benefits, AQ instruments provide improved ease of use. Many patients, especially those in our major age demographic, older people, have trouble handling tiny batteries. With AQ, this obstacle to successful hearing aid use is removed, along with the nuisance factor. There are a lot of people who are going to be very pleased with an instrument like this. You just put it in your ear in the morning and forget about it.

SMAKA: Jerry, you explained that the AQ hearing system is charged via induction. Can you describe what the patient needs to do to charge his or her AQ hearing aids?



Hansaton's new AQ in-the-ear charging system

YANZ: Yes, it's very simple. To charge AQ instruments, you simply drop them into a little cup in the charging station. The cups are custom-shaped based on the patient's ear shape, using the same impressions that the instruments themselves are made from.

Drop it in the cup, and a little red LED begins to glow through the faceplate of the hearing aid to show the patient that it is entering its charge cycle. Charging takes roughly two to four hours, depending on the amount of charge needed to bring the battery up to full charge. When that full charge is achieved, the red light goes out to tell the patient the hearing aids are ready to go again for another full day. And a full day means 20 to 30 hours of operation per charge. (I don't know many people who wear their hearing aids 30 hours at a time, but now they have that option.)

Smart circuitry enables communication between the hearing aid and the charger. It turns off the charger when the battery is 100% charged, so there's no possibility of over-charging. It also turns the hearing aid off when it drops into the charger so that you're not using up battery at the same time you're charging it. Each aid also comes with a travel case that automatically turns the aid off to prevent losing a battery charge when the aid is not is use.

To help maintain the relationship between patient and audiologist, the charger counts the number of times the hearing aid has been charged. After it's been charged 200 times, it brings up a little signal on the display in the middle of the charging station, which is a reminder to the patient it is time to go back and see the hearing professional for cleaning and service.

SMAKA: That is so cool. Two to four hours to recharge and 20 to 30 hours of use? Can you get my iPhone to work that way? [laughs]

YANZ: [laughs] Right! You bring up another one of the traditional problems with rechargeable hearing aids. There have been promises about the operating time of a rechargeable battery, and if you talk to people who've actually used them, the reality often doesn't meet the claims. They may claim 16 hours;you might get 8.

In our case, the engineers designing AQ have been adamant that the battery needed to get 20 to 30 hours of operating time per charge. That's obviously a critical variable,.

Another issue with earlier rechargeable hearing aids was the memory of the batteries. They would only maintain the operating time designed into them if, and only if, they were allowed to fully discharge and fully recharge each and every time. Shortening the discharge time or the charge time would compromise the operating time of the battery. The more times it happened, the more that memory would be compromised. So what started out as a 12-hour operating time may become 10 hours, 8 hours, 6 hours, and eventually becomes unusable.

That problem has been solved in the AQ design by virtue of the smart charging and the communication between the battery and the charging unit. That's something that is refreshingly different from the norm that most people associate with rechargeable systems.

Reliability of the charging station is also important. The AQ charging system has no moving parts, no contacts to corrode or wear out, no mechanical parts to give way.

It's interesting - I just visited with some folks at an audiology clinic yesterday. I asked them about rechargeables, and they described the other systems they'd used. Their technician, who does hearing aid troubleshooting, rolled her eyes when she heard the word "rechargeable". She said didn't want to even deal with rechargeable systems because they've been so problematic. We have a happy surprise for her in the AQ.

I also have a friend who uses a pair of rechargeable BTEs from another manufacturer. I called him up and asked, "How are they working for you?" He said, "Well, I don't bother with the charger, it's too much of a nuisance. I just change the batteries." These are the kinds of issues people have had historically with rechargeable systems, which were all considered during the design and development process with AQ. This innovation is not only an outstanding hearing instrument, but an outstanding rechargeable hearing system that will change people's notions of what a rechargeable hearing system can be.

SMAKA: What about long-term battery life with AQ?

YANZ: That's a great point, and a very important variable to consider. AQ has a five-year battery, and to stand behind that we're giving a six-year battery guarantee.

So if the battery dies any time in the first six years, we will replace it at no charge.

SMAKA: Excellent. I have a question about the 200-charge reminder. Is that a courtesy reminder that a check-up is due?

YANZ: Yes, that's right. The appearance of the 200-day reminder has no effect on the operation of the hearing instrument, the battery or the recharging unit. It is, as you said, a courtesy reminder. You can ignore it if you want to, or you can go in and have your audiologist or hearing professional clean and check your instruments. The professional will make sure everything's up to par, and then reset the counter in your charging unit. It'll come up again in 200 days.

SMAKA: Just like in your car, when it's time to change your oil or you're due for a check-up.

YANZ: Exactly. In fact, the reminder is an icon of a wrench.

SMAKA: You mentioned that this is an in-the-ear system. What models are available?

YANZ: Full Shell, Half-Shell and In-the-Canal (ITC) models are available.



Hansaton AQ ITC

SMAKA: Actually, when you look just at audiograms, you can fit many patients that you see in a typical practice with a full shell model. Offering the canal is a nice cosmetic bonus. What kind of technology does AQ feature?

YANZ: That's another area we focused on in this product development. There is absolutely no compromise on the feature set in this instrument. AQ has a full range of adaptive features, including a speech detection algorithm, noise reduction algorithm, multichannel directionality, active feedback block, active wind block, impulse noise management system, situation optimization - the full array of digital processing features that you expect in a premium instrument.

Along with that, we have full wireless capability in all three technology levels of the AQ. That means that we can have Bluetooth communication from our cell phone, television, stereo, and iPod.

In addition to external wireless input, by ordering the icom-2 wireless option, there is ongoing wireless communication between the two instruments. That means that if the instrument on one side decides, with some smart processing in the DSP, that a directional response is needed, both ears are going to adopt that directional pattern. Or if it identifies a speech and noise signal, it's going to optimize the adaptive features for speech and noise, and it's going to synchronize that adaptation between the two sides of the head.

Research has shown that binaural synchronization is a very desirable feature, both in terms of improved localization and in terms of patient preference.

SMAKA: You've mentioned three different technology levels. Can you explain?

YANZ: Sure. We're calling these First Class, Business Class and Comfort Class. The differences are partly in the number of processing channels and bands. In the First Class we have 16 channels and 16 bands for the ultimate in selectivity - that is, selectivity of frequency response adjustment at the time of fitting, and selectivity in the speech and noise algorithm operations.

Business Class has 12 channels and 12 bands;Comfort Class, 8 channels and 8 bands. Even at the Comfort Class level it's very sophisticated processing. Beyond those differences in channels and bands, there are some differences in the number of different levels that we can adopt when we set up the various adaptive features, so there will be greater resolution in the adaptive features in the first-class product.

SMAKA: Sure, that makes sense. Jerry, how is the Bluetooth connectivity established?

YANZ: I'm glad you asked that question. There are some common misunderstandings about Bluetooth and hearing aids. Bluetooth is a very important wireless communication protocol, but so far Bluetooth chips are too big and too power-hungry to go into a hearing aid. Maybe they will someday. Bluetooth keeps changing at a phenomenally fast pace because of the millions of people all over the world who are using it, and it is, by design, an inexpensive technology.

With AQ, we have Bluetooth connectivity to the Media remote, which then sends a near-field digital inductive signal up to both hearing aids. One neat thing about that is that the receiver inside the hearing aid is a small ferrite core coil that serves as an antenna to pick up this near-field digital inductive signal in both ears.

So if I'm listening to music, I would use the Bluetooth advanced audio distribution profile - that's a music profile that gives me full stereo in my hearing aids. There've been many times when I've been sitting here at my desk with my iPod attached to the Media Transmitter - it's a little matchbox-sized transmitter that transmits Bluetooth up to ten meters, to my Media remote. The Media remote in turn sends this nice, clean, broadband stereo signal to the two hearing aids. It's like having wireless earphones to listen to music.

SMAKA: Getting back to Hansaton as a company, since it may be a relatively new name to some of our readers, it has been in business over 50 years, but is new to the U.S. market.

YANZ: Yes. Hansaton USA is a startup company, and we have all of the energy and enthusiasm of a startup company. We're a very compatible group of people on board here and it's a fun place to be. But unlike most startup companies, we have the backing of a well-established company with tried and true technology, which distributes products in over 70 countries. It's a really nice combination of those two different identities.

When people ask me what's different about Hansaton, there are three key words that define what we're all about: communicate, collaborate, and celebrate. Communication is key, and we are dedicated to very straightforward communication with our customer base so everyone is on the same page. It's all about knowing and meeting expectations.

Clear communication and clear expectations lead to a meaningful collaboration. After all, a manufacturer and audiologist are working toward the same goal - a successful patient outcome.

When our collaboration leads to a successful outcome - a win-win-win outcome for patient, practitioner and manufacturer - then it's time to celebrate together.

SMAKA: When will AQ be available?

YANZ: You can order AQ now. It's already available.

SMAKA: Perfect. Thanks again, Jerry, for talking with me today. We wish you much success with the AQ hearing system. Please say hello to Bob for me.

YANZ: You're very welcome, and I will do that. Thanks for having me today.

More information about Hansaton and the AQ hearing system can be found at www.hansaton-usa.com or at the Hansaton Web Channel on AudiologyOnline.