Acousticon Hearing Aid invented by Miller Reese Hutchison

Oticon began with a Danish man named Hans Demant in 1903, who wanted to help his hearing impaired wife. The popular Queen Alexandra of Great Britain had worn the first portable hearing aid at her coronation the year before and Hans traveled to England to buy one for his wife. Motivated to help others with hearing loss, he began importing them to Denmark. Eventually Oticon began manufacturing their own hearing aids in 1940.

Every hearing aid manufacturer seems to focus its engineers on a particular task. Most recently, Oticon spent its energies developing a faster processor. The theory is that it can handle noise better, especially when dealing with multiple talkers. While it’s not the hearing aid for everyone, I have been impressed with the results in the patients I have chosen it for. For all you engineers and, what my dad calls “tinkerers”, here is an explanation of what they did.