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The Taiwanese startup mentioned by Arm CEO: RelaJet and its Otoadd
Simon Segars, CEO of Arm, delivered a keynote speech on the first day of COMPUTEX 2021. During the speech, he mentioned two Taiwan-based companies, one is the well-known semiconductor company Mediatek, and the other is RelaJet, a startup born to provide hardware and software integration solutions to improve traditional hearing aids.
Founded in 2018, RelaJet focuses on vocal algorithms, using advancements in AI technology and engineering to improve the field of hearing aids. RelaJet can no doubt meet the demand of the users on product design because Blue Chen, the founder and CEO of RelaJet himself, suffers from congenital severe hearing impairment in both ears. As a result, he has had nearly 30 years of experience in using hearing aids, which will definitely help him as he begins to develop hearing aids.
Lived experience of the CEO: difficulties with traditional hearing aids
Speaking of his experience with traditional hearing aids, which connected a transparent tube and carried a battery and an eardrum,“they are like earphones that can amplify sounds hundreds of times. But not only all the sounds are amplified by the same magnification, they might also run out of power when they are needed, making people difficult to hear, or even impossible to hear,”so he always had to prepare an extra set in case of emergency.
Even with a hearing aid, he still had to face a lot of difficulties. Blue Chen's elder brother Jack Chen, COO of RelaJet, knows the pain best. Jack Chen accompanied Blue Chen to overcome various challenges,“for example, when walking on the street, people can identify where the honking of cars and ambulance horns come from, but Blue had to look for the sound in all directions. It's really difficult for him to respond to the position of the sound quickly,”said Jack Chen.
The same situation also occurred in normal life scenes. When different people were talking at the same time, it was difficult for Blue Chen to recognize who was speaking as the sound overlapped, not to mention focusing on the content itself or foreign language.
“When I couldn't hear, couldn't hear well, or the hearing aid ran out of power, I was angry but on the other hand, also frustrated,”said Blue Chen.“It felt like everything had stopped, or I had only a limited amount of time every day.”
Therefore, they aimed to provide better solutions for the deaf and people who suffer from hearing impairment. The Hearing Aid Act, passed in 2017 in the United States, made buying hearing aids without signed prescriptions possible. With the engineering background of Blue and the law background of Jack, the Chen brothers decided to set up RelaJet.
Highlights of RelaJet's technology: the multi-voice separation algorithm
RelaJet focused on developing the multi-voice separation algorithm, which can extract human voices from mixed voices, so that both humans and machines can capture human voices in a multi-person conversation accurately. Thus, it can distinguish the most important human voice within 10 milliseconds from other voices in a loud environment, allowing the deaf to receive it attentively.
They also introduced the algorithm to their own low-power consumption and small-sized electronic signal processor chip.
Blue Chen pointed out that wireless headphone manufacturers usually sacrifice sound quality for convenience. Therefore, there are now headphone brands that have adopted their technology for noise cancellation during calls and battery life extension.
RelaJet's innovation has caught the eye of world-class companies. Their technology not only won the champion of the 2019 Qualcomm Innovate in Taiwan Challenge. In 2020, Qualcomm also invited RelaJet to join the Qualcomm Advantage Network and become a member of Qualcomm's global commercial ecosystem, and they then developed the second-generation hearing aid chip.
James Chapman, the vice president and general manager of Qualcomm's Voice, Music and Wearables business, pointed out that more than 40% of consumers have expressed interest in headphones that provide assisting listening functions.
With RelaJet's multi-voice separation algorithm, the ultra-low-power consumption Qualcomm QCC5141 bluetooth chip can not only assist the deaf in live conversations, but also help improve the quality of calls for wireless headphone users.
In April 2021, RelaJet launched their own brand, Otoadd, and their first wireless hearing aids - N1, with a reasonable price under NT$10,000. It works with a rechargeable battery that lasts all day while traditional hearing aids require a new disposable battery every week. This innovative product was selected by Taiwan Tech Arena (TTA) as one of the 100 featured Taiwanese startups showcased at CES 2021.
In addition to hearing aids, RelaJet's multi-voice separation algorithm can also be used to separate audio tracks in multi-person discussion. Thus, combined with STT (speech to text) technology, RelaJet also provides automatic meeting transcript service, and thus became a member of Microsoft AI Infinity Partner in March, 2020.
RelaJet has grown significantly in 2020, and it is expected to reach a higher level this year. Their team decided to use Arm for product development at its very first stage, since devices using Arm account for 70% of the global market, which is also their integration goal. They believe when the headphones connect better to the surrounding devices, they can provide users with a solution that helps them to hear better.
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