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Hush: The World's First Smart Earplugs

hush.technology

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Re: Hush: The World's First Smart Earplugs

#71

Post by d4n13ll33 »

foxylad wrote: post #64
RickHull wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My biggest concern generally is in-ear comfort. Short of molded customs, every in-ear headphone I've tried causes canal soreness within an hour or two, including the "sound delivery straw" designs with delicate foam or rubber surrounds. Secondarily, it looks like the current model sticks out, causing pressure if one's head is resting on its side. That said, my ear canal soreness is largely due to canal deformation re…

I do get canal soreness from foam plugs. I've recently found that the silicone blob ear plugs are much more comfortable (perhaps because they stay in the outer ear), and are also more effective at sound reduction. I guess one of the challenges for this project will be handling the variations in ear geometry.

Some people do like the silicone tree design earplugs more than the foam. It varies. We are considering providing some of those as a stretch goal!

Yeah, the variations of ears is definitely the hardest challenge in our product

Re: Hush: The World's First Smart Earplugs

#72

Post by d4n13ll33 »

Altaer wrote: post #42
d4n13ll33 wrote: post #2

Developer here! Hoping to get some feedback if possible!

Are the batteries going to be replaceable? I worry when the battery ages it won't last through the night. At 10 hours of charge maximum, if the battery loses just 20% of its max capacity, I would run risk of the battery not making it through the night.

No they aren't. We have 500 cycles (I believe, maybe more if we change the charge rate) of our battery before it goes to 80% of max capacity, which is still 8 hours.

Even if you were to use the same device for years, the sound masking would just turn off prematurely in the night and make sure it preserves enough juice to sound the alarm in the morning

Re: Hush: The World's First Smart Earplugs

#73

Post by d4n13ll33 »

tbranyen wrote: post #58
d4n13ll33 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cool thanks! :D I use a wired version all the time and I love how I can zone in and ignore the things going on around me! Motion sensing would be a bit of an expensive add-in. :( We would want to open up the API, thinking about it but we're a little worried because we don't know if there will be much application as our feature set is very tailored to the use case that we've defined :/

Well this is what I mean. You say expensive; I say damn cheap : https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/192833321/pebblebee-the... This is why you need to open up the API in whatever form you can. Developers are going to want to use your tool in ways you aren't thinking of.

I guess we're just hesitant to add extra hardware now because fitting everything initially was a bit of a pain.

True on the opening up of the API - we'll most likely end up opening it up!

Re: Hush: The World's First Smart Earplugs

#75

Post by d4n13ll33 »

grondilu wrote: post #74

Noise cancellation is a big, existing market. If they really have a better technology to offer, they don't need a Kickstarter.

We're not noise cancellation. We're noise isolation for sleep - something that investors have told us time and time again that they didn't think people would pay money for. I think it's a big market and I need Kickstarter to prove it :)

Re: Hush: The World's First Smart Earplugs

#76

Post by grondilu »

d4n13ll33 wrote: post #75
grondilu wrote: post #74

Noise cancellation is a big, existing market. If they really have a better technology to offer, they don't need a Kickstarter.

We're not noise cancellation. We're noise isolation for sleep - something that investors have told us time and time again that they didn't think people would pay money for. I think it's a big market and I need Kickstarter to prove it :)

Oh OK, my bad then.

Re: Hush: The World's First Smart Earplugs

#77

Post by Tarrosion »

d4n13ll33 wrote: post #2

Developer here! Hoping to get some feedback if possible!

If you can deliver on the promise, this would be worth way more than $150 to me. Probably more than $500. I'm a light sleeper and I live in a city - not a great combination.

But I am for now a little skeptical: - I have never used a pair of earbuds or earplugs which are comfortable for more than ~20 minutes. This includes soft foam earbuds and plugs, small-sized musician earplugs (I have tiny ears), and earplugs custom fit by an audiologist. - Even that custom fit pair (which I bought for sleeping) doesn't work for sleeping: I'm a side sleeper, and sleeping on my side applies a little pressure to the ear canal. It's enough that those custom fit earplugs don't fit right when I'm on my side. - Those custom fit earplugs are not even close to mirror images of each other. It's not obvious to me that the same piece of foam can be appropriate for both ears, no matter how deformable it is.

My main point of feedback: focus on comfort - specifically sleeping comfort for people with odd ears and odd sleeping positions - over everything else. I would pay piles of money for earplugs comfortable enough to sleep in with say 10dB reduction, far better that than not-quite-comfy enough smart earplugs with 70dB reduction. Similarly, I would happily sacrifice battery life, aesthetics, cost, smart features, etc. for comfort.

Re: Hush: The World's First Smart Earplugs

#78

Post by lnanek2 »

Hmm, I don't really see any benefit over my current solutions. I can wear cheap foam/silicone ear plugs and just set my alarm louder. Sometimes I just sleep with small rubber wired ear buds in (not the hard plastic ones) if I want to listen to audio while going to sleep. Never had any trouble with either method enough to pay this much. Props to these people if they can manage to market people into paying that much for not much different than current solutions, though.

Re: Hush: The World's First Smart Earplugs

#79

Post by veb »

e12e wrote: post #54
d4n13ll33 wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of weird plastic shapes to the Quietpro design that I can see irritating and making someone's ear bleed. If it was the foam causing people to bleed, I'd find that very strange as there are millions of people that use earplugs for hours and hours on end with no problem :/

Maybe i wasn't clear: the problem appears for troops that use them in war zones: essentially days on end, not merely hours. If it was just the foam type used, I'm sure they'd try and mix it up with something more soft. That was a huge contract that was partially cancelled.

I've always worn hearing aids, with ear moulds. They're worn all the time, except for sleep. Other deaf people I know, wear them while sleeping for some odd reason. I couldn't fathom to wear anything while sleeping!

They've never made my ears bleed, nor anyone else I know.

Maybe troops should wear properly fitted moulds :)

Re: Hush: The World's First Smart Earplugs

#80

Post by d4n13ll33 »

Tarrosion wrote: post #77
d4n13ll33 wrote: post #2

Developer here! Hoping to get some feedback if possible!

If you can deliver on the promise, this would be worth way more than $150 to me. Probably more than $500. I'm a light sleeper and I live in a city - not a great combination. But I am for now a little skeptical: - I have never used a pair of earbuds or earplugs which are comfortable for more than ~20 minutes. This includes soft foam earbuds and plugs, small-sized musician earplugs (I have tiny ears), and earplugs cust…

Unfortunately, there is no physical way that we can be significantly more comfortable than soft foam earplugs as we have to house electronics and a battery inside :/

Have you tried good quality soft earplugs? Maybe some Hearos Ultimate Softness? There are some really bad earplugs that are uncomfortable that we will be more comfortable than. But if you've used good earplugs and found them uncomfortable, I'm sorry to say, but there's no way we'll be able to make it anymore comfortable than that :(

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