Hearing Instrument Ticket Message Filtering
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Solution Overview
Problem
Users wearing hearing instruments face challenges in receiving relevant messages, such as ticket-related announcements, in noisy public environments, as existing hearing aids lack efficient mechanisms to filter out irrelevant sounds and authenticate authorized messages.
Innovation Solution
A new hearing instrument equipped with a wireless receiver and processor that converts ticket-related messages into acoustic signals, featuring a mixer to attenuate or mute other sounds, and an authenticator to ensure only authorized messages are received and processed, allowing clear transmission of important announcements.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If hearing instruments receive all ambient sounds in public places, then users can hear various announcements and messages, but users are overwhelmed by noise and cannot distinguish relevant information
Solution Approach 1:
The patent introduces a ticket management system as an intermediary between public announcement systems and hearing instrument users. This system acts as a mediator that receives ticket information from users, identifies relevant announcements associated with those tickets, and selectively transmits only those specific messages to the hearing instruments, filtering out irrelevant noise in the process.
Solution Approach 2:
The hearing instrument is configured to provide different signal processing qualities for different sound sources. Relevant ticket-associated messages receive enhanced processing and prioritization, while other ambient sounds are attenuated or filtered out, creating localized quality enhancement for specific information channels within the overall acoustic environment.
2Adaptability or versatility
If hearing instruments accept messages from any source, then users can receive various information, but users cannot verify the authenticity and reliability of messages
Solution Approach 1:
The ticket management system implements a feedback mechanism where users provide their ticket information to the system, which then uses this feedback to identify and retrieve the specific announcements and messages associated with those tickets. This closed-loop approach ensures that only relevant and authenticated information is transmitted to users.
Solution Approach 2:
The ticket management system serves as an authenticated intermediary that verifies message sources and filters content based on user ticket information. This intermediary layer adds reliability by ensuring that only legitimate, ticket-associated announcements are transmitted to hearing instruments, preventing unauthorized or irrelevant messages from reaching users.
3Loss of information
If hearing instruments process and filter all incoming sounds, then relevant messages can be identified, but device complexity and processing requirements increase
Solution Approach 1:
The ticket management system performs preliminary filtering and identification of relevant messages before transmission to hearing instruments. By pre-processing the announcement data and associating it with specific ticket information, the system reduces the processing burden on hearing instruments, as they only need to decode and play pre-identified relevant messages rather than analyzing all ambient sounds.
Data Source
AI summary
A hearing instrument includes: a wireless receiver configured for reception of a message relating to a ticket issued for a user of the hearing instrument by a ticket management system; a processing unit configured for processing the message according to a hearing loss of the user; and a speaker configured to convert the processed message into an acoustic signal for transmission towards an eardrum of the user.