Anker announced its first over-the-counter hearing aids at IFA 2026, RIC-style earpieces built around a custom "Thus" chip with four microphones and a 36-hour battery, entering a market Sony and Eargo are actively exiting this year.
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Transcript
Anker just showed up in a market its rivals are leaving. At IFA twenty twenty six, it unveiled its first hearing aid, the RIC, built around a custom chip called Thus that runs forty billion operations a second, driving four built in microphones tuned to isolate the voice you're trying to hear. Battery life is twelve hours a charge, thirty six with the case, and five minutes of wireless charging buys two more hours of listening. Here's the thing. Sony just wound down its hearing aid line. Eargo's parent company is winding down US support by September. Bose tried this back in twenty twenty one and bailed within a year. Anker thinks it can succeed where three others struggled. No price yet. No ship date yet. Just a chip and a promise.