Protection against hearing loss

Solution

HearAngel Hearing Safeguarding

HearAngel provide a standards-compliant software solution that enables wireless headphone and platform providers to offer hearing safeguarding in their products.

The solution comprises highly efficient embedded software that executes on the chipset in the headphone together with an (optional) companion smartphone application to provide an intuitive user interface for the reporting of sound dosage and the control of the hearing safeguarding. The flexible software supports all of the key DSP and host processor architectures in the market, and can be adapted to suit all platforms.

Technical Details

Supports execution on DSP only or DSP + host processor platforms
Minimal resource requirements (<4MIPS, <100Kbytes)
Audio sampling via internal microphone or from audio output driver
No modification of audio output stream (other than volume control)
Bluetooth interface to control and reporting smartphone interface
Companion application (or SDK) for iOS and Android smartphones

Manufacturer Benefits

Time to market: manufacturers have access to a standards-compliant implementation ready for product integration without the need for ground-up development. HearAngel software is already compliant with the upcoming changes in WHO-ITU standards.
Know-how and domain expertise: the HearAngel solution embodies more than ten years experience of delivering hearing safeguarding solutions into demanding professional and occupational environments. HearAngel are active participants in the development of hearing safeguarding standards with the WHO and ITU.
Intellectual property protection: HearAngel have a number of patents filed around hearing safeguarding technologies that alternative implementations may have to work around.
Cost effectiveness: lower cost than the internal (or external) costs of a software development from scratch and ongoing maintenance and upgrades.

Safety Standards Compliance
HearAngel® embedded software allows wireless headphones to provide hearing safeguarding features that meet ITU/WHO H.870v1 and v2, ITU/WHO H.871 safety standards and the enhanced levels of the IEC62368-1 regulations.

How HearAngel^® Works

Hearing damage can be caused by listening for long periods at quite moderate levels, or for quite short periods at very high volume. It is a complex combination of the listening period (time), how loud you listen (volume) and the energy content (density) of the sound you listen to, that creates the “dose” of sound that does the damage.

Speech typically has a low energy, because of the pauses between words but electronic dance music, which is usually highly compressed, will have a MUCH higher energy for the same peak to peak listening level.

Everyone has a recommended Daily Sound Allowance (DSA^®). The World Health Organisation recommend no more than 80dBA (average level) over a 24 hour period. This means that you can listen louder for some of the time, as long as this is offset by periods where your level is lower or you’re not listening at all.

Until now, there has been no way that your sound dose could be calculated outside of a laboratory. This is the clever bit; HearAngel^® calculates how long you listen, how loud you listen and the energy in what you listen to give you accurate information about your listening habits and will notify you if you are at risk. It has no effect on the sound quality and if you wish, it can automatically adjust the sound level to keep you safe.

To safeguard your children’s hearing, HearAngel^® includes parental control features which lets you set your own values for Peak Level, DSA^® use and even the listening periods.

Solution

How HearAngel® Works

How HearAngel^® Works