Re:Office noise bothers some people more than others
by dmix on Monday November 18, 2019 @10:38PM
(#21570463)
There are some (higher-end) hearing-aid style ear buds that monitor external sound and filter it out or focus in on local sounds only.
This is far better than the whole totally enclosed ear-muffs + disposable ear buds approach (which does work but creates an uncomfortable pressure on your ears):
> Scenario 2: You find yourself at a popular new restaurant, where loud music and reverberant acoustics make it difficult to hold conversations (even if you don’t have hearing loss). Your hearables are monitoring your mental effort, again by tracking your brain waves, determining when you are struggling to hear. They then appropriately adjust the signal-to-noise ratio and directionality of their built-in mics to make it easier for you to understand what people nearby are saying. These hearables can distinguish your friends from the patrons you wish to ignore, based on audio fingerprints that the device previously collected.
Some of these are still in development or super expensive.
In terms of some practical solutions today, there's a brand called IQbuds ($300-$500) which use a similar strategy and can be custom-molded to fit your ears (just like a hearing aid) so they can be worn over a full workday:
This is far better than the whole totally enclosed ear-muffs + disposable ear buds approach (which does work but creates an uncomfortable pressure on your ears):
https://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/audiovideo/he...
> Scenario 2: You find yourself at a popular new restaurant, where loud music and reverberant acoustics make it difficult to hold conversations (even if you don’t have hearing loss). Your hearables are monitoring your mental effort, again by tracking your brain waves, determining when you are struggling to hear. They then appropriately adjust the signal-to-noise ratio and directionality of their built-in mics to make it easier for you to understand what people nearby are saying. These hearables can distinguish your friends from the patrons you wish to ignore, based on audio fingerprints that the device previously collected.
Some of these are still in development or super expensive.
In terms of some practical solutions today, there's a brand called IQbuds ($300-$500) which use a similar strategy and can be custom-molded to fit your ears (just like a hearing aid) so they can be worn over a full workday:
https://www.nuheara.com/iqbuds-boost/