business

It can be a battleground in many households -- a fight over the TV's volume.

The hard of hearing, in particular, want it loud. Others don't. Can there ever be peace?

GN ReSound, a Danish company with its U.S. headquarters in Bloomington, thinks it has a solution: a hearing aid that receives TV audio directly, through radio waves. Users set their own volume with the touch of a button, without affecting the sound level others hear.

It seemed like a simple concept at first, but it took the Danish company just over a decade to execute. GN ReSound started selling its wireless hearing aid Alera earlier this year, and the company believes it is the first product of its kind in the world.

"The idea is old and the vision of what we would like to do is old, but it was not until (recent years) this technology actually caught up with the vision and we were able to do this," said Brian Dam Pedersen, the company's chief system architect.

The idea hatched in 1999, when Bluetooth technology was becoming more popular. If consumers could talk on their cell phones through a wireless earpiece, why couldn't the same concept help the hard of hearing?

Unfortunately, GN ReSound couldn't use a Bluetooth headset directly as a hearing aid because the battery life was too short, Pedersen said. A typical Bluetooth headset battery, circa 1999, would die after eight hours of continuous use -- not enough to get someone through a typical day.

But things started looking up in 2005, when engineers found a way to let the hard of hearing adjust the volume on their television sets without disturbing other listeners.

The catch? It required consumers to wear a device around their necks to receive a Bluetooth signal from the TV and transmit it to the hearing aid. The device resolved the battery-life issue but weighed around 50 to 60 grams.

GN ReSound, which employs 441 in Bloomington, built prototypes for testing and found that patients loved the concept of a wireless hearing aid that communicated with their TVs, Pederson said. But they hated the necklace.

"It's just not very attractive," Pedersen said. "People basically don't want to show they are wearing our products. They would rather like to hide this. Asking them to wear something visible on the body was not the best way to argue they should buy this."

That was the end of the necklace product. "We were either waiting until technology caught up [or] marketing something that was not on the level that we would want it to be," Pedersen said.

It was around 2007 or 2008 that technology started to catch up. Better wireless radios enabled advances in wireless game controllers, keyboards and PowerPoint presentation devices that required less battery power.

GN ReSound developed a wireless radio that could go inside the hearing aid. The radio would communicate directly with an attachment on a television, stereo or other electronic device, with a push of a button. Unlike Bluetooth, the radio would spend less time "on air" and therefore have a longer battery life.

Once the approach became clear, GN ReSound hired engineers with expertise in antennas, most of whom came from mobile phone companies, because the 3-centimeter antenna had to be designed to fit into the small hearing aid. Then, the product had to fit well inside a human ear and be able to work.

The company looked for mannequin heads with ears to test the hearing aids, but none of them had realistic earlobes. So the company ended up having to create its own earlobes, using material similar to skin.

After more testing and development, GN ReSound began selling the wireless hearing aid, Alera, for $2,000 to $6,000, depending on features selected. So far customers seem to like it. If there were complaints, Pederson said, "You would hear it."

Wendy Lee • 612-673-1712