Sound ID is a Silicon Valley start-up that is finally breaking down the barriers between consumer electronics and the hearing aid industry. It is developing a Bluetooth-based product that will make it easier for everyone — consumers with normal hearing and hearing-impaired people alike — to understand voices on the other end of their cellphones in noisy environments. The Sound ID Personal Sound System™ will provide a wireless link from Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones to a Sound ID EarModule™ . The earpiece will improve the cellphone signal to make it easier for people with normal hearing to understand. And, for anyone with a hearing impairment, it can be tuned to match the user’s particular hearing profile. The founder and CEO of Sound ID is Rodney Perkins, M.D., a famous Silicon Valley otologist and inventor who previously founded ReSound Corporation, which grew rapidly into one of the top seven global hearing aid manufacters and now sells its products under the GN ReSound name as part of GN Great Nordic Corp. By integrating advanced DSP-based hearing-aid hardware and software with the Bluetooth digital communications standard for wireless consumer communications products, Perkins and company are finally crossing the divide between the world of hard-to-use hearing aids and the promised land of easy-to-use consumer audio products.
Here is more information on the Personal Sound System product from the website:
“At the heart of the system is a very cool and cutting-edge wireless EarModule™. The digital Bluetooth link in the system allows for hands-free use of Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones. Also, the EarModule™ can be personalized to match the wearer’s hearing. The Sound ID Personal Sound System™ uses the digital Bluetooth link to deliver optimized sound at your ear, and to clearly capture your voice, even when you are up to approximately 30 feet away from your phone. A very powerful and miniature digital signal processor inside the EarModule™ enables sophisticated sound processing that will allow you to hear more clearly.
“The Sound ID proprietary technology of Personalized Digital Sound maximizes the intelligibility of mobile phone communication through personalization and Adaptive Noise Compensation. Personalization is implemented with a sophisticated model of the inner ear dynamics that processes the sound in a way similar to the biological mechanism of the auditory system. This processing results in natural sound quality and, in the case of speech in difficult listening situations, increased intelligibility. Sound ID Adaptive Noise Compensation™ optimizes the sound output of the EarModule™ for maximal sound clarity when you are in noisy environments like airports, restaurants, city streets and shopping malls.”
That’s what the website says. Even more exciting, the technology can be adapted over time for other uses. For instance, the website also briefly mentions a wireless Companion Micropohone option that I assume can be used to pick up normal conversation with a companion in the same room while reducing environmental noise in the same way that it improves signals from the mobile phone. I gather such a product would compete with the popular class of assistive listening devices that use microphones to transmit conversations through RF, FM or hard-wired connections to a set of headphones or directly into a set of hearing aids. Presumably, using standard Bluetooth components for such a product will lower the cost to consumers and improve quality over time, in addition to offering the Bluetooth “cool” factor.
There is another neat feature on the Sound ID website which makes it worth visiting, especially if you’re hearing impaired and have always wanted to let friends and relatives know what you have to deal with. Go to the “Technology” section of the site and click on the “Speech: Listen…” demo. It lets you hear simulations of differences between normal and impaired hearing in a noisy restaurant, on a noisy street, and between a people with normal hearing and impaired hearing. The last demo is great. I played it for my wife Barbara and it was the first time she had ever experienced just how hard it is for me to comprehend normal conversation, even when I’ve got amplification from hearing aids, because of my combination of low hearing level and high distortion.
My only problem with Sound ID is that the products don’t seem to be out there yet. The site doesn’t say if/when they will be available, or where you will be able to get them. On a quick Internet search, all I could find were (very positive) reports on the prototype model, including a two-year-old report from the 2003 Consumer Electronics Show on Geek.com. But that’s just my usual gripe about the terrible marketing we see in the hearing industry — even the manufacturers who seem to get everything right, especially with the design of their products, too often fall down on the simplest measures of communication with their prospective customers. But on the plus side, the demos on the Sound ID site are among the best I’ve seen letting consumers hear the difference between noise and signals conditioned to be more friendly to the ear. More manufacturers should try to come up with marketing features like the Sound ID demos, which consumers can relate to far better than a technical description.
So, like I said, Sound ID has a sound idea — I hope they get it to the marketplace soon.