Since the first days of electrical hearing aids, when hearing instruments were unnatural-sounding and hard to use, Oticon has led the effort to make hearing technology a more natural-sounding and transparent part of life. Research and experience have shown us that the more effortless and natural the sound from your hearing instrument, the easier it is for you to participate fully in the world around you.

This understanding has led us to develop many industry firsts: the first fully automatic hearing instrument; the first digital hearing instrument; the first hearing instrument with artificial intelligence; one of the first instruments to use wireless binaural technology; and the first design-focused hearing instrument.

Today we hold many patents in advanced hearing technology and our products are built with features available nowhere else: Speech Guard, which delivers more natural sounding speech; Spatial Sound, which preserves your ability to know where a sound is coming from; Connectivity, which links you to TV, computers and smartphones; and many other leading-edge capabilities that are exclusive to Oticon.

The Digital Revolution

Oticon DigiFocus, the first ear-level fully digital hearing aid, launched a revolution in hearing care. Celebrating its 25th anniversary, this “tiny computer in your ear” paved the way for a brave new world of digital innovation, liberating hearing aids from hardware dependency.

Today, Oticon continues to lead the way in digital innovation with life-changing technology that improves not just hearing but quality of life.

Hear personal recollections from Oticon staff who were eyewitnesses to this digital revolution!

Watch video

Eriksholm Research Center

Eriksholm is helping to understand the role of cognition in listening and how cognitive factors interact with auditory factors to affect how people use their hearing.

Learn more

What influences listening effort

When you have hearing loss, you use up more cognitive resources to make sense of sound – energy that might otherwise be used for tasks like remembering or staying with the conversation.

Two blogs take a deeper look into new research on the effort we expend when listening – uncovering some fascinating new insights into how listening affects us and how our motivation to hear may affect listening.

Read our pupillometry article
Read our effortful listening article

Interested in reading more about our research?

See all white papers and publications

Kongebakken Product Development Center

At Kongebakken Product Development Center just outside of Copenhagen, we draw on the results of our people-focused psychoacoustic research to design the next generation of advanced hearing technology.

Kongebakken is the world's most advanced center for hearing instrument design and development. This center combines world-class engineering capabilities, and an open environment to promote innovative solutions and cross functional collaboration.

By integrating Kongebakken’s advanced engineering capabilities with Eriksholm’s leading-edge psychoacoustic research and Oticon’s world-class manufacturing capabilities, Oticon maintains the lead in developing the future of hearing technology.