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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

#291

Post by randlet »

KaiserPro wrote: post #92

One thing that the HN crowd should appreciate is just how expensive and shit hearing aids are. go and look the up the price, they are deeply expensive, even for basic "make it louder" type aids. Worse still, because they interfere with your ear, you tend to loose the ability to "steer" your hearing. This means that you can't tune out other conversations/noises or stuff. The one good side effect of facebook spending b…

"One thing that the HN crowd should appreciate is just how expensive and shit hearing aids are."

Expensive, yes. My hearing aids cost ~$2500CAD each but "how shit hearing aids are" is not my experience at all. My hearing aids (Widex) are awesome! The quality of audio in normal situations is fantastic. My only real complaint is that they're not completely waterproof so I have to plan ahead a bit if I'm going to be outdoors in the rain.

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

#292

Post by oakpond »

Honestly AI speech recognition still sucks so bad I'm basically convinced it will fall on its face in many daily use cases.

I realize this is slightly tangential, but please don't replace customer support with chatbots or whatever you want to call them. It's a freaking horrible experience.

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

#293

Post by resource_waste »

>A University of Washington team

Oh, so it barely works and its a proof of concept.

What is the interesting thing here? We all know how sound waves work. Pretty sure this technology is old. Until there is a product here, it just sounds like you are rehashing noise cancellation.

Academia has dug this grave of skepticism. I just have 0 faith this will get to market through University of Washington. Maybe it will be patented and used even less!

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

#294

Post by treflop »

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…

There’s something called Auditory Processing Disorder where you are not able to able to differentiate sound and it supposedly can develop later in life.

I’ve had it since I was a kid because I always passed the hearing tests but every other kid had no trouble listening to music and understanding the words and so on so I put two and two together.

Anyway, I have never been able to understand anyone in any loud public space which absolutely blows when you’re not a home body.

See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auditory_processing_disorder

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

#295

Post by solarengineer »

Pxtl wrote: post #272
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've taken to wearing bone-conductors waaaaay to much, and I'm impressed with their flexibility for stuff like this. They keep my ears open, but when I need to hear the headset more clearly (like if I'm in a crowded area and taking a call) I can plug my ear with my finger and that both improves the audio quality of the bone conductor (it creates a speaker cabinet in your ear for a much fuller sound) and blocks out th…

Shokz has these bone conductor headsets with mics.

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

#296

Post by swader999 »

kk6mrp wrote: post #285
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lowering the volume can help with the SNR, because neither the signal, the noise, nor the lowering effect caused by earplugs are consistent with respect to frequency. Highly objectionable, harsh 4-8 kHz noise that might echo around a concrete and steel venue is blocked well by good earplugs, while low-frequency 100-400 Hz speech is ineffectively blocked.

Do you have a good earplug recommendation?

I like these best for low cost plugs. Howard Leight LL-1 Laser LiteUncorded Foam Earplugs Box, 200 Pair https://a.co/d/3REDT7l

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

#297

Post by s1artibartfast »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #270
citizen_friend wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a low quality comment, that was already debunked by a google search in a comment below.

What Google search? You mean the specific hearing aid searches? It was a general comment on the state of health care in the US (not just hearing aids). Before the new legislation, we couldn't just go to the corner drug store, and buy a hearing aid off the shelf. It needed to come as part of a package, including many tests and appointments with ENT folks. But I cede the point. It was a low-quality comment that is like…

I feel like you are still exaggerating the difficulty.

Costco has sold them for at least 10 years. You just need to make an appointment and they take care of the rest.

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

#298

Post by nashashmi »

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…

Tip for anyone trying to communicate in noisy room:

1. Don't speak fast. Speak slow. Enunciate and articulate all the consonants. And do it very slowly. Give the vowels lots of room to be noticed.

2. Don't speak lightly.

3. Don't mumble.

Aayyeee hHHaaaVVE TTOOO GOOO NNAAAoooUUU

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

#299

Post by kayodelycaon »

UI_at_80x24 wrote: post #233
superultra wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Not to act like an arm-chair doctor but have you ever considered that you may be on the ASD spectrum? That function of being able to mentally 'filter out' specific voices within a crowd is (semi?) common signal of autism. More accurately; I'm like that and I am autistic, I've read that it happens to a lot of others.

It can also happen with ADHD. I seem to have difficulty integrating sensory information and thinking at the same time. If it’s noisy, it causes a series of buffer overflows at every level of cognition.

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

#300

Post by countvonbalzac »

floatrock wrote: post #232
superultra wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> restaurant and public space designers have stopped thinking about sound. Most bars opened in the last 15 years have cement floors, very little sound insulation, and they’re based on the idea that you’re not having a good time unless your ears are ringing. Recently listened to a really good podcast about this phenomenon https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/gastropod/id918896288?... (or pick your favorite podcast ap…

Aren't there some cheap ways to muffle sound?

Wood floors, rugs, curtains, artwork, acoustic panels, etc.

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