A Connected Hearing Aid Going Beyond Basic Hearing FunctionA Connected Hearing Aid Going Beyond Basic Hearing Function

Hearing aids are usually not the first product that come to mind when medtech innovation is discussed. But hearing aid company Oticon has developed the Oticon Opn, a hearing aid that incorporates Internet of Things (IoT) into its functions using the If This Then That (IFTTT) network. This means users can link their hearing aid to their household alarms, lights, and doorbells, notes Yuhgo Yamaguchi, principal design strategist at Continuum (Boston).

"IoT is a pretty common idea at this point, but I love how Oticon has leveraged IFTTT as the platform/mechanism to enable this hearing aid to alert the wearer when an IoT doorbell rings, or if an IoT smoke detector alarms. By using an existing, familiar rules engine like IFTTT, they've enabled a hearing aid to be helpful in many contexts of use," Yamaguchi says.

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[Image courtesy of Oticon]