Google has announced they’re looking to bring native streaming support for hearing aids to Android with the release today of a new open spec for hearing aid streaming support.
The spec has been released in a bid to give hearing aid manufacturers guidelines to work with to allow them to hook into Android offering their users a high quality audio experience with low-latency connections and minimal battery use through the use of Bluetooth Low Energy (LE).
Google says their ultimate goal is to help ‘Users with hearing loss will be able to connect, pair, and monitor their hearing aids so they can hear their phones loudly and clearly’.
There is a clear need for building streaming support for hearing aids into future versions of the worlds most popular mobile OS, with the World Health Organisation (WHO) stating that ‘around 466 million people worldwide have disabling hearing loss’. The WHO expects this number to grow to 900 million people by the year 2050.
Google is working with GN Hearing on the open spec, a Danish manufacturer of hearing aids and headsets. They’ve released the spec with details on the pairing and connectivity, network topology, system architecture, and system requirements in hopes of working with more manufacturers to build out the support.
