378results about "Hearing aid vents" patented technology

The present invention relates to a method for computer-controlled modelling of customised earpieces. These earpieces include housings for hearing aids, wireless or connected communication devices (headsets, mobile phones, personal agents), loud speakers, tinnitus masking devices, devices recording vibrations in the skull and transforming these into audio signals, voice recognition devices, earplugs, noise blockers with selective frequencies or sound levels, Man Machine Interface (MMI) products that enable clear communication even in the noisiest environments, or products related to wireless Internet applications. All these earpieces may be worn in the user's meatus and/or auditory canal. The invention also relates to a computerised system for manufacturing such customised earpieces. In particular, the invention is directed to a computerised system that models an earpiece based on a three-dimensional replica of the user's meatus and/or auditory canal.

The present invention relates to a receiver module being adapted to be positioned in an ear canal, the receiver module comprising a receiver having a receiver housing, said receiver being adapted to receive a time dependent electrical signal, said receiver further being adapted to generate outgoing acoustic waves via an output port in the receiver housing in response to the received time dependent electrical signal, and expansible means surrounding at least part of the receiver housing, said expansible means having an opening aligned with the output port of the receiver housing so as to allow the generated outgoing acoustic waves to penetrate away from the receiver module and into the ear canal.

Apparatuses and methods for delivering sound to ear canal are provided. The apparatus generally includes a compressible and resilient toroidal section having an inner side and an outer side. An aperture extends from the outer side to the inner side and the outer side has a well disposed within an inner side surface about the aperture. The apparatus further includes a compressible and resilient spout integrated with the toroidal section and extending away from the inner side. The spout includes a channel disposed within an inner spout surface and the channel is coupled to the well.

A compressible hearing aid includes an exterior deformable skin which bounds an internal region which is filled, at least in part, with an open-cell foam, the foam can be wrapped around or molded to contain an audio output transducer. The skin is not self-supporting and in response to applied forces from user's ear canal, the skin and the foam both deform and readily compress exhibiting a reduced volume. Though compressed, the foam exerts an outward force against the skin thereby continuing to form an elongated seal between the skin and the external periphery of the user's dynamically changing ear canal. As the volume of the ear canal increases, the skin and open-cell foam expand, exhibiting an increased internal volume, while maintaining a comfortable seal with the ear canal. A plurality of external ribs carried on the skin not only reduces feedback but promotes drying of the ear canal and promotes retention of the hearing aid in the ear canal.

An occluding hearing aid having anti-occlusion effect techniques combined with at least one improvement which, in the preferred embodiment, includes enhancement of acoustic output in the lower-midrange and bass frequency regions, typically between substantially 40 and 500 Hz, which regions are crucial for natural reproduction of multimedia sound and music but are not optimally processed, and generally not provided at all, in prior art hearing aids in order to avoid exacerbation of the occlusion effect. In specific embodiments, the hearing aid of the present invention includes primary or first microphone exposed to external sound plus a secondary or second microphone exposed to sound within an ear canal, in which a signal produced by the secondary microphone is applied as negative feedback to an input of a non-gain controlling signal process and amplifier driving a hearing aid receiver (transducer), whereby, it has been determined by the present inventor, the occlusion effect may be substantially canceled. The hearing aid further comprises at least one of ten combinational improvements each providing substantial performance benefits over known techniques and devices.

Methods, apparatus and computer program products provide efficient techniques for designing and printing shells of hearing-aid devices with a high degree of quality assurance and reliability and with a reduced number of manual and time consuming production steps and operations. These techniques also preferably provide hearing-aid shells having internal volumes that can approach a maximum allowable ratio of internal volume relative to external volume. These high internal volumes facilitate the inclusion of hearing-aid electrical components having higher degrees of functionality and/or the use of smaller and less conspicuous hearing-aid shells. A preferred method includes operations to generate a watertight digital model of a hearing-aid shell by thickening a three-dimensional digital model of a shell surface in a manner that eliminates self-intersections and results in a thickened model having an internal volume that is a high percentage of an external volume of the model. This thickening operation preferably includes nonuniformly thickening the digital model of a shell surface about a directed path that identifies a location of an undersurface hearing-aid vent. This directed path may be drawn on the shell surface by a technician (e.g., audiologist) or computer-aided design operator, for example. Operations are then preferably performed to generate a digital model of an undersurface hearing-aid vent in the thickened model of the shell surface, at a location proximate the directed path.

A hearing aid includes a first half shell and a second shell attached to the first shell. A microphone, battery, electronics, a receiver and a flexible tip are mounted within a housing formed by the first half shell and the second half shell. A mechanical securing mechanism, located on the first half shell and the second half shell, attaches the first half shell to the second half shell. A flexible tip for a hearing aid includes a tip portion, a sound port attached to the tip portion and a vent formed in the flexible tip. The vent provides static pressure equilibrium between an ear canal and an ambient pressure.

An earphone arrangement comprises a microphone (109) which generates a microphone signal and a sound transducer (101) which radiates a first sound component to a user's ear (103) in response to a drive signal. An acoustic channel (111) is further provided for channeling external sound so as to provide a second sound component to the user's ear (103). An acoustic valve (117) allows the attenuation of the acoustic channel (111) to be controlled in response to a valve control signal. A control circuit (105) generates the valve control signal in response to the microphone signal to provide a variable attenuation resulting in a mixed sound of the first sound component and the second sound component reaching the user's ear (103). The combined use of acoustic and e.g. electric signal paths allows improved performance and in particular allows a dynamic trade-off between open and closed earphone design characteristics with respect to external sounds.

The hearing device comprises an ear-piece (1) which is designed to be worn at least partially in an ear canal of a user of the hearing device. The ear-piece (1) comprises a vent passage (3) connecting the ear canal with the atmosphere. The vent passage (3) has an inner opening (8) towards the ear-canal and an outer opening (9) towards the atmosphere. The ear-piece (1) further comprises a vent extension (4). The vent extension (4) is a protrusion extending the vent passage (3) beyond the body (2) of the ear-piece (1). The vent extension (4) is adapted for abutting on a surface of the body of the user and is thereby inconspicuous and/or contributes thereby to retention. A method for manufacturing such a hearing device is also disclosed.

A hearing aid (10) having an active occlusion reduction system (50) that counteracts occluded sounds generated within the volume (24) of the ear canal (20) that is not blocked when the hearing aid (10), or an ear piece thereof, is inserted into the ear canal (20) and an AOR transducer (44, 52) that has a flattened frequency response for low frequency portions of the occlusion sounds to enable a wide range of frequency response by the active occlusion reduction system (50). The low frequency portions of the occlusion sounds may be in the range of 10-100 Hz.

A partially occluding ergonomic earbud adapter is formed from low durometer materials. The exterior of the adapter is frustoconical and tear-drop shaped and formed with several fluted recesses which set apart finger-like flanges extending from an open base toward the tip of the adapter. The ergonomic flanges grip the inside of the ear canal as a result of elastic restoring forces of the flanges against each other and against the ear canal to form an ergonomic seal partially occluding sound from the ear canal while providing isolation. The inside wall of the adapter is formed to enclose and secure the earphone in a parabolic concavity formed by an undercut rib at the base. The cavity is abutted by a cylindrical channel extending through the adapter to an orifice at the tip to deliver high fidelity audio into a user's ear canal from the headset or another audio listening device.

In a hearing device with low feedback tendency with simultaneous open feed and utilization of the natural directional effect of the pinna, the hearing device has a tube-shaped ear fitting piece for insertion into an auditory canal and speaker is arranged in the ear fitting piece, and at least two microphones are arranged in the ear fitting piece acoustically-symmetrically to the speaker in the built-in state of the hearing device in the ear fitting piece. The sound emitted by the speaker that can be differentiated from the usable sound, such that the level of feedback can be reduced. At the same time, open feed and utilization of the natural directional effect of the pinna are ensured.

A user content audio signal is converted into sound that is delivered into an ear canal of a wearer of an in-ear speaker, while the in-ear speaker is sealing off the ear canal against ambient sound leakage. An acoustic or venting valve in the in-ear speaker is automatically signaled to open, so that sound inside the ear canal is allowed to travel out into an ambient environment through the valve, while activating conversion of an ambient content audio signal into sound for delivery into the ear canal. Both user content and ambient content are heard by the wearer. The ambient content audio signal is digitally processed so that certain frequency components have been gain adjusted, based on an equalization profile, so as to compensate for some of the insertion loss that is due to the in-ear speaker blocking the ear canal. Other embodiments are also described and claimed.

A balanced armature (“BA”) based valve is described. The valve includes a motor having a coil assembly and a magnetic system, an armature extending through or being located adjacent to the motor, a drive pin coupled to the armature, and a valve flap of a membrane having a hole therein. The valve flap is actuated by the drive pin into open and closed positions, in response to respective motions of the armature. A housing contains the motor, the armature, the drive pin, and the membrane. In one embodiment, the membrane is attached to the housing and divides the housing into an upper space and a lower space, and there is airflow through the hole, between the upper space and the lower space, only when the valve flap is open. A first spout of the housing may deliver sound generated by an acoustic driver in the housing into a wearer's ear canal, and is also open to the upper space. A second spout of the housing is open to the bottom space and to an ambient environment. Other embodiments are also described.

With a hearing aid device which can be worn in the ear, a barometric pressure equalization which is needed for the sound transducer, such as a microphone or receiver, is to be achieved in a simple and cost-effective fashion. To this end, a converter protection facility is proposed with a membrane, with a pressure equalization channel, which connects a sound channel to the interior of the hearing aid device, extends through the transducer protection facility at least in one section. Replacing the transducer protection facility thus also replaces this subsection of the pressure equalization channel. A possible blockage of the pressure equalization channel which exists in this region as a result of dirt or moisture is eliminated as a result.

At least one exemplary embodiment is directed to an earphone having a first and second tab that are configured to be engaged by fingers, where when fingers squeeze the tabs together pressure on a reservoir is reduced so that a medium flows from an expandable tip reducing the size of the expandable tip.

A hearing aid includes a circuit board having a battery affixed thereon and a switch that utilizes a portion of the circuit board as a portion of the switch. The battery is permanently affixed to the circuit board in at least one location and at least a portion of the battery is spaced away from the circuit board. The circuit board further includes at least one pair of printed switch traces. The switch is integrated into the circuit board in a way that utilizes the circuit board to form a rotary switch.

A hearing aid (100) comprises at least one first microphone (10) generating a first input signal from sounds external to a user of the hearing aid, signal processing means, a receiver (30) and, a second microphone (40) generating a second input signal from sounds in the occluded ear of the user. In a measurement mode the signal processing means produces an occlusion effect value or directly transmitted sound value from the difference between the sound levels of the second and the first input signals generated both at the same time while the receiver is silent. The invention further provides a system and a method for determining an occlusion effect and a directly transmitted sound value.

A sub-tragus ear unit for comfortable wear of an in-ear ear unit is provided. The sub-tragus ear unit achieves the technical effect by separating the earphone from the attachment functionality that is provided by a separate anchor, wherein the earphone is attached to said anchor.

An earplug (7) for a hearing aid (1), in particular for a BTE-type hearing aid, has a front end (8) and a rear end (9). The front end (8) is adapted to be inserted into an ear canal of a wearer. The earplug (7) comprises a main body part (10) comprising a longitudinal bore (11) extending along a centrally arranged axis (A-A) of the earplug (7), and at least one sound output passage (17) in communication with said longitudinal bore (11) and leading to a sound output opening (18). The earplug also has a collar (19), which is adapted to engage the wall of an ear canal and surrounds the main body part (10). The output opening (18) has at least one edge part (18a) located in a retracted manner with respect to said front end (8).