RNID and Sonos develop innovative speech enhancement feature for users with hearing impairments
The Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID), the national charity supporting people who are deaf, have hearing loss or tinnitus, has been involved in a collaboration with Sonos, to help the company develop a first-of-its-kind speech enhancement feature for home cinema users.
The feature, which Sonos is introducing today – provides four levels of control – the highest of which is expressly designed for those with hearing loss – via the Sonos app home screen allowing users adjust dialogue to match their needs.
Through two phases of testing for nearly a year, Sonos worked with 37 participants of various ages and hearing abilities to learn more about the experiences of individuals with hearing loss, giving the company valuable insights that significantly impacted the feature’s development.
The new speech enhancement tool is part of Sonos’ commitment to inclusive design as it strives to consistently reinvent its products to be more equitable and accessible for all. It will be available to use on Sonos’ Arc Ultra soundbar via a software update rolling out today.
Matt Benatan, Principal Research Scientist at Sonos, says: “It’s not just practical, it’s emotional. One of the most important aspects of TV and movie watching is the opportunity to bond over cultural and entertainment events that are watched in real time. If one viewer cannot fully hear the dialogue, their ability to enjoy and participate in the moment can be lost.
“It was a hard truth, but one that deeply motivated our team. While TV soundbars have offered basic speech enhancement for years, they often lacked the effectiveness and sound quality needed to truly solve the problem. We embarked on a long journey to build a meaningful solution, and AI provided a breakthrough.”
Harry Jones, Sound Experience Engineer at Sonos, added: “By implementing machine learning into our speech extraction technology, we figured out how to separate dialogue from other sounds in the center channel and clarify speech in real time.
“This lets us draw out just the dialogue at the most needed times, without overly impacting volume or taking away from the holistic cinematic experience.”
Lauren Ward, Lead RNID Researcher, commented: “We wanted to ensure that Speech Enhancement would work for all, even those who might not even realise they have hearing loss. One in three adults in the UK experience hearing loss, and it is reported that just under one in four adults in the USA do too. This tool has the potential to impact a large number of people.
“We also worked with award-winning film sound mixer Chris Jenkins to bring speech extraction techniques used in the studio right into people’s homes, while keeping other mix elements like sound effects and music artistically intact.”
Recent news that a clinical grade hearing aid feature is now available as a free software upgrade on AirPods Pro 2 in the UK has been welcomed by The Royal National Institute for Deaf People (RNID).
