The Advantage of Automatic Edge Mode+ in Starkey Genesis AI Hearing Aids

In this short video produced by Starkey, Dr. Fabry provides an overview of how you can use Edge Mode+ and its new automatic functions. Closed captions are available on this video. If you are using a mobile phone, please enable captions clicking on the gear icon.

With the launch of Genesis AI in February of 2023, hearing aid users enjoyed the added benefit of being able to select their listening intent (Enhance Speech or Reduce Noise). Now, users can turn on Edge Mode+ and let the artificial intelligence (AI) guided automation do the work until they elect to disengage the Edge Mode+ adaptations in favor of the “Personal” (all-around) program or a customized program.

The evolution of Edge Mode+

The first generation of Edge Mode, found in Starkey Livio AI and Evolv AI, provided the listener a way to access alternative, enhanced hearing aid settings when needed, especially in noise. The user activates the feature through a simple button press or double-tap on the hearing aid or through Starkey’s mobile app. In essence, when Edge Mode is engaged, a snapshot of the acoustic environment is taken, and the hearing aid adjusts to optimize its settings for that environment beyond what the hearing aid's automatic processing would do.

While AI in hearing aids has come a long way, there continues to be an opportunity in one area: listening intent. For example, in a noisy coffee shop, a listener may be conversing with friends one day and want to hear their speech clearly. On another day, that same listener in the same environment may be reading or working on their laptop and want the background noise reduced. The second iteration of Edge Mode, Edge Mode+, addresses this age-old desire.

Edge Mode+ for helping better define listener intent

Genesis AI introduced Edge Mode+ with the added support of an onboard Deep Neural Network (DNN) hardware acceleration engine dedicated to DNN processing. The next iteration of Edge Mode+ introduced the ability to select listening intent. Users can now engage Edge Mode+ and select in the My Starkey app whether they want Best Sound, Enhance Speech, or Reduce Noise. The Best Sound option is the default selection and is based on our training of the algorithm on countless sound scenes to enable Edge Mode+ to select the best option for that scenario.

Sometimes, however, the user may want a little more granularity in specific challenging listening environments, which is where Enhance Speech and Reduce Noise come in to provide even more speech awareness or noise reduction than would be typically provided. Edge Mode+ Enhance Speech has been shown to improve word recognition by up to 11% over normal memory and decrease listening effort.¹

Automatic Edge Mode+

The first two generations of Edge Mode optimized for the sound environment and listening intent at the time of activation. This works well when patients are in a more constant environment and assumes the patient will deactivate Edge Mode when leaving the environment or if the environment changes. The patient could then re-activate the feature as needed. However, our data has found that some people leave Edge Mode on even when the acoustic environment has likely changed.

With the latest version of Edge Mode+, the optimizations occur automatically in response to environment changes after activation. This allows hearing aid users to continue to obtain optimal listening conditions for extended periods while lessening the need to adjust Edge Mode+ as often when changes in the listening environment are noticed. The automatic generation of Edge Mode+ stays true to the hearing aid user’s selected listening intent and optimizes continuously within the given intent.

Why not just keep Automatic Edge Mode+ activated?

One may ask: Why not leave Automatic Edge Mode+ on all the time? The short answer is that to provide the best listening experience in each acoustic environment, the Personal program is better designed to “balance” speech clarity and listening comfort, while Edge Mode+ uses more aggressive settings for more challenging situations.

When focusing on speech, there is often a tradeoff between speech clarity, high frequency audibility, and the sharpness of the sound quality. Therefore, although users would, in principle, always want to maximize speech clarity and intelligibility, it takes greater mental exertion to listen to such a configuration over a long period of time; the control is best put in the hand of the user to apply the settings when needed. We have worked tirelessly to ensure that our automatic signal processing can carry the load of your everyday listening needs while Edge Mode+ is there to handle the rest.

Similarly, there is a tradeoff between listening comfort—which tends to reduce volume/gain and apply noise reduction—and audibility. If used regularly in your day-to-day conditions, the amount of gain and noise reduction can result in decreased audibility or loss of awareness of the surroundings. Only the hearing aid wearer themselves knows when to enable each of these settings for the best listening experience.

Starkey’s automatic noise processing algorithms undergo rigorous research to ensure that the transitions remain unnoticeable, and the user is able to move freely throughout their day. With a feature like Edge Mode+ that targets difficult listening situations with stronger adaptations, Edge Mode+ conservatively reacts to more long-term changes of the environment rather than to sporadic events. Once a consistent change has been detected, Edge Mode+ takes a few seconds to adapt to the new environment to ensure a smooth and seamless experience. Like our automatic noise management system, the patient won’t notice that the hearing aids are adapting, but they will notice that they are hearing better.

Edge Mode+ with automatic adjustments is a feature that professionals and patients have been asking for. This new technology is featured in Genesis AI 24 wireless devices that are now widely available from hearing care providers in domestic and global markets where Genesis AI is sold. For more information, you can visit the Starkey Genesis AI website.