Lucid Hearing, LLC announced today the release of its latest hearing aid – Tala, noting that the product is the highest premium option in the company’s OTC product line. The Fort Worth-based market leader and global provider of advanced hearing technology and audio solutions said Tala initially will be sold on lucidhearing.com and at Best Buy, with multiple retailers, being added to distribution in the coming months. Tala’s price will be $1,299, and future products with the company’s new proprietary Precision Directional Listening System (PDL) will be added to the line to address the full spectrum of hearing loss – whether mild to moderate, or more severe.
“Tala is innovative, discreet and powerful and uses our most advanced technology released to date,” said Steve Iseberg, VP of Innovation for Lucid Hearing. “This product’s discreet design will make it popular among individuals who have mild to moderate hearing loss, and who want a solution that doesn’t look like a hearing aid. It simply looks like you’re wearing earbuds to listen to streaming music or entertainment from your phone or TV.”
In addition to its Bluetooth compatible wireless streaming, Tala’s top-of-the line features will include patented LucidShape app-controlled customizable sound profiles, a moisture resistant coating and a rechargeable design that lasts all day. Importantly, Tala’s PDL System enhances the user’s ability to hear speech and other desired sounds while minimizing background noise. By combining Lucid Hearing’s sophisticated signal processing algorithms with directional power, PDL refines sounds originating from the direction the user is facing while suppressing unwanted noise from other directions, greatly enhancing speech intelligibility and overall listening comfort.
“We’ve positioned Tala’s microphones in such a way to optimize the hearing function so that we get the best directional performance through PDL,” said Bennett Griffin, EVP of research and development for Lucid Hearing. “These benefits are especially important in situations where individuals with mild to moderate hearing loss are struggling the most, like in noisy restaurants or in meetings, and they’re trying to make sure they really understand what people are saying,” Griffin noted.
Additionally, like all of Lucid Hearing’s premium OTC products, Tala can be upgraded to a custom programmed prescription hearing aid solution. “Lucid Hearing operates on a vertically integrated model, from R&D all the way through to our customer-facing hearing clinics, and we’ve intentionally built a technology stack that allows us to seamlessly upgrade a premium OTC hearing aid to a prescription-level solution, if at some point the customer wants to take that next step. This is something that is unique to Lucid Hearing and our continuum of OTC and prescription hearing aid products,” Griffin explained.
The offering of performance-driven and discreet OTC hearing aids like Tala could not be more timely as reports reveal an increased prevalence among Americans of noise-induced hearing loss. According to the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, approximately 40 million American adults may have hearing loss resulting from various types of noise exposure.
“We’re proud to introduce this product into the market,” said Tim Schnell, Lucid Hearing’s founder and CEO. “The modern design is incredible and perfect for those with hearing loss who have hesitated to purchase before because they were concerned about possible stigma associated with wearing hearing aids. I’m truly proud of our research and development team and their approach to Tala’s design and the high-definition sound that this solution offers, including our new PDL System which makes the product even more effective and impactful for the user,” Schnell noted.
An August 2022 ruling finalized by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) opened the market for OTC hearing devices, which are recommended for individuals with perceived mild to moderate hearing loss.
Lucid Hearing began preparing for the OTC market by making a significant investment over the last five years to develop pre-set programs for the company’s OTC devices. The programs were developed as a result of research done in conjunction with a top audiology research program at the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD). Lucid Hearing’s pre-set programs offer a unique advantage in that they help the vast majority of consumers with perceived mild to moderate hearing loss.
Information about Lucid Hearing’s full suite of products is available at LucidHearing.com.
