With Advanced Bionics, Cochlear, and MED-EL all preparing to announce new processors, a room full of professionals is always a good place to watch.  There aren’t many cochlear implant conferences coming up, so the British Cochlear Implant Group conference on March 21st and 22nd bears close scrutiny.

The programme includes time for AB, Cochlear, MED-EL and Neurelec to provide manufacturer’s updates.  While CochlearimplantHELP.com has no specific product introduction information, we have been reporting on the upcoming devices.

Advanced Bionics:

AB is readying a new processor with wireless capabilities and features from Phonak.  You can stream the phone audio from one ear to the other (another AB implant or a Phonak hearing aid).  Connect to phones, music players, etc. via BlueTooth through the ComPilot.  More information is available in this brochure.

Cochlear:

The Nucleus 6 processor will be available in two sizes – with or without an accessory port.  The processor may offer wireless capabilities using the remote as a gateway device.  And it may be possible to program the processor remotely!  The Nucleus 6 will also be able to act as a hybrid hearing aid / cochlear implant, using the Acoustic Component.

MED-EL:

MED-EL has been busy as well, preparing the RONDO one-piece processor.  This is the world’s first processor to be completely self-contained. The batteries, processor, and headpiece are all one unit.  Nothing sits on the ear at all!

Neurelec:

This French cochlear implant manufacturer has a time slot to provide an update at the conference as well.  The current system from Neurelec is very creative – one implant has two arrays, one for each cochlea!  Externally, the Saphyr processor sits on one ear, and a wired microphone is on the other ear.  This system provides true stereo sound.