Starkey Livio: A new AI-based hearing aid

The Starkey Livio AI is an intelligent hearing aid that adds a wide range of quality-of-life improvements to the typical hearing aid experience. It’s the first hearing aid to use Healthable technology, allowing patients to access activity tracking, wellness options, and many other features.

Why Starkey Livio Exists

Livio AI is an advanced hearing aid that includes integrated sensors paired with artificial intelligence technology. This smart device has a wide range of features for helping patients manage their health, wellness, and hearing.

It pairs up with the Thrive Hearing Control app, allowing patients to connect their hearing aids to their smartphones.

Who Starkey Livio Is Meant For

The Starkey Livio is designed for patients who suffer from hearing loss in one or both ears.

Benefits of Starkey Livio

The Starkey Livio is a full-featured smart hearing aid that offers many benefits, such as:

• Excellent sound quality: The Livio hearing aid is designed to provide high-quality audio in a wide variety of environments.
• Personalized hearing experiences: Patients can create customized memories with geotagged hearing aid settings, allowing for personalized experiences everywhere a person visits during the day.
• Mask Mode: Understanding people in face masks is a big challenge for people who have hearing loss. The Mask Mode is designed to help patients hear what someone is saying when they have a mask on.
• Supports iOS and Android: This hearing aid can pair to iOS 14+ and Android 7.0+ devices.
• Body tracking: The hearing aid offers several fitness tracking features, including step counts, activity levels, and the patient’s overall movement. The companion application uses this data to generate a Body Score, which provides a general overview of the patient’s wellness.
• Brain tracking: This feature tracks the daily usage of the hearing aid, how much time is spent being socially engaged, and how long the patient is using active listening. This data gets analyzed to produce a Brain Score.
• Thrive Score: In addition to the previous two scores, the application combines the body and brain results for a holistic view of the patient’s wellness.
• Thrive Assistant: This voice-activated assistant can easily answer basic questions.
• Transcribe: The Livio hearing aid can transcribe conversations that happen, allowing patients to look at the text to see whether they are hearing other people properly.
• Reminders: The hearing aid and app can remind patients when they need to get important tasks done.
• Streaming mode: This mode offers a customized hearing experience for streaming media, including music and TV shows.
• Stream phone calls to the hearing aid: Patients can get phone audio streamed directly to the hearing aids for a better experience. They can also answer calls with a single touch.
• Hearing care anywhere: Patients no longer need to go into a provider’s office to have minor adjustments to their hearing aids. Instead, these changes are made remotely, making it much easier to access hearing care.
• Multiple form factors: The Starkey Livio AI hearing aid comes in four forms factors. Patients can get behind-the-ear, receiver-in-canal, in-the-ear, and in-the-canal. Each product type accommodates certain hearing loss scenarios, so patients can choose the option that best matches their current needs. The design is also small and discreet compared to other hearing aids using Healthable technology.
• Control volume in the app: Patients can quickly adjust hearing aid volume through their smartphones.
• Rechargeable hearing aids with 24-hour battery life: These hearing aids have the battery life to last an entire day before they need to be recharged.
• Automatic on and off: The Starkey Livio extends its battery life automatically, turning on and off as needed.
• Find My Phone: If a patient misplaces their smartphone, they can use the hearing aid to locate it.
• Self-check: Patients can check their hearing aid’s performance to determine if there are any problems with the device.
• Supports single-sided hearing loss: Livio hearing aids support those with single-sided hearing loss, whether patients have CROS or BiCROS.
• 30-day risk-free trial: If patients aren’t satisfied with their hearing aids, Livio offers a risk-free, 30-day trial.
• Warranty coverage: Starkey covers all of its hearing aids with a warranty.

Drawbacks Of Starkey Livio

The Starkey Livio hearing aid has some disadvantages.

• A patient’s insurance may not cover it: Some health insurance providers may not offer coverage for smart hearing aids. These patients would need to pay out of pocket for the medical device, which may be challenging.
• It may be overwhelming for patients less technologically inclined: Patients need a smartphone and the Thrive Hearing Control app to get the most out of the Starkey Livio, and less technical users may struggle.
• It may have extraneous features for some patients: Patients who already have a preferred fitness tracker may find some of the Livio features redundant.

Starkey Livio Pricing

Starkey Livio hearing aid pricing varies significantly based on:

• The provider it’s purchased from
• Whether any of the cost is covered by health insurance
• The specific model selected

The price range frequently mentioned is approximately $2,000 to $7,000 and up.

Multiple financing options are available for Starkey Livio to help make it more affordable for patients. These options can spread the cost of the medical device across a long-term period, so patients don’t need to wait to take advantage of this technology.

Alternatives to Starkey Livio

Starkey has several smart hearing aid product lines introduced after the Livio, including Livio Edge AI and Picasso. Other companies offering smart hearing aids include the Oticon More and ReSound LiNX Quattro.

The Starkey Livio AI hearing aid offers comprehensive features for hearing health, fitness, and overall wellness. While it may be cost-prohibitive for some patients, those looking for a high-tech hearing aid with many quality-of-life features will be well-served by this device.