Sleepbuds Selective Sound Masking and Alert System
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Solution Overview
Problem
Sleep disruptions due to environmental noises can negatively impact health, and existing noise-mitigating devices may cause users to miss important sounds, leading to concerns about not hearing critical events like a crying baby or fire alarms, which deters people from using these devices.
Innovation Solution
A system that outputs masking sounds while selectively notifying users of important sounds based on their preferences, using audio output devices that can detect real-time environmental sounds and alert users only when necessary, allowing users to customize what sounds they want to be aware of during specific times.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If noise-mitigating devices output masking sounds continuously, then sleep quality is improved, but users may miss important sounds such as crying babies or fire alarms
Solution Approach 1:
The system extracts and separates important sounds from the ambient noise environment using audio analysis algorithms. The masking sound output is maintained for sleep protection, while the system simultaneously detects and extracts important sounds (such as baby crying, fire alarms) by analyzing audio frequency spectra and comparing them against predefined important sound profiles, thereby preventing information loss.
Solution Approach 2:
The system implements feedback by continuously monitoring the audio environment and dynamically adjusting the masking sound output based on detected important sounds. When an important sound is detected, the system provides feedback to reduce or pause masking sound output, allowing the user to hear the important sound while maintaining overall sleep protection during non-critical periods.
2Loss of information
If users avoid using noise-mitigating devices to hear important sounds, then they can hear critical events, but sleep quality deteriorates due to environmental noises
Solution Approach 1:
The noise-mitigating device provides self-service by automatically detecting important sounds and intelligently adjusting its masking sound output without user intervention. The system uses audio analysis algorithms to identify important sounds and autonomously modifies the masking sound level, allowing users to benefit from both sleep protection and important sound awareness simultaneously.
3Loss of information
If the system outputs all detected environmental sounds to notify users, then users are aware of all events, but sleep quality deteriorates due to excessive notifications
Solution Approach 1:
The system applies local quality by differentiating between different types of sounds and applying different notification strategies. Instead of treating all environmental sounds uniformly, the system analyzes audio characteristics (frequency, duration, intensity) and selectively notifies users only for important sounds that match predefined profiles, while filtering out non-critical sounds to maintain sleep quality.
Data Source
AI summary
Aspects of the present disclosure provide a system for selectively outputting indications of important events of which the user would like to be notified. Based, at least in part, on settings configured via user inputs, the system receives an indication of a detected acoustic event and determines whether the acoustic event corresponds an event in a list of preferences stored in a remote server. In response to determining that the events match, the system then instructs a personal audio output device to output an indication of the detected acoustic event to the user of the personal audio output device.