Starkey’s Livio AI is not only a hearing aid that provides superior hearing quality, but also a health device that tracks a person’s physical activity. It is a multi-purpose device that helps people with their sense of hearing while also helping them improve on other aspects of their daily lives. Livio AI uses a technology which Starkey calls “Hearable Reality”, and this technology ensures that the user still can hear speech clearly even in noisy environments. The devices suppresses background noises and enhances human speech to ensure ease of communication.
Research has also shown that hearing health is directly related to overall well-being, because a person who is able hear can better engage with their environment. Livio AI is designed to manage both hearing health and physical health. Sensors inside the hearing
aids detect movement, activities and different gestures. This means that on top of amplifying the sense of hearing, the hearing aid is able to assess what is happening in the environment and then act accordingly with the appropriate settings, which improves user experience.
Besides the device itself, there is also an app that pairs up with the device. This provides another way the user can interact with their device. They can link the Thrive app to their hearing aid and then the app will display data that has been received by the hearing aid. For example, the device can hear words from different languages and then translate it into what the user can understand. There is also speech-to-text recognition, and the transcribe will be displayed in the app.
One pro of this device is that it uses AI technology, which means that it is learning from the user’s behaviour and inputs. Each device will increasingly become more personalised to the user and having a device that learns from you and applies what it learnt from you, onto you, will give you the feeling of being involved with device. It increases the interaction the user has with the device itself.
Another pro is that when used together with the Thrive app, there is a lot more interaction involved. The device collects the data and the app displays the data in a fun way of which the user can use to keep track of their data easily. The app doesn’t simple display the raw data as it is. It categorises it into “Body Score” and “Brain Score”, which will then add up to the total “Thrive Wellness Score” and this score, out of 200, will help the user see how healthy they are in both aspects of hearing health and physical health. The app provides insights on how the data is used and then gives the user a more detailed explanation for what each number means. This is a plus to the user experience because the clarity of data makes it easier for the user to understand how the device is helping them in their daily life.
The con of this device would be the cost because I would consider this a more premium product that is not accessible to everyone who needs it. With the amount of features included in the hearing aid, the cost will definitely be an issue because of the number of different sensors needed for the different functions.
References:
https://www.starkey.com/hearing-aids/livio-artificial-intelligence-hearing-aids#pane-hearing
Starkey Livio Ai Hearing Aid Review by Doctor Cliff, AuD