Next-level Sound Processing with Phonak Infinio and DEEPSONIC
AudiologyOnline: I understand that Phonak introduced a new portfolio. What makes it different?
Erika Porter, AuD: With Phonak Infinio, we’re introducing the most revolutionary platform we’ve ever launched. We’ve taken on the biggest challenges in hearing care to launch a suite of cutting-edge solutions that can help a vast majority of people with hearing loss embrace life’s meaningful moments with joy and confidence.
AudiologyOnline: Give me some examples of what you mean by biggest challenges.
Erika Porter, AuD: Our new ERA™ chip allows for improved power management and comes with a new, patented antenna design that takes connection stability and efficiency to a new level thanks to a 6x higher transmission power compared to our prior platform. The ERA chip also enables our new Adaptive Phonak Digital (APD) 3.0 fitting formula for great sound from the first fit. With Infinio, we improve RIC durability by making coatings on our housing and internal components standard and by redesigning the microphone inlets. Infinio aids are ready for where life takes them.
AudiologyOnline: But the biggest challenge has to include speech in noise, right?
Erika Porter, AuD: Absolutely! And this is our most exciting innovation. Phonak Audéo Sphere™ Infinio is the world’s first hearing aid with a dedicated artificial intelligence (AI) chip, DEEPSONIC™, which introduces a paradigm shift in hearing technology. The proprietary chip hosts a deep neural network (DNN) algorithm that significantly suppresses the background noise from any direction, leading to remarkable speech intelligibility improvements for individuals using hearing aids.
AudiologyOnline: How does DEEPSONIC work?
Erika Porter, AuD: By utilizing a separate chip, we overcome the previously existing limitations that size and power consumption placed on this kind of processing power. Paired with the latest machine learning-based AutoSenseOS™ 6.0 on the ERA chip, this dedicated DEEPSONIC AI chip performs 7.7 billion operations per second and enables our new feature, Spheric Speech Clarity. Let’s say you get into a very noisy place. AutoSenseOS 6.0 is able to identify challenging acoustic environments to automatically transition into the Spheric Speech in Loud Noise program, activating Spheric Speech Clarity. Spheric Speech Clarity then utilizes the deep neural network with 4.5 million parameters to address the denoising task directly by differentiating between wanted and unwanted sounds and removing the latter from the signal—regardless of which direction it’s coming from.
AudiologyOnline: Can you put that in layman’s terms for me?
Erika Porter, AuD: Do you remember the red “secret agent” glasses of yesteryear? In a very simplified way, it’s like that. You have the target word (this would be the speech), which is indistinguishable from the busy red pattern (which would represent the background noise). But when you put on the “secret agent” glasses (or, in our terms, turn on Spheric Speech Clarity), suddenly, the speech pops out and is much easier to detect and understand.
AudiologyOnline: Cool! Now, technology this advanced obviously wasn’t built in a day. How was it developed?
Erika Porter, AuD: Phonak is no stranger to the world of artificial intelligence. We have more than two decades of experience working with AI processing. For DEEPSONIC, Phonak collected more than 22 million sound samples. We had about 350 human raters rate the noise, sound quality, and overall preference of 30,000 files, resulting in almost 1 million human ratings. The result is a DNN model that can predict human ratings of any piece of audio data more accurately than any other available estimator.
AudiologyOnline: That sounds amazing. What kind of benefit do patients see?
Erika Porter, AuD: Benefits start from the first time the aids are turned on. During benchmarking, 93% of people preferred the first-fit sound quality provided by APD 3.0 over that of a leading competitor. Then, in daily life, by separating speech from noise, Spheric Speech Clarity achieves an impressive SNR benefit of up to 10 dB in complex group conversations. When we think about how common it is for individuals with hearing loss to struggle and withdraw from social situations, and how important social connections are for social and cognitive well-being, this is definitely a game changer!
With Phonak Audéo Infinio Sphere, patients experience unparalleled speech understanding and reduced listening effort. Studies show that patients can also navigate even noisier environments without an increase in listening effort with Spheric Speech Clarity. This is truly life without limitation!
References
Raufer, S., Kohlbauer, P., Uhlemayr, F., Kuhnel, V., Preuss, M., & Hobi, S. (2024). "Spheric Speech Clarity proven to outperform key competitors for clear speech in noise." Phonak Field Study News. Retrieved from https://www.phonak.com/evidence
Wright, A., Kuehnel, V., Keller, M., Seitz-Paquette, K.I., & Latzel, M. (2024). "Spheric Speech Clarity applies DNN signal processing to significantly improve speech understanding from any direction and reduce the listening effort." Phonak Field Study News. Retrieved from https://www.phonak.com/evidence
Erika Porter, AuD
Erika Porter, Au.D., is dedicated to building practical confidence. She earned her MS from Arizona State University and AuD from A.T. Still University. After 16 years as a dispensing audiologist in private practice Erika joined the clinical training team at Phonak. She now fills the role of Senior Audiology Development Manager. She loves seeing the “aha” moments when providers discover ways they can improve their patients’ quality of life.