Phonak EON Hearing Aids Now Available to U.S. Military Service Members

STAFA, SWITZERLAND — Phonak, a global leader in innovative hearing solutions, is proud to announce its next-generation hearing aid platform EON is now available through Veterans Affairs (VA) and Department of Defense (DOD). Available to both veterans and active-duty military, EON further strengthens Phonak’s competitive position in improving speech understanding in noise, automatically adapting to the surrounding sound environment and connecting to virtually any Bluetooth® enabled device.

Powered by the newly developed HYPERSONIC™ chip, EON combines Spheric Speech Clarity 3.0, AutoSense OS™ AI 8.0 and Made-For-All connectivity, including Auracast™, in one, more efficient platform. EON is 25% smaller and 20% lighter than the previous Sphere generation, while offering up to 38 hours of battery life.*

"Built by veterans. Created to serve.”

Phonak’s commitment to veterans extends beyond providing access to hearing technology. Through its new “Built by Veterans. Created to Serve” campaign, Phonak partnered with veteran-owned creative agency VEN-Media and involved veterans throughout the creative process to ensure their experiences and perspectives were authentically represented.

All on-camera talent were veterans, and the production also included a veteran photographer and video producer, many of the crew members, along with other veteran-owned businesses.

Scene intelligence meets speech clarity: EON is Phonak’s 3rd generation of real-time AI

EON brings together two complementary AI systems: Spheric Speech Clarity 3.0 and AutoSense OS™ AI 8.0. Both work in parallel and real time to make hearing more adaptive, precise and to help people hear better across changing listening situations.

Spheric Speech Clarity 3.0 uses deep neural network processing to separate speech from background noise in real time, making users twice as likely to understand every word from any direction.¹

In parallel, AutoSense OS™ AI 8.0 continuously analyses the surrounding sound environment and automatically activates the optimal combination of features for each situation, supporting a more natural listening experience in speech-in-loud-noise situations compared with previous generations.²

Designed for real life, indoors and outdoors

EON also introduces WindBlock 2.0, which automatically reduces wind noise by up to 50 dB and can improve the signal-to-noise ratio by up to 30 dB.³ It supports clearer conversations and a more natural listening experience outdoors.

All day user confidence powered by a new chip

Thanks to the new HYPERSONIC™ chip powering Spheric Speech Clarity 3.0, EON uses 37% less power than the previous generation while maintaining advanced real-time AI performance. This efficiency improvement allows the hearing aid to be 25% smaller and 20% lighter, without compromising on all-day wearability.

Stress-testing EON: a real-world experience in the Arctic

Dr. Amanda Klekowski von Koppenfels, a scholar, researcher and educator living with hearing loss, was the first person outside Phonak to wear and test EON during an Arctic expedition. She said: “Hearing aids aren’t limiting, they are empowering. In unforgiving Arctic conditions, I was able to hear a crack in the packed snow beneath us and follow conversations clearly over the sound of crunching snow. EON’s WindBlock performed remarkably well, even as the wind whipped around us and made the tents flap. Despite wearing as many as four layers of hats and cold-weather gear, I could hear so clearly that, at times, other members of the expedition without hearing loss were asking me to repeat what had been said, rather than the other way around.”

Phonak EON is available to all eligible active-duty military members and all eligible retired military/Veterans through VA audiologists as well as other government audiology programs, including DODs.

SOURCE: Phonak / Sonova AG