Sonova Ag

Phonak Ag

Marc Secall

Amre El-Hoiydi

Rainer Platz

Timothée Jost

Christoph Hans Schmid

Hans-Ueli Roeck

Hilmar Meier

Manuela Feilner

Yves Oesch

Daniel Lucas-Hirtz

Evert Dijkstra

Stephan Gehring

Federico Ferrari

Francois Callias

Georg Dickmann

Jonas Högberg

Benjamin Heldner

Markus Buehl

Claude Richard

Doninique Aparicio

Dominique Aparicio

Michael Osterwalder

François Callias

The disclosed technology generally relates to a microphone device configured to receive sound from different beams, where each beam has a different spatial orientation and is configured to receive sound from different directions. The microphone device is also configured to process the received sound using a generic or specific head related transfer function (HRTF) to generate processed audio and transmit the processed audio to hearing devices worn by a hearing-impaired user. Additionally, the microphone device can use a reference line and/or reference point when processing the received audio.

Microphone device to provide audio with spatial context

A communication device, including a wireless interface including a transceiver unit, and a controller configured to control the transceiver unit when applying a first protocol which is a Bluetooth Low Energy protocol and a second protocol which is suitable for exchanging both audio data and non-audio data. The controller is further configured to apply a first control configuration while the transceiver unit is not used for audio data reception and/or transmission of audio data via the second protocol, and to apply a second control configuration while the transceiver unit is used for audio data reception and/or transmission of audio data via the second protocol. In the second control configuration duration of BLE connection events is limited to a maximum duration shorter than the maximum duration of BLE connection events in the first control configuration.

Communication device using two wireless protocols

There is provided a clip-on microphone assembly comprising a clip-on mechanism () for attaching the microphone assembly () to the cloths of a user (); at least three microphones () for capturing audio signals from the user's voice, the microphones defining a microphone plane; an acceleration sensor () for generating an orientation signal by sensing gravitational acceleration in at least two orthogonal dimensions, an audio signal processing unit () for producing an output audio signal () from the captured audio signals, comprising a beamformer unit () for processing the captured audio signals, in order to generate the output audio signal, in a manner so as to create an acoustic beam having a direction, a DOA unit () for determining the direction of arrival of sound by analyzing the captured audio signals; and a control unit () for controlling the beamforming unit, the control unit being adapted to determine an allowed angular sector () of the direction of the acoustic beam according to the orientation signal and to steer the direction of the acoustic beam within the allowed angular sector according to the determined direction of arrival.

Clip-on microphone assembly

A method of providing hearing assistance to a at least one user wearing at least one receiver hearing assistance device from at least one audio transmission device worn by a another user, involving: automatically pairing and connecting the audio transmission device with the receiver hearing assistance device to form an ad-hoc network for exchanging network and/or control information, estimating at least one of an angular direction of the audio transmission device with regard to a viewing direction of the user of the receiver hearing assistance device and an angular direction of the receiver hearing assistance device with regard to a viewing direction of the user of the audio transmission device, admitting the audio transmission device to a wireless local acoustic area network for exchanging audio signals only if, as a predefined admission rule, the transmission device is within a field of view of one of the users.

Hearing assistance method

A communication system maintains a signal processing license within a memory of the communication system. The signal processing license allows the communication system to perform a license-enabled signal processing function on signals received from one or more devices external to the communication system while the signal processing license is maintained within the memory. As such, the communication system detects that an additional communication system is within a transfer range of the communication system, and, in response, performs a transfer operation in which the signal processing license is transferred from the communication system to the additional communication system such that the signal processing license is no longer maintained within the memory once the transfer operation is completely performed. Consequently, subsequent to the transfer operation, the additional communication system is enabled to perform the license-enabled signal processing function while the communication system is prevented from performing the license-enabled signal processing function.

Systems and methods for license-enabled signal processing

A portable communication device having a transceiver unit () for establishing a wireless communication link () using a digital modulation scheme with a packet-based frequency hopping scheme including at least one advertising channel, an antenna (), an antenna tuning circuit () connected to the transceiver unit and the antenna for tuning the antenna, and a control unit () for controlling the antenna tuning circuit. The transceiver unit is adapted to estimate the strength of signals received in the at least one advertising channel and to supply the control unit with a signal representative of the estimated signal strength in the at least one advertising channel. The control unit is adapted to control the antenna tuning circuit such that the antenna is tuned according to the signal representative of the estimated signal strength in the at least one advertising channel.

Portable communication device with tunable antenna and method of operating such portable communication device

A hearing assistance system having a hearing assistance device to be worn at one of a user's ears and a scanning device, the hearing assistance device and the scanning device both having an interface for wireless data exchange between the hearing assistance device and the scanning device, wherein the hearing assistance device is adapted for wireless data exchange with an external device, wherein the scanning device is adapted to scan for wireless signals from the external device and to transmit, once such signals have been received by the scanning device, a message to the hearing assistance device for notifying the hearing assistance device of the availability of the external device, and wherein the hearing assistance device is adapted to decide, upon receipt of such notification message from the scanning device, whether on not to initiate wireless data exchange with the external device.

Hearing assistance system and method

A system for providing sound to at least one user has at least one audio signal source, a transmission unit with a digital transmitter audio data packets from the audio signal source via a wireless digital audio link; at least one receiver unit having at least one digital receiver; and a hearing stimulator responsive to audio signals from the receiver unit. The transmission unit encodes the audio signal as audio data blocks distributed onto at least two audio data packets, one of which is a low-quality packet, and one of which is a high quality packet only a low-quality version of the audio signal being retrievable from the low-quality packets, and a high-quality version of the audio signal being retrievable from both the low-quality packets and the high-quality packets. The low-quality packets and the high-quality packets are transmitted in respective dedicated slots of a multiple access protocol frame.

Wireless sound transmission and method

Method for providing sound to at least one user, involves supplying audio signals from an audio signal source to a transmission unit; compressing the audio signals to generate compressed audio data; transmitting compressed audio data from the transmission unit to at least one receiver unit; decompressing the compressed audio data to generate decompressed audio signals; and stimulating the hearing of the user(s) according to decompressed audio signals supplied from the receiver unit. During certain time periods, transmission of compressed audio data is interrupted, and instead, at least one control data block is generated by the transmission unit in such a manner that audio data transmission is replaced by control data block transmission, thereby temporarily interrupting flow of received compressed audio data, each control data block includes a marker recognized by the at least one receiver unit as a control data block and a command for control of the receiver unit.

Wireless sound transmission system and method

A method and system of establishing a wireless network for audio data transmission with a first and second audio devices having first and second transceivers, the first audio device being an audio signal transmission unit with a user operable switch, and the first and second audio devices being assistive listening devices. Periodically the second transceiver listens for pairing information, at at least one public frequency channel; operating the switch by the user to initiate pairing at any time during operation of the first audio device; the first transceiver transmitting pairing information at said at least one public frequency channel upon operation of the switch. The second audio device automatically pairs to the first audio device upon reception of pairing information from the first transceiver. The first and second transceivers are controlled so that reception of the pairing information from the first audio device is accepted by the second audio device.

Pairing method for establishing a wireless audio network

A hearing assistance system and method for wireless RF audio signal transmission from at least one audio signal source to ear level receivers, wherein a close-to-natural hearing impression is to be achieved. At least one parameter of the RF signal as received from a transmission unit at a respective receiver unit to create left ear RF signal measurement data and right ear RF signal measurement data, respectively. The angular localization of each transmission unit is obtained by comparing, for each transmission unit, the left ear RF signal measurement data and the right ear RF signal measurement data. The audio signals are processed and distributed according to the estimated angular localization of each transmission unit in a manner so that the angular localization impression of the audio signals from each transmission unit as perceived by the user corresponds to the estimated angular localization of the respective transmission unit.

A system for providing hearing assistance to at least one user, having: at least one audio signal source; a first transmission unit with a digital transmitter for applying a digital modulation to the audio signals and to transmit the audio signals via a digital audio link; a second transmission unit with a digital receiver for receiving the audio signals transmitted via the digital audio link and an analog transmitter for applying an analog modulation to the received audio signals and to transmit the audio signals via an analog audio link; at least one first receiver unit having a digital receiver for receiving signals from the digital transmitter and at least one second receiver unit with an analog receiver for receiving signals from the analog transmitter; and a device for stimulating the hearing of a user according to audio signals supplied from the first and second receiver units.

A system for providing hearing assistance to at least one user, having: at least one audio signal source () for providing audio signals; a transmission unit () for wireless transmission of audio signals; at least one receiver unit () for wireless reception of audio signals from the transmission unit; a device () for stimulating the hearing of the user according to audio signals supplied from the at least one receiver unit. The transmission unit has both an analog transmitter () for applying an analog modulation scheme and a digital transmitter () for applying a digital modulation scheme in order to transmit the audio signals from the audio signal source () simultaneously via an analog audio link () and a digital audio link ().

Growing community of inventors

Constantine, Switzerland

Marc Secall