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Patrick Freuler, founder and chief executive of the hearing aid company Audicus, went into business after being confronted with prices and inefficiencies that seemed out of step with today's technology-driven, consumer-oriented world...Audicus, based in Chelsea, is part of a wave of companies capitalizing on the shift toward what Freuler calls DIY diagnostics. Anyone with a mobile phone can track their blood-glucose levels, take a vision exam or even attempt to self-diagnose a skin condition. Why not take a hearing test?

Audicus is selling simple and affordable, German-manufactured hearing aids. It is one of the first startups that offers an Online Hearing Test that is accurate enough to program your hearing aids, which eliminates the need to seek a clinical audiogram. This direct-to-consumer startup radically reduces hearing aid costs and ensures that hearing aids are customized and tailored to the client’s requirements.

Hearing aids that are sold at an audiologists office are expensive, and usually range from $1,000 to $4,000 per ear. They are often sometimes not covered by private insurance or traditional Medicare.

The cost to manufacture a single hearing aid — not including fees for testing and programming and other services — is only $50 to $200, said Freuler. "I think at some point, what will happen [is that] we will make the market bigger, because we will attract people who will not go to the audiologist because it is so expensive," Freuler said.

Perhaps the closest thing to “a fashionable hearing aid” happened in 2015, when Audicus partnered with Advanced Style for a line of devices in leopard print, glitter, polka dots, and hologram. They’re actually really cool — and the campaign video, starring the impossibly glamorous Joyce Carpati, is serving very good octogenarian style icon vibes.

The Audicus web-based hearing test provides a national solution to this by providing free tests and education tools to the greater population, upending antiquated testing methods.

Audicus’s new hearing assessment tech will allow users to check up on their hearing online, for free. It’s a great first stop for anyone concerned about their hearing.

Ultimately, Audicus is all about bringing people together by taking a consumer-based focus to their branding. Patrick also shares how they aim to educate their consumers to take healthcare decisions into their own hands to have a drastic improvement in their quality of life.

CES® 2017, the largest consumer electronics showcase in the world, sets the stage for the Extreme Tech Challenge (XTC) 2017 Semi-Finals taking place January 7th at 1PM PST. Ahead of the Semi-Finals, the masterminds behind XTC, MaiTai Global, are thrilled to reveal the Top 10 who will pitch their venture live on-stage at CES in hopes of being one of three companies selected to move onto the final round taking place on Sir Richard Branson's Necker Island. A hotly-contested battle thus far, the Top 10 Semi-Finalists were announced December 3rd at MaiTai Global's annual Ocean Gala in San Francisco and now forge on to the glittering backdrop of Las Vegas.

When buying a car, for example, the consumer not only can choose between a Lexus and a Chevrolet, but also decide on particular features, such as wire wheels or gold trim. Patrick Freuler, chief executive of Audicus, an online company that partners with a German manufacturer to sell private-label hearing aids, makes the point that consumers are not being offered the low-cost choices, but are being presented with only luxury devices.