After years as a Strategic Advisor, I am joining Earfab to accelerate the global access to custom-made in-ear products...at-scale!

Hearing Health devices: An “at-scale” opportunity in need of an industrial approach...we got you!

The 30,000 feet question to consider: if you could pick up your smartphone today and scan your ears, for then to receive your medical-grade, custom-made, triple-certified, injection molded hearing protection device in less than a week....would you do it? And why?

Say what?

Can you repeat that?

I didn’t quite catch it?

If this sounds familiar, that (also) you are missing a bit of a connection/context/words in your daily conversations...don’t be alarmed: you are by far not the only one and secondly there are most likely ways to put yourself and your hearing health in a better position by taking initial actions yourself. ?

I know, you know...but just saying, we are all getting older. With that comes many great things as well as few other things that we are not all in control of. One of them is Hearing Loss. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 1.5 billion people, or nearly 20% of the global population, live with hearing loss. That includes both mild and severe cases. It also varies across locations, age and society groups. The majority (93%) of people with hearing loss live in?low and middle-income countries, underscoring the need for accessible healthcare services and public health strategies.

For many good reasons, most people don’t pay attention to the fact that Hearing Loss is something that occurs “over time”. Most of the time gradually and sometimes quite instantly. Two major categories often used are:

NIHL: Noise-Induced Hearing Loss?

ARHL: Age-Related Hearing Loss

NIHL is caused by exposure to loud noises over time or from a one-time loud event. High-risk activities and occupations could include work within industries like: construction, manufacturing, industrial machinery handling, concerts/events, and also from using headphones at (too) high volumes. So basically, these are spaces we all navigate on a daily basis, often without noticing the impact from the many NIHL sources out there.?

ARHL also known as presbycusis, is a gradual loss of hearing in both ears that occurs as people age. It is a common problem linked to aging, affecting one out of three persons by age 65, and one out of two by age 75. The root causes to ARHL can be less evident, and less preventable for most. Often it will be associated with other medical conditions as well as your ear’s anatomy and overall functionality.

As we at Earfab, are focused on helping people preventing the rapid progress and impact from NIHL whenever possible, the focus and data highlighted in this article will be centered around the NIHL hearing loss category.

As to groups impacted, and data driven overviews down to specific target groups and types of labor, the AudioCardio team has put together a splendid visual overview, see below:

The amount of data available on the topic of people navigating noisy spaces is huge, and is constantly growing our insights to target groups in need of scalable, specific preventive technologies like really good hearing protection.

In a recent, multi-year study performed by School of Public Health, at Michigan University it is once again highlighted that the number of people impacted daily, is rather large. In the study itself, using data from ~130,000 volunteers from the Apple Hearing Study who contributed Apple Watch data between November 2019 to December 2022, a lot of valuable results have been derived. One key finding that clearly stands out, is that the study and data shows than 1 out of 3 adult Americans, are exposed to excessive noise levels on a daily basis. Read more in the depth from the research right here .

"In order to provide access to group sizes like these, we believe that industrial, automated and accessible solutions are needed, which is why we are this laser focused at team Earfab"

The impact from living with Hearing Loss and why it is worth “fighting back”

NIHL and ARHL both impact how we all function in our various spaces in our daily lives. It has been researched for decades and shown to have correlation to areas like:

1.??????? Communication Challenges:?Individuals with hearing loss often face difficulties understanding conversations, which can lead to frequent misunderstandings, especially in noisy environments

2.??????? Social Isolation:?The struggle to communicate effectively can result in withdrawal from social interactions, reducing participation in social activities and contributing to feelings of isolation

3.??????? Workplace Difficulties:?Hearing loss can create barriers in the workplace, affecting job performance, career progression, and workplace relationships. Challenges include difficulties in hearing conversations, especially in noisy settings, and feeling left out of informal workplace interactions

4.??????? Reduced Independence:?Day-to-day activities can also become more challenging, impacting the individual’s autonomy and independence. This may include difficulties in hearing alarms, doorbells, or even crossing streets safely

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In recent years, research has started to show strong ties between Hearing Health and Mental Health disorders:

1.??????? Increased Psychological Distress:?Anxiety, depression, and feelings of loneliness are common among those with hearing loss due to the isolation and communication barriers they face

2.??????? Cognitive Decline:?There is an association between hearing loss and cognitive decline, including dementia. The effort to hear and communicate can strain cognitive resources, possibly accelerating cognitive deterioration

3.??????? Emotional Impact:?Individuals with hearing loss often experience sadness, frustration, guilt, and a reduced sense of self-worth, primarily due to their reduced ability to engage socially and professionally

4.??????? Sleep Disturbances:?The increased mental strain and emotional distress can also lead to sleep problems, worsening the individual's overall health and well-being?

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Agreed, stating the facts above is not always the most pleasant type of reading. On the other hand, from an entrepreneurial point of view – challenges always come with an opportunity to build “something” to change the status quo. Earfab is such a company and team.

Earfab enters – how can we be of assistance?

We started Earfab almost 4 years ago. Our core belief is that at-scale challenges need at-scale solutions. So we started with the end in mind, with questions like:

1.??????? What does it take to help 10,000 individuals to protect themselves from NIHL in their daily environments and spaces?

2.??????? What defines a good set of hearing protection?

3.??????? How can we make the users wear their hearing protection, while feeling empowered?

4.??????? How can we lower the barriers to entry from a practical, economical, high quality and wearability point of view?

5.??????? We explored a range of technologies, software systems and industrial machinery that could potentially get us there. Testing, validating and optimizing.

6.??????? And to support the overall goal of delivering at-scale, we built software and workflows that are fully automated, end to end. Built to scale.

Deep down, we care a lot about individual needs and making Hearing Health awareness a joint effort. We care to the level that each one of us, should have access to Hearing Protection and other in-ear products in a custom-made well fitted solution. Because with great fit, comes great wearability. And if you get access to hearing protection that you actually WANT to wear vs. devices you are TOLD to wear....the true impact is striking. You get to claim your space in ways that literally fit YOU and your work/life routines. Imagine wearing our hearing protection while also being able to have live conversations with your peers and colleagues at work, or at the dance party?

The below is the Earfab Hearing Protection Map, covering spaces like: travel, sleep, industry settings, concert and event settings, hunting and outdoors and detectable solutions for food and medical industries. The coolest part about getting hands on with any of our end products is that it starts with your ears in mind.

By claiming your space we believe you can put yourself in a better position for a lot of things. All the way from relaxing and re-charging to accelerating your next performance effort, being it a work, while traveling or exercising on the yoga mat. We all know situations where we just want to relax, focus, re-charge, perform......you name it!

The Earfab way vs. the usual ways:

At Earfab we spent time on trying, testing, validating, iterating and optimizing the journey from “Hey, I need hearing protection” to in less than a week to go “Oh, I see my custom-made Industry ear plugs with dynamic noise filters have arrived in my mailbox!”

Scan -> Order -> Wear: the Earfab workflow could not be simpler. Pick up your smartphone, open the Earfab Scan App and scan your ears in a few minutes. Order the type of product from the Hearing Protection Map that fits your need and wait a couple of days. You got mail! So on average a lead time of less than a week. Custom-made, medical grade, w. tailored protection to your specific use case. Same order flow and lead time applies whether the client is an individual ordering 1 set or if it is an organization ordering 10,000 individual sets for their team members.

The workflows with other suppliers and their platforms are often more like this: As a potential client of custom-made hearing protection you will have to first: find an Audiologist, book a time, visit the place, get your ear imprints made (which has a risk and a cost as well). The Audiologist then sends imprints to a lab, that manufactures custom made hearing protection devices, often in labor intensive, slow paced and cost heavy environment. All of the above will end up adding to cost and leadtimes that often exceeds several weeks.

Quick comparison between the two workflows:

1.??????? The Earfab workflow and tech stack is built for scale, without impacting quality.

2.??????? The automated, AI enabled and distributed manufacturing systems at Earfab have been built in a way, where we can limit the possibility for “man made errors” (and bottle necks)...since "man" is not part of the equation and workflow anymore

3.??????? There is often up to a 30% remake / refit needed on the traditional solutions, vs. the less than 1% using the Earfab way

4.??????? The traditional workflows allows for traditional business models only. Using the Earfab approach, we allow our clients to build THEIR business enabled by our tech.

5.??????? Lowering the barriers to access is key: physical stores are only so many, and audiologists are already busy

As regular and everyday people, we are often busy both working and living our lives. This is why we wanted to bring the access to really good hearing protection much closer to the individual.

Enabling a better hearing health journey for the larger population – we need your support and feedback:

Change is hard. Living with a permanent Hearing Loss, is most likely harder, we can all agree. At Earfab we pride ourselves of being the most curious one in the room. Not because we have all the answers, but often because we have all the questions.

?That mind-set has brought us into partnerships, client dialogues and industries we would have never seen possible, just 4 years ago. We have a lot to be grateful for.?

Being humbled by my awesome LinkedIn network, I would ask a few favors of you. Not for my sake, but potentially for the sake of your future hearing ability. Change starts within you. If you chose to change, we got you. If you find no reason to do so, we are still curious to learn exactly what just works for you – that well, that no change is needed.

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A short list of favors I want to ask for your feedback on:

1.??????? Look around you and try to make a habit out of noticing in what spaces you and your team members are potentially impacted by some of these NIHL environments listed earlier in this article (smartphones / watches often have a noise measuring app)

2.??????? Talk to your team members or your employer and learn what Hearing Health programs and options you have in place that you can utilize as an individual or team

3.??????? Think of good hearing health on the long term, more as an investment in “future you”. What would make you ACTUALLY wear hearing protection on a regular basis?

4. Where would you place our awesome easy to use "scanning booth" as seen in the below photo? Would be curious to learn more from all of you ??

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Phew, I just had to let you all know what I am up to and why we are “on fire” here at team Earfab. Reach out to me, if want to talk/share/try some of the stuff we are enablers of. Our goal is to focus on where impact is made, and we have miles to walk yet.....

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Thanks from,

Carsten

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Ps. Moved from Silicon Valley, California after 11 years there to Portland, Oregon a year ago. Portland has great AMAZING nature, supreme food sources, good coffee and four real seasons of weather. If you ever want to stop by to explore our tech and products, I would be happy to host you and your teams.......