It's a crude, bulky, ugly, and fragile thing and the $1 price is not realistic - but it would be less than $10. It seems like a decent product for the poorest places - which is their goal.
The hearing aid biz in the US is glaringly inefficient and obviously ripe for disruption - but this product will not do it here. There's definitely a demand for hearing aids in the couple-of-hundred dollar range that doesn't require audiologist visits and insurance hassle - but the entrenched interests will not help bring it about.
This is basically using academic journals as a marketing channel. As someone else linked above, there are tons of similar devices available from China, probably even using the same chips, at equally low prices.
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...
It's a crude, bulky, ugly, and fragile thing and the $1 price is not realistic - but it would be less than $10. It seems like a decent product for the poorest places - which is their goal.
The hearing aid biz in the US is glaringly inefficient and obviously ripe for disruption - but this product will not do it here. There's definitely a demand for hearing aids in the couple-of-hundred dollar range that doesn't require audiologist visits and insurance hassle - but the entrenched interests will not help bring it about.