Research & publications

Count on us to help keep you up to speed on the latest research, trends and hearing health technology.

About Starkey Research

Our researchers at Starkey are leaders in developing innovative hearing aid technology and exploring important questions about hearing loss, balance, cognition, and the connections between hearing and socialization. Bringing together expertise in clinical audiology, psychoacoustics, cognitive psychology, acoustical engineering, and advanced statistics, our team aims to continually improve the lives of patients by ensuring that our technologies provide opportunities for a healthy lifestyle, social participation, and excellent, effortless hearing.

Volunteers from the local community, with and without hearing loss, work in partnership with our researchers to provide insightful feedback and data on the benefits of our newest hearing technology, signal processing algorithms, healthable technologies, smart sensors, and intelligent assistant features. Through this research we continue to redefine what a hearing aid can do — for example, by using state-of-the-art machine learning techniques to make the experience of listening in noisy environments less challenging and effortful, and by using sensors to detect falls. 

Besides pushing the boundaries on hearing aid technology, our researchers also work to verify and validate every feature, ensure usability, and develop evidence-based audiological practices. In short, the research team at Starkey truly helps to define what it is to Hear Better, Live Better.

Starkey’s research facility is located at our global headquarters in Eden Prairie, Minnesota.

Research

Recent publications

Enhancing Directionality with Deep Neural Networks white paper.

Enhancing Directionality with Deep Neural Networks

Omega AI introduces the world’s first multi-channel deep neural network directionality system for hearing aids. It intelligently adapts to complex acoustic environments, enhancing speech clarity while preserving spatial awareness. This paper reports our clinical findings that show up to 28% improvement in speech intelligibility and up to 8dB SNR improvement for better spatial awareness. With real-time optimization and user-preferred performance, Omega AI delivers a natural, safe, and context-aware listening experience, redefining how users engage with conversations and their surroundings.
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Leading the industry in speech intelligibiliy

Leading the Industry in Speech Intelligibility

This white paper highlights Omega AI’s superior performance, achieving up to a 6.5 dB advantage (equivalent to 70% better performance) in complex, real-world listening environments. It introduces an AI-driven speech intelligibility evaluation method that objectively assesses hearing aid performance across diverse acoustic scenarios. By eliminating variability inherent in subjective testing, the approach enables consistent, scalable, and repeatable comparisons across brands.
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Clinical evidence for the accuracy of REM and in-situ audiometry with AMO 2.0

Clinical evidence for the accuracy of REM and in-situ audiometry with AMO 2.0

Starkey’s Acoustic Model Optimization (AMO) 2.0 enhances hearing aid fitting precision by individualizing acoustic models using in-situ electroacoustic data during Feedback Canceller initialization. Integrated into Pro Fit software, AMO 2.0 improves the accuracy of Best-Fit gain settings and in-situ audiometry, reducing deviations from prescriptive targets. Clinical data show significant performance improvements over AMO 1.0, especially in meeting real-ear measurement targets and in-situ audiometry threshold accuracy. These enhancements streamline fittings and improving outcomes for adult hearing aid users.
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Research Catalog

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