Oticon Launches Oticon Intent: A Sensor-Driven Hearing Aid Designed to Understand Your Listening Needs

In this video, HearingTracker Audiologist Matthew Allsop provides a review of the Oticon Intent hearing aid. Closed captions are available on this video. If you are using a mobile phone, please enable captions clicking on the gear icon.

Oticon, with US headquarters in Somerset, NJ, has launched its latest flagship hearing aid line, Oticon Intent, which the company says is “the world’s first hearing aid with 4D Sensor technology to understand each user’s listening intentions and seamlessly support individual listening needs, while giving access to the full sound environment.” Building on Oticon’s BrainHearing™ technology, the company is introducing its new hearing aid with the goal of capturing and enhancing a person’s unique communication intention.

Available in the smallest rechargeable miniRITE (receiver in the ear) form factor that Oticon offers, Intent also features a new Smart Speaker, Bluetooth^® LE and Auracast™-ready technology, and a second-generation Deep Neural Network (DNN) system. The hearing aid is designed to provide 20 hours of battery life even when streaming and contains a telecoil.

The Intent of Intent: The evolution of BrainHearing in Oticon hearing aids

The number-one item on the wish list of hearing aid users continues to be better hearing in noise—particularly in complex listening environments that involve sounds that are disruptive to communication. For about 30 years, directional microphones have been employed to help hearing aid wearers hear the person of interest while tuning out background noise—usually by having the hearing aid user and directional system focused on the person in front of them.

A better system, says Oticon, would be for the hearing aid to understand the needs and behaviors of individuals within changing sound environments and then adapt its signal processing according to their unique listening needs. This is the basic concept behind Oticon’s BrainHearing, introduced about 10 years ago but having its first concerted implementation with the Oticon Opn S hearing aid in 2019. The goal was to provide access to the full 360° soundscape with less listening effort, better speech understanding, and the capacity to remember more of what was heard. The subsequent Oticon More (2020) and Real (2023) product lines were built to further these goals.

Oticon's new flagship hearing aid line, Intent, is the latest evolution in BrainHearing. People's hearing needs are not always the same, even when they're in the same room. Intent is built to recognize the unique and diverse listening needs of individual users.

Cutting-edge 4D Sensor Technology for “intention-based” personalization

Intent reportedly employs the world’s first user-intent sensors capable of discerning a person's distinct communication goals and providing the brain with the appropriate hearing support for any listening situation.

Oticon uses its 4D Sensor Technology to monitor and react accordingly to:

• Acoustic environment: Sensors gather details of the 360° sound scene around the listener as it varies within listening environments and between environments
• Head movements: Sensors monitor if and how the user moves their head to understand the type of communication situation.
• Body movements: Physical movement sensors help anticipate the need for increased spatial awareness support
• Conversation activity: Monitoring if there is an active conversation or not informs the system if it should prioritize speech

By monitoring conversational dynamics, head and body movements, and the surrounding acoustic landscape, Intent becomes the first hearing aid to detect shifts in user requirements and adapt sound processing accordingly, says Oticon. The 4D Sensor technology provides tailored assistance across various situations, enhancing speech comprehension by 15%.¹ Additionally, outcomes from a brain imaging study demonstrated that this technology helps users balance their attention toward the sound sources to which they intend to listen.¹

“At Oticon, we recognize the brain’s exceptional sound processing abilities,” said Oticon Head of Audiology Virginia Ramachandran, AuD, PhD, in a press statement. “Our unique BrainHearing approach guides us and helps us make life-changing technology, like Oticon Intent, a reality. The world’s first user-intent sensors allow Oticon Intent to recognize when a user’s listening needs change and adapt accordingly, providing greater access to the sounds and speech that will enable users to engage in life like never before. Oticon Intent seamlessly supports each individual listening need while always giving access to the full, 360º sound environment.”

Intent enhanced further with MoreSound Intelligence 3.0 and DNN 2.0

According to Oticon, the new rapid and effective sound processing technology in Oticon Intent, called MoreSound Intelligence 3.0, provides higher clarity and better balance, with up to 12 dB noise suppression. Due to this innovative processing, which ultimately provides users with clearer speech, Oticon Intent delivers 35% more access to speech cues compared to Oticon’s preceding premium hearing aid.²

Intent also includes the second generation of Oticon’s Deep Neural Network (DNN 2.0), which relies on a more comprehensive array of complex sound scenes and benefits from enriched learning from diverse sound inputs during its training phase. A type of machine learning or artificial intelligence, DNN 2.0 is designed to allow the hearing aid to work more like the brain—having learned through experience—enabling more accurate representations of sound in the brain and better access to even soft speech sounds in noisy situations.

Other important additions to Oticon Intent

Oticon reports that Intent also features three new design and technology improvements for hearing healthcare:

• Smart Speaker: The new hearing aid uses the industry's first self-calibrating speaker, miniFit Detect, ensuring accuracy within 1 dB and 57% more gain precision over prior speaker units. Hearing care professionals employing Oticon Genie 2 fitting software can gain access to all relevant speaker unit details (e.g., serial number, fitting power level, speaker wire length, and left/right information). Genie 2 can also streamline the fitting process by supplying immediate visibility to speaker unit status, enabling the hearing care professional to determine if a speaker unit is correct, missing, faulty, or incompatible.
• Bluetooth LE and Auracast ready: Oticon Intent supports Bluetooth^® LE Audio, making the hearing aid “future ready” for Auracast™ broadcast audio technology,³ which some anticipate will revolutionize audio accessibility in the future. Users can also enjoy direct streaming and hands-free communication to iOS devices and compatible Android™ phones, tablets,⁴ and Windows PCs.
• New design and improved rechargeability: Oticon Intent is the company’s smallest, sleekest, most discreet rechargeable miniRITE, yet it still offers a telecoil and a large lithium-ion battery for faster and more stable charging. When fully charged, it is designed to offer 20 hours of battery life, even with streaming, and 4 hours of use with a quick 15-minute charge.⁵ The addition of a touch control for phone calls and a single, user-friendly push-button further enhances quick and intuitive hearing aid control.

Oticon asked hearing aid users to compare the sound quality of Oticon Intent to the company’s previous premium hearing aid in various listening environments. Not only was Intent shown to improve sound quality significantly, but it also provided more nuance and detail in the sound and higher listening comfort for users.¹

For more details, please visit the Oticon Intent website.

Source: Oticon