Part of Google’s guide to bringing native hearing aid support to Android (Photo via Google)
According to the World Health Organization, roughly 466 million people suffering from hearing loss. That number is expected to grow to 900 million by 2050. With this in mind, many companies are stepping up and providing aids to help those afflicted. For instance, there are Bluetooth hearing aids compatible with iPhones, but this leaves Android users in the dust. Google is hoping to fix this with their latest hearing aid support.
Recently, the tech giant announced its latest project dubbed ASHA or Audio Streaming for Hearing Aids. Google teamed up with Danish hearing aid manufacturer GN Hearing to create a new aid spec for Android smartphones. ASHA is battery-efficient while providing high-quality audio with low latency. Using this spec will allow hearing aids to connect to and stream from Android devices without having to use another device. With ASHA Bluetooth hearing aids will be as easy to connect as wireless headphones.
With this in mind, Google published a new hearing aid spec for Android smartphones that details “pairing and connectivity, network topology, system architecture, and system requirements for implementing hearing aids using low energy connection-oriented channels.” The guide is meant to help manufacturers use the specs to build native Android compatibility into their devices.
According to Google Vice President of Engineering Seang Chau, ASHA will also let users “connect, pair, and monitor their aid so they can hear their phones loudly and clearly.” Google hopes the new spec will be native support for future Android products. The first hearing aids to take advantage of the new spec will be GN Hearing’s recently launched ReSound LiNX Quattro and Beltone Amaze. The feature will be available on future versions of Android.
“We are honored to partner with Google for this important development, which will enable direct streaming for even more hearing aid users through their Android devices. This is another example of how GN Hearing relentlessly strives to drive innovation forward by developing new products and solutions with unique benefits for hearing aid users and audiologists around the world”, says Anders Hedegaard, CEO, GN Hearing.
This initiative is similar to Apple’s Made for iPhone program they rolled out in 2016. This allows you to employ Bluetooth and a special protocol technology from Apple to easily connect hearing aids to iPhones and iPads.
It’s about time hearing aid support comes to Android devices. Apple jumped on this a while ago and now just about all iPhones are compatible with hearing aids under the FCC requirements for hearing aid accessibility. With this new addition, finally, those affected will have more options to choose from when it comes to smartphones.
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