776results about "Hearing device active noise cancellation" patented technology

An auditory operating system designed to facilitate context-aware, audio-based user interactions, particularly with artificial intelligence agents or applications. An auditory operating system shell serves as the primary interface, managing and coordinating multiple specialized agents that handle specific domains like music streaming, scheduling, or home automation. Using natural language processing, the auditory operating system shell identifies the appropriate agent or application for a user's command or query and ensures task execution and context preservation across interactions. The auditory operating system shell enforces privacy and stability by controlling agents' and applications' access to data and system privileges. The auditory operating system shell also supports dynamic context management, enabling seamless handoffs between agents when user requests span multiple domains. This auditory operating system shell may reduce the need for users to memorize specific wake words or commands, as the auditory operating system shell may determine the user's intent from speech or contextual cues.

The disclosure generally relates to a method, system and apparatus to improve a user's understanding of speech in real-time conversations by processing the audio through a neural network contained in a hearing device. The hearing device may be a headphone or hearing aid. In one embodiment, the disclosure relates to an apparatus to enhance incoming audio signal. The apparatus includes a controller to receive an incoming signal and provide a controller output signal; a neural network engine (NNE) circuitry in communication with the controller, the NNE circuitry activatable by the controller, the NNE circuitry configured to generate an NNE output signal from the controller output signal; and a digital signal processing (DSP) circuitry to receive one or more of controller output signal or the NNE circuitry output signal to thereby generate a processed signal; wherein the controller determines a processing path of the controller output signal through one of the DSP or the NNE circuitries as a function of one or more of predefined parameters, incoming signal characteristics and NNE circuitry feedback.

The disclosure generally relates to a method, system and apparatus for processing audio through a neural network contained in a hearing device. In one embodiment, the disclosure relates to an apparatus to enhance incoming audio signal. The apparatus includes a controller to receive an incoming signal and provide a controller output signal; neural network engine (NNE) circuitry in communication with the controller, the NNE circuitry activatable by the controller, the NNE circuitry configured to generate an NNE output signal from the controller output signal; and digital signal processing (DSP) circuitry to receive one or more of controller output signal or the NNE circuitry output signal to thereby generate a processed signal; wherein the controller determines a processing path of the controller output signal through one of the DSP or the NNE circuitries as a function of one or more of predefined parameters, incoming signal characteristics and NNE circuitry feedback.

To provide headphones with an improved noise canceling function and the like.Headphones include a headband, a housing, an ear pad attached to the housing, a hanger that supports the housing, and a slider that connects the hanger to an end portion of the headband. The headphones further include a microphone arranged at a place of the housing outside a movable range of the hanger. The housing includes a case that covers a movable range of the hanger. The hanger and the microphone are arranged in the same space formed in the housing on an outer peripheral side of the hanger.

In aspects of ending active noise cancellation based on a detected audio source, a mobile device implements an audio playback manager that detects a headset employing active noise cancellation (ANC) of audio in communication with a mobile device in an environment of the mobile device. The audio playback manager receives a selection of at least one audio source that triggers adjustment of the ANC and detects sound originating from the at least one audio source that triggers adjustment of the ANC. Based on detecting the sound originating from the at least one audio source, the audio playback manager adjusts the ANC.

The disclosure generally relates to a method, system and apparatus to improve a user's understanding of speech in real-time conversations by processing the audio through a neural network contained in a hearing device. The hearing device may be a headphone or hearing aid. In one embodiment, the disclosure relates to an apparatus to enhance incoming audio signal. The apparatus includes a controller to receive an incoming signal and provide a controller output signal; a neural network engine (NNE) circuitry in communication with the controller, the NNE circuitry activatable by the controller, the NNE circuitry configured to generate an NNE output signal from the controller output signal; and a digital signal processing (DSP) circuitry to receive one or more of controller output signal or the NNE circuitry output signal to thereby generate a processed signal; wherein the controller determines a processing path of the controller output signal through one of the DSP or the NNE circuitries as a function of one or more of predefined parameters, incoming signal characteristics and NNE circuitry feedback.

A loudspeaker assembly and a headphone are provided. The headphone includes a housing assembly, a bone-conduction core module, and an air-conduction core module, and an accommodation space. The bone-conduction core module is provided in the accommodation space and vibrates in a first vibration direction, the air-conduction core module is provided in the accommodation space, and the bone-conduction core module and the air-conduction core module are arranged along the first vibration direction and face each other. In the above manner, the present disclosure reduces the influence of the air-conduction core module on the vibration effect of the bone-conduction core module, increases the sound volume, and improves the bone-conduction effect of the loudspeaker assembly, thereby improving the sound quality effect of the loudspeaker assembly.

Techniques and apparatuses are described that perform active acoustic sensing. Provided according to one or more preferred embodiments is a hearable, such as an earbud, that is capable of performing a novel physiological monitoring process termed herein audioplethysmography, an active acoustic method capable of sensing subtle physiologically-related changes observable at a user's outer and middle ear. Instead of relying on other auxiliary sensors, such as optical or electrical sensors, audioplethysmography involves transmitting and receiving acoustic signals to monitor a user's biometrics, recognize facial behaviors, and / or sense an environment. In addition to being relatively unobtrusive, some hearables can be configured to support audioplethysmography without the need for additional hardware. As such, the size, cost, and power usage of the hearable can help make health monitoring accessible to a larger group of people and improve the user experience with hearables.

In aspects of ending audio playback based on a trigger word, a mobile device implements an audio playback manager that detects a headset in communication with a mobile device, the headset causing active noise cancellation (ANC) and outputting audio playback communicated from the mobile device. The audio playback manager detects a trigger word that is audible in an environment of the mobile device. In response to detecting the trigger word, the audio playback manager ends the audio playback and adjusts the ANC of the headset.

An earphone, including: a housing, a first speaker unit, a second speaker unit. The housing has a sound output hole. The first speaker unit and the second speaker unit are separately independently fastened in the housing. The first speaker unit produces a sound toward the sound output hole. The second speaker unit is located on a side that is of the first speaker unit and that is away from the sound output hole and is spaced apart from the first speaker unit. A sound production frequency of the second speaker unit is smaller than a sound production frequency of the first speaker unit. A cavity is enclosed by the first speaker unit, the second speaker unit, and an inner wall of the housing, the cavity serves as a front cavity of the second speaker unit, and the front cavity communicates with the sound output hole through a sound output channel.

Disclosed herein are systems and methods for power transmission between playback devices, systems and methods for energy harvesting and distribution for audio playback devices, and systems and methods for wirelessly powering wearable audio playback devices.

Techniques and devices for performing internal noise source filtering for active acoustic sensing are described. With internal noise source filtering (202), interference caused by the hearing-worn device (102) performing other operations (e.g., rendering audio content (204), performing active noise cancellation (206), or operating according to a pass-through mode (214)) may be attenuated within the received ultrasound signal to improve the sensitivity and accuracy of audio volumetric tracing. This performance improvement enables audio plethysmography to be performed when the audible wearable device (102) performs these other operations. Further, it improves the ability of audio plethysmography for speech processing, which may include speech activity detection, speech recognition, and / or dialog detection.

An earphone includes a housing having a space therein and having a path capable of ventilation from one end side on an external auditory canal side of a wearer to the other end side on an ambient environment side, a valve accommodated in the housing and configured to switch the path between an open state and a close state, a microphone disposed on one end side of the housing and configured to collect uttered voice of the wearer, and a control unit configured to control the open state and the close state. The control unit switches the path to the open state during a first operation in a call including an operation in which the uttered voice of the wearer is collected by the microphone, and switches the path either the open state or the close state during a second operation different from the first operation.

A communications headset includes one or more directional speakers mounted in left and right temple housings positioned near a wearer's ears, with acoustic channels within the temple housings configured to direct sound waves toward the ear canals. The temple housings form an open-ear configuration, allowing external noises to reach the ears unobstructed. Each directional speaker is acoustically coupled to a contoured channel that delivers focused audio to the wearer's ear with minimal sound wave leakage. An in-ear speaker, magnetically secured and tethered to the temple housing, provides optional noise-isolated listening. A user-controlled selection switch allows a wearer to toggle between open-ear and in-ear modes. The headset also includes a boom microphone, volume controls, and USB charging and communication ports.

A method performed by a first electronic device, the method includes, while engaged in a call with a second electronic device, initiating a joint media playback session in which the first and second electronic devices independently stream media content for synchronous playback; driving a speaker with a mix of a downlink signal of the call and an audio signal of the media content at an overall volume level; receiving a user-adjustment at a single volume control for the first electronic device to reduce the overall volume level; in response to the user adjustment, applying a first gain adjustment to the downlink signal and a second gain adjustment to the audio signal; and driving the speaker with a mix of the downlink signal and the audio signal at the reduced volume level.

Aspects of the present disclosure provide techniques, including devices and systems implementing the techniques, to output an adjusted audio mix to a wearable audio device in real-time using at least one pre-trained machined learned (ML) models. The pre-trained ML models enable adjustment of audio output with ultra-low latency. One example technique for adjusting audio output generally includes detecting, by one or more feedforward microphones, one or more spatialized sounds proximate a user, separating, using at least one pre-trained ML model, at least a portion of the spatialized sounds, wherein the separation is based on content of the sound, processing at least a portion of the spatialized sounds, and outputting, by the audio output device, an adaptive mix of the processed spatialized sounds. Such techniques may enable a user to filter out or reduce unwanted noises based on their sound content.

To provide an earphone that includes an earphone body, an earpiece, and a wing portion.SOLUTION: An earphone body includes a main housing and a sound outlet pipe connected to the main housing. The sound outlet pipe includes an audio channel and a sound outlet hole communicating with the audio channel at an end of the sound outlet pipe. The earpiece includes a fixing portion and a first noise canceling portion which are connected with each other. The fixing portion is fitted to the outside of the sound outlet pipe and the first noise canceling portion is arranged surrounding an outer periphery of the fixing portion. The wing portion includes a mounting portion and a second noise canceling portion which are connected with each other. The mounting portion is connected to the main housing and the second noise canceling portion is arranged surrounding an outer periphery of the main housing, a noise canceling cavity is formed between the first noise canceling portion and the second noise canceling portion, and the noise canceling cavity blocks environmental noise from entering a user's ear canal.SELECTED DRAWING: Figure 2

Utilizing in-canal microphones and other microphones in wearable devices is described. One embodiment is an ear-worn device that includes an in-canal microphone configured to capture sounds in an ear canal and an array of microphones configured to capture external sounds. The ear-worn device may utilize the in-canal microphone to determine if the user is actively speaking. Upon such a determination, the ear-worn device may turn on the array of microphones to capture the user's voice and perform beamforming to focus the array of microphones on the user's mouth. Such speech can then be processed and provided to an artificial intelligence agent. The ear-worn device may switch between using the in-canal microphone and the array of microphones to capture the user's voice depending on environmental noise, the context of the user, and the voice content. The ear-worn device may also blend captures from the in-canal microphone and the array of microphones.

Systems and methods are described to extract desired audio from an apparatus to be worn on a user's head. An apparatus includes a head wearable device and an array of at least three microphones. The at least three microphones are arranged along a plurality of at least two non-parallel axes. Selection logic is configured to identify a selected axis from the plurality and two microphones from the array that form the selected axis. A beamformer is configured to accept as inputs, signals from the two microphones and to output a main microphone channel and a reference microphone channel.

Aspects include earpieces with debris ingress protection. The earpieces includes at least one feature for mitigating ingress of debris such as dust, dirt, wax, etc. In one example, an earpiece includes: an electro-acoustic transducer; a housing supporting the electro-acoustic transducer such that the housing and the electro-acoustic transducer together define a first acoustic volume, wherein the housing defines a nozzle with an acoustic passage coupled with the first acoustic volume; a first port coupling the first acoustic volume to a space outside the housing; a second port coupling a microphone supported in the housing to the space outside the housing; and an ear tip supported on the nozzle and configured to form a tight acoustic seal with a user's ear canal when the earpiece is worn, the ear tip comprising an extension member extending over the first port to inhibit debris from entering the first port.

Systems, devices, methods, and non-transitory, machine-readable media may correspond to in-ear acoustic devices, such as an earbud, with transparency and noise-cancellation. The earbud may include one or a combination of the following. A housing may include a first section and a second section. A speaker may be housed by the housing. A first volume may be partially defined by the speaker and the first section. A second volume may be partially defined by the speaker and the second section. A bypass duct may fluidically connect the first volume with the second volume. The bypass duct may include a vent to outside of the housing.

Aspects include headphones. In certain cases, a headphone includes: an ear cuff body having: a first portion configured to pass over an outer side of at least one of an antihelix, a helix, or a lobule of a user's outer ear; and a second portion configured to sit behind the outer ear; an acoustic package configured to deliver sound to the ear canal region; and wiring extending between the ear cuff body to the acoustic package.

A system for reducing noise in a drive signal of a hearing device, including a microphone operative to receive sound and generate a microphone output signal and an adaptive filter apparatus that receives a signal from a transducer separate from the microphone and outputs a filtered signal, wherein the system subtracts the outputted filtered signal from a signal based on the microphone output signal to cancel noise and outputs the resulting signal, and the system further processes the resulting signal to obtain a further processed resulting signal to remove and / or eliminate residual feedback present in the resulting signal.

An active noise reduction method and an active noise reduction earphone can improve the noise reduction effect of the active noise reduction earphone. The active noise reduction earphone comprises an in-ear microphone, an out-ear microphone, a loudspeaker and a filter. The method comprises: in the case that the loudspeaker plays audio data, determining a first primary path transfer function according to first out-ear data collected by the out-ear microphone and first in-ear data collected by the in-ear microphone; determining audio data received by the in-ear microphone according to the first in-ear data, the first out-ear data and the first primary path transfer function; determining a first secondary path transfer function according to the audio data played by the loudspeaker and the audio data received by the in-ear microphone; and updating a working coefficient of the filter to a first working coefficient according to the first primary path transfer function and / or the first secondary path transfer function.

An earpiece includes an electro-acoustic transducer, a housing that encloses the electro-acoustic transducer, and a nozzle. The nozzle is coupled to the housing and is configured to direct acoustic energy from the transducer toward a user's ear canal when the earpiece is worn. The nozzle defines an inlet opening, an exit opening, and an acoustic pathway extending therebetween. A microphone is disposed within the nozzle and includes a microphone port. A chimney acoustically couples the microphone port to the exit opening and at least partially defines an effective port for the microphone. The inlet opening is closer to the electro-acoustic transducer than the exit opening such that acoustic energy radiated by the electro-acoustic transducer travels from the inlet opening toward the exit opening. The effective port is closer to the exit opening than the microphone port. The effective port is spaced from an exit opening of the nozzle.

A system may include an external device configured to transmit a first audio data to an ear-bud. A system may include the ear-bud configured to be positioned within an ear canal of a user, the ear-bud comprising: a microphone configured to generate audio data responsive to detecting audio, a storage device, configured to store computer-executable instructions; and one or more processors in communication with the storage device, wherein the computer-executable instructions, when executed by the one or more processors, cause the one or more processors to: receive the first audio data from the external device, receive a second audio data from the microphone, estimate an acoustic environment based on the first audio data and the second audio data, generate a third audio data based on the acoustic environment, and cause a speaker to emit the third audio data.

Various embodiments of a hearing device and a system including such device are disclosed. The hearing device can include an enclosure having a front housing and a rear housing, and an isolator disposed between the front housing and the rear housing. The isolator includes a body and a sleeve disposed on the body. The front housing and the rear housing are connected to the sleeve of the isolator. The device further includes a microphone disposed in the front housing, a receiver disposed in the rear housing, an acoustic port that extends through the isolator body between the receiver and an opening disposed in a first end of the front housing, and a microphone port that extends between the microphone and the opening disposed in the first end of the front housing.

A cancellation device according to one aspect of the invention is a cancellation device that cancels noise coming to a region in a vicinity of a loudspeaker, the cancellation device including at least two loudspeakers 1 and one reference microphone 3, in which the cancellation device is configured such that an acoustic signal emitted in a sound emission direction of a same loudspeaker and an acoustic signal emitted in an opposite direction collide with each other, the at least two loudspeakers 1 and the reference microphone 3 are arranged on a same plane, the at least two loudspeakers 1 emit cancellation sound that cancels the noise in synchrony, and the plane is a plane including a boundary between a sound emission direction of the two loudspeakers 1 and a direction opposite to a sound emission direction.

A method for speech equalization, comprising the steps of receiving an input audio signal, processing said input audio signal in dependence on frequency and to providing an equalized electric audio signal according to an equalization function, wherein said equalization function comprises at least an actuator part configured to dynamically applying a compensation filter to the received input signal and dynamically applying a transparent filter to the received input signal, and further transmitting an output signal perceivable by a user as sound representative of said electric acoustic input signal or a processed version thereof.

Various aspects include active noise reduction (ANR) headsets and methods of controlling such headsets. In some implementations, a headset includes: at least one electro-acoustic transducer; a power source for powering the at least one electro-acoustic transducer; and a control circuit configured to apply active noise reduction (ANR) to environmental sound using the at least one electro-acoustic transducer, sample voltage drops across the power source, and adjust a compressor threshold for the ANR based on the sampled voltage drops across the power source.