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AI headphones let wearer listen to a single person in a crowd by looking at them

washington.edu

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Re: AI headphones let wearer listen to a single person in a crowd by looking at them

#191

Post by vidarh »

serial_dev wrote: post #162

If the size could shrink to the size of a small earplug, I'd love to use this as a person who is not hearing-impaired (at least they couldn't diagnose me with it, so now I'm not sure if their diagnostics sucks, or I'm just a normal person and others pretend better that they hear everything well) . In groups and with friends, it's inevitable that you end up in a busy restaurant or a bar, and it always frustrates me th…

Yeah, same. My hearing is absolutely not great, but "good enough", but in noisy environments I struggle. Given I'm fairly introvert to start with, on one hand, I'm perfectly at ease just checking out and sitting with my own thoughts if I can't hear a conversation, but when I do decide to come out with someone I'd prefer it to be easier to be more social instead of resorting to checking out.

Re: AI headphones let wearer listen to a single person in a crowd by looking at them

#192

Post by vidarh »

superultra wrote: post #185
serial_dev wrote: post #162

If the size could shrink to the size of a small earplug, I'd love to use this as a person who is not hearing-impaired (at least they couldn't diagnose me with it, so now I'm not sure if their diagnostics sucks, or I'm just a normal person and others pretend better that they hear everything well) . In groups and with friends, it's inevitable that you end up in a busy restaurant or a bar, and it always frustrates me th…

I could not hear anyone in any crowded situation. At middle age I thought my hearing was leaving. Yet every audiologist I went to said my hearing was fine. So I found the best audiologist in my fairly large metro area, and scheduled a year in advance (the wait list was that long). After a whole day of tests the audiologist comes in and says I have good news and bad news and good bad news. The good news is that my hea…

I resorted to wearing earplugs for several years when I was going out more. I felt it did very little to reduce my ability to hear conversations, and it made the whole experience overall so much more pleasant.

Re: AI headphones let wearer listen to a single person in a crowd by looking at them

#193

Post by j1elo »

totetsu wrote: post #175
serial_dev wrote: post #162

If the size could shrink to the size of a small earplug, I'd love to use this as a person who is not hearing-impaired (at least they couldn't diagnose me with it, so now I'm not sure if their diagnostics sucks, or I'm just a normal person and others pretend better that they hear everything well) . In groups and with friends, it's inevitable that you end up in a busy restaurant or a bar, and it always frustrates me th…

There are these passive directional earplugs https://www.flareaudio.com/pages/earhd

The prospect of an earplug that eases focusing audio got me interested... but no thanks, I won't go out to socialize with basically two mini trumpets coming out of my ears. It looks funny, reminiscing of classic b&w pictures with deaf people carrying ear trumpets everywhere with them during 18th century.

Re: AI headphones let wearer listen to a single person in a crowd by looking at them

#195

Post by wruza »

serial_dev wrote: post #162

If the size could shrink to the size of a small earplug, I'd love to use this as a person who is not hearing-impaired (at least they couldn't diagnose me with it, so now I'm not sure if their diagnostics sucks, or I'm just a normal person and others pretend better that they hear everything well) . In groups and with friends, it's inevitable that you end up in a busy restaurant or a bar, and it always frustrates me th…

This isn't your issue though. A group chooses to talk in an environment where they can barely hear each other. Rather than using a device for it, I'd recommend to perceive the problem as it is and solve it in a conventional way. E.g. by saying "I couldn't hear shit, and you too probably. That's stupid, let's go instead" unless it's hard to do. Generally these places are designed for you to suffer unless you're screaming all the time and are indifferent to surroundings. I don't get why people go there and leave money, cause I wouldn't go there even for that money. You don't want an AI device that replaces respect for each others limits.

Re: AI headphones let wearer listen to a single person in a crowd by looking at them

#196

Post by newaccount74 »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #158
criddell wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of hearing aids cost $50k?

I suspect many of them. I was shocked, when I found out. Of course, you aren’t just paying for the hardware. You are also paying for all the medical stuff surrounding the kit. You can understand why vested interests fought so hard to prevent making hearing aids OTC. Like I said, I suspect that gravy train may have derailed.

They don't cost 50k. They cost at least an order of magnitude less.

My moms hearing aids cost 3000€. They support bluetooth so she can use them with her iPhone. The price includes hearing tests, getting molds of the hearing canal, all the setup and configuration performed by skilled technicians.

Sure they are expensive, but there really isn't much of an opportunity for disruption. Customized hardware is expensive, there's no way around that.

Re: AI headphones let wearer listen to a single person in a crowd by looking at them

#197

Post by mateus1 »

adwi wrote: post #194

The “cocktail party effect” externalized. Extremely cool. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cocktail_party_effect

Very interesting, concept. I have a friend with seeming no hearing issues that has to cup his ears when in louder environments such as bars, restaurants, etc. I’m wondering if anyone here has a solution to that.

Re: AI headphones let wearer listen to a single person in a crowd by looking at them

#198

Post by [deleted] »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #158
criddell wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What kind of hearing aids cost $50k?

I suspect many of them. I was shocked, when I found out. Of course, you aren’t just paying for the hardware. You are also paying for all the medical stuff surrounding the kit. You can understand why vested interests fought so hard to prevent making hearing aids OTC. Like I said, I suspect that gravy train may have derailed.

[deleted]

Re: AI headphones let wearer listen to a single person in a crowd by looking at them

#199

Post by abcdefg_ »

nolongerthere wrote: post #172
serial_dev wrote: post #162

If the size could shrink to the size of a small earplug, I'd love to use this as a person who is not hearing-impaired (at least they couldn't diagnose me with it, so now I'm not sure if their diagnostics sucks, or I'm just a normal person and others pretend better that they hear everything well) . In groups and with friends, it's inevitable that you end up in a busy restaurant or a bar, and it always frustrates me th…

> I'm not sure if their diagnostics sucks, or I'm just a normal person and others pretend better that they hear everything well This is one of those frustrating gaslighting things that is half true in that half the time I also pretend to hear what someone else is saying even though I couldn’t just because it’s not really important and making a big deal about it (ie asking them to repeat it at continuously louder deci…

So I'm not alone. I'm in my mid-forties and have experienced a significant decline over the last few years. Now I can rarely distinguish one voice in moderate background noise (conversations, music) without leaning towards them, cupping my ears. Sometimes I just have to give up and try to nod or smile at the right time as the conversation goes on around me.

I recently had a test at an ENT doctor who told me my hearing is fine and insinuated I was wasting his time. The test was listening to high-pitched beeps over white noise, which isn't representative of the problem. Distinguishing one particular tone over several similar ones would be more like it.

Re: AI headphones let wearer listen to a single person in a crowd by looking at them

#200

Post by fennecfoxy »

cushychicken wrote: post #182

I used to work at Sonos, long before their current app update debacle and headphone debut. During the first aborted product effort to develop headphones, we were looking at a conceptual feature similar to this - selectively allowing people’s voices through the ANC chipset. I don’t recall the exact approach the DSP folks were using (I was closer to the hardware for ANC) but they were really only able to figure out how…

I wouldn't ever want Sonos hearing aids. Universally Sonos units have basic functionality problems such as not reconnecting to Wifi that has gone down and come back up, especially if the Wifi has changed channel during that time.

The "technical" solution is to pull the plug and reboot it (which you can't even do remotely, even if it's connected to Wifi and you want to reboot because Spotify connect on Sonos can be buggy as hell).

I can keep a wifi connection up myself and always reconnect using an esp or similar TI etc module...is it so hard for the Sonos firmware devs to do something so basic?

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