Hearing Aids - Blog Posts

Eargo landed $25 million in funding. So there is money flowing into hearing aid innovation. But Eargo does not solve the issue of cost. A pair of hearing aids from eargo are still over $2000. I do not think its the technology that keeping prices high. I will point the finger at distribution. Think of how DeBeers used to control the flow of diamonds. When you control the flow you can control the prices. The top 6 have the audiologist channel - about 6000 to 9000 throughout the US and Canada - many of these offices are owned partial or...

The recently fired president of Starkey Laboratories is suing the company, claiming he was wrongfully terminated and defamed after reporting wrongdoing by company founder William Austin and vice president Brandon Sawalich, Austin’s stepson.Jerry Ruzicka filed suit against the Eden Prairie maker of hearing aids Friday in Hennepin County District Court. Separately, he filed for arbitration over millions of dollars in deferred compensation he says he is owed under his last 10-year contract.Ruzicka was fired and escorted from company property Sept. 8. A company communication shortly afterward said Ruzicka was the subject of “an ongoing investigation,” and Ruzicka’s home was searched...

http://www.reveal.co.uk/real-life-stories/news/a681001/a-lucky-puppy-survived-swallowing-her-owners-hearing-aid.html

MENLO PARK, Calif. (KGO) -- If you enjoy all the live performances in the Bay Area, you are no doubt grateful for the gift of sound.One Bay Area company is hoping to restore that gift to thousands of people who experience hearing loss For symphony lovers, there's nothing like the dancing strings of a violin or the power of a rumbling bass note. "We have season tickets every year, so I get to go quite often," San Francisco symphony fan Elaine Raisler said.Raisler just turned 80 and is hoping to experience the full range of that sound for the first...

A fired longtime secretary at Starkey Hearing Technologies has initiated the latest high-stakes exchange of accusations with the company, demanding severance pay and being accused in turn of having dipped into a "secret executive account.' "Julie Miller, a 39-year Starkey employee and former executive assistant, sued Starkey late Wednesday, accusing the firm of breaching her employment contract and dismissing her for being married to a Starkey official who was fired.Ads by ZINCThe company responded Thursday by accusing Miller of receiving "hundreds of thousands of questionable payments" from the secret account, which it wouldn't detail.For Starkey, the litigation is just the latest...

In September, Starkey Hearing Technologies fired eight employees, including former president Jerry Ruzicka, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune. Since then, several of the former workers have filed suits accusing the company of unfairly terminating them and executives of illegal behavior.Among those suits was one by Ruzicka, who sued the company last week, claiming that he was fired for trying to expose wrongdoing by top executives, according to the St. Paul Pioneer Press. Ruzicka claims in the suit that company president William Austin is evading paying Minnesota state taxes, fits hearing aids in the state without a license and once...

$333, Million Dollars

ERLANGEN, Germany--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Only one year after the transfer of the Siemens hearing aid business to Sivantos Group, the company celebrated a record first year in both revenue and earnings while introducing Signia, its new premium brand of hearing aids. With a strategy focused on profitable growth, Sivantos is creating a new stimulus with comprehensive initiatives to achieve the industry leading market position.A record first yearIn revenue, the Sivantos Group closed fiscal year 2015 as the most successful in the company’s history with an organic growth of over ten percent, outperforming the market. The business operations of the former Siemens AG...

A recent study by Jamie Desjardins, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Speech-Language Pathology Program at The University of Texas at El Paso, found that hearing aids improve brain function in persons with hearing loss.http://elpasoheraldpost.com/utep-professor-shows-hearing-aids-improve-memory-speech/

A battery-operated device a little larger than a golf ball could one day help treat people with hearing loss by delivering medication directly into the cavity in their ear.Engineers at Draper, a non-profit research company in Cambridge, have been developing the device along with collaborators at Massachusetts Eye and Ear.This month, they showed that the device is safe to be used in guinea pigs — mammals with sufficiently similar ear anatomy to ours. The next step, they say, is to test it in people.http://www.betaboston.com/news/2016/01/26/draper-device-could-help-develop-drugs-for-hearing-loss/

Apple is all set to introduce a wireless noise-cancelling EarPod along with its new device iPhone 7 scheduled to be launched in September 2016. These headphones will have almost similar hardware specifications as are used in the regular hearing aids. The iPhone 7 is expected to be accompanied by several other features including no headphone jack, edge-to-edge display and a waterproof body.