Sound You Control, And A Program You Follow At Home
Oto is a sound therapy program for adults with bothersome tinnitus, delivered through an app on your own phone. Sound sits at the center of it. You choose sounds that sit comfortably against your tinnitus and use them whenever you need them, including at night. Around that sound, the app gives you a structured eight-week course of short daily sessions.
Oto is not something you set up on your own. We recommend it after your tinnitus evaluation, once we understand your hearing, your tinnitus, and what is making it hardest to live with.
What Is Oto?
Oto is an app you use on your own smartphone. It has two halves that work together.
The first is sound. The app carries a library of therapeutic sounds, and you pick the ones that sit most comfortably against your own tinnitus. You control the volume and you decide when to use them, whether that is at your desk, in the car, or in a quiet bedroom at night when there is nothing else to listen to.
The second is a structured eight-week course. Each day the app gives you a short session to work through, so you are not left to figure out what to do on your own between appointments.
We set the app up with you here in the clinic, and we review how you are getting on at your follow-up visits.
How Does the Oto Program Work?
Getting started. Oto is recommended following your tinnitus evaluation. Once we have your test results and understand how your tinnitus is affecting you, we set the app up with you in the clinic, get you through your first session, and agree how often we will review your progress together.
Daily sessions. Around ten minutes a day across an eight-week course, using CBT-based techniques alongside the sound to work on the attention you give your tinnitus, on your sleep, and on the stress that makes it harder to live with. You can also use the sounds on their own at any point, for as long as you like.
Follow-up and tracking. The app records your Tinnitus Functional Index score, a validated questionnaire that measures how much your tinnitus is interfering with daily life. We look at those scores together at your follow-up appointments, so we can both see what is changing rather than relying on memory.
Who Is Oto For?
Oto is for adults aged 18 and over with bothersome tinnitus. It tends to suit patients whose tinnitus is affecting their sleep, their concentration or their mood, who want something structured to follow between appointments, and who are comfortable using an app on a smartphone.
As with any tinnitus care, we start with an evaluation. Tinnitus that comes on suddenly, is in one ear only, pulses in time with your heartbeat, or arrives alongside dizziness or a change in your hearing needs to be looked at before anything else.
How Does Oto Fit With Your Other Tinnitus Care?
Oto is part of your tinnitus care plan, not an alternative to the rest of it.
The same is true if you wear hearing aids. Your hearing technology restores the sound you have been missing and can mask your tinnitus through the day, and Oto gives you sound you control at night once your hearing aids are out.
For patients who do not need hearing aids, Oto is used on its own.
You will not be asked to choose between them.
What Does the Research Show?
Oto’s daily sessions use therapeutic sound, with CBT-based techniques alongside. That approach is recommended for tinnitus management by NICE, by the American Academy of Otolaryngology-Head and Neck Surgery, and by Cochrane.
Oto has been studied in a randomized controlled trial at Flinders University, published in 2025. Ninety-six adults were randomized either to use Oto or to a wait-list control group. At six months, the group using Oto showed a statistically significant improvement on the Tinnitus Functional Index, a validated measure of how much tinnitus is affecting daily life, with a 9-point reduction and an effect size of 0.62.
You can read more about Oto’s research at joinoto.com/research.
Frequently Asked Questions
No. Oto runs on your own smartphone and works whether or not you wear hearing aids. If you do wear them, the two are used together.
Around ten minutes. The course runs for eight weeks, and the sound library stays available to you outside the daily sessions for as long as you want it.
Yes, and that is one of the most common reasons patients like it. Tinnitus is usually at its worst when a room is quiet, which is exactly when hearing aids are out and there is nothing else to listen to.
No. There is currently no cure for tinnitus. Oto is a program you follow to make tinnitus easier to live with, and it is one part of the care we put together with you after your evaluation. You can see what the eight weeks cover at joinoto.com.
Ready to Begin Your Journey to Better Hearing?
Trinity Hearing & Balance provides tinnitus evaluations and the Oto program in New Port Richey, FL, and throughout the Tampa Bay area.
Call (727) 755-0391 to schedule your tinnitus evaluation.