Talking Hearing Loss

By Chris Griffith, technology reporter, Hot Copper

Nura, Nuheara and Audeara all tout capabilities that are not part of global brands. That’s the ability to adjust sound frequency by frequency to match hearing capability. They don’t target people with profound hearing loss, rather with mild to moderate loss who don’t need a medical
hearing aid.

Audeara is the brainchild of Brisbane-based doctors James Fielding and Chris Jeffrey. Users create an “audiogram”, which is used to adjust volumes at different frequencies on its headphones.

Perth-based Nuheara’s IQBuds Boost earbuds similarly asks you to perform a 15-minute “ear ID” hearing test where you listen for faint tones.

Melbourne-based Nura’s headphones take 60 seconds to personalise hearing without asking for feedback. Nura says it uses sensitive microphones and signal processing techniques to measure sounds coming out of the ear to understand hearing sensitivity.

At this month’s Consumer Electronics Show at Las Vegas, Nura said it would market an earbud version of the Nuraphone headphones called NuraLoop.

It has wireless and analog options with a magnetic detachable cable for connecting to any music source such as an aeroplane seat and has active noise control.

Nuheara, meanwhile, is launching an updated version of IQBuds Boost, also with active noise cancellation. It uses three microphones to analyse and process sounds inside and outside the ear and five times more processing power than last year’s IQbuds Boost. Nuheara also has released an adaptor that accesses TV sound called IQstream TV.

Nura co-founder Dragan Petrovic said the company had focused on the consumer market “although we have received quite a bit of attention and quite a bit of interest from musicians and music professionals in general”.

He said singer Stevie Wonder visited Nura’s booth at this month’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. “We’ve heard word from his manager just recently that he’s been using it so much that he ran out of battery but forgot (left) the charging cable back in Las Vegas.”

The US is Nura’s biggest market with about 30 per cent of users, followed by Australia and the UK. Headquartered in Brunswick, in inner Melbourne, Nura had gone from 12 to 48 full-time equivalent staff in a year.

Philip Newton said Nuheara was not targeting the Australian domestic market at this stage, but was focused on Europe.

Optical retail chain Specsavers in the UK had started to sell hearing aids and had approached Nuheara to assist the 65 per cent of clients who attended its clinics but didn’t need medical hearing aids. Nuheara is also targeting the equivalent to Specsavers in Germany, Italy and France. It is also working with the UK National Health Service to pitch its hardware as an alternative to hearing aids for people with mild hearing loss, after winning the NHS tender in November last year.

Audeara says it has achieved growth in the lifestyle hearables niche with Amazon launches in Australia, the US and UK, along with a JD.com product launch in China as a specialty brand.

Chief executive James Fielding said Audeara had achieved more than $250,000 in China sales since last month.

The Australian Hearing Services Program and NDIS registration were driving Audeara’s growth nationally and the company has significantly increased its Australian retail presence through hearing stores since March last year.

This was in addition to the 70 Attune Hearing clinics where Audeara already sells. The company this year will launch in Canada and continue its US growth.

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