Clementine Wear Wins the 2017 National Science Foundation's Hearables Challenge

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Aug 23, 2017, 02:00 ET

BOULDER, Colo., Aug. 23, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Mark Kaal, CEO of Samplified Audio, today announced that his company won the 2017 National Science Foundation's Hearables Challenge with their solution called Clementine Wear.

The Hearables Challenge was announced in April 2017 with the goal to find innovative solutions to understanding speech in noisy situations that can be implemented in consumer audio products, such as hearables and wearables. The submissions were judged by a panel of experts from the National Science Foundation, NineSigma and NASA with support from the Linguistic Data Consortium of the University of Pennsylvania. Entries were judged on their speech-in-noise handling, latency (audio delay) and the technology's application potential to consumer grade devices. The cloud/mobile based Clementine Wear Audio platform will be officially presented to the world at the UbiComp 2017 conference on Maui, Hawaii on Sept. 14, 2017.

The first product developed by Samplified Audio, called the SnowOwl, with the award-winning Clementine Wear inside, will be launched on crowdfunding platform Indiegogo on Sept. 6, 2017. This product is suitable for anybody interested in listening to personalized audio. In other words, sound entering the ears that matches an individual's hearing profile, which is almost as unique as a fingerprint. The SnowOwl is not just for listening to personalized audio from a music player; it also can serve as a listening device. Sound amplified where it needs to be and noise canceled or noise filtered from the direction you don't want it from. The SnowOwl is supported by the Clementine Wear app for iOS and Android smartphones.

The use of hearables and audio wearables by people experiencing mild-to-moderate hearing loss is expected to grow substantially now that President Trump signed the new Over-The-Counter (OTC) Hearing Aid Law on Aug. 18, 2017.

ABOUT SAMPLIFIED AUDIO

The developer of Clementine Wear is Samplified Audio, a mini-national company that brought together a wealth of experience in audiology, (wireless) audio engineering, (embedded) software development, hearing product design, manufacturing and distribution. Samplified was originally founded in Toronto by hearing industry veterans Mario Augustyniak and Mark Kaal, and expanded to Belgium and the Netherlands. More recently an office was opened in Boulder, Colorado and Samplified is preparing the opening of an office in Hong Kong.

Samplified CEO, Mark Kaal: "We expect two to three manufacturers of hearing aids and wireless consumer audio products to announce products with Clementine Wear Inside within the next 60 days. We initially have a strong focus on Asian manufacturers, but interest levels in the U.S. and EU markets are strong as well, especially now the OTC Hearing Aid Law is official. To effectively deal with the growing supply and demand, we have started to plan for the scale up of the company in the next 6-9 months."

Christopher Schweitzer, Ph.D. (Audiology), Hearables Challenge Project leader: "After we completed all the formal requirements for the Challenge with normal hearing subjects, the team wanted to push further. So we added a small number of additional subjects with mild to moderate hearing loss for additional testing. We were pleased to see that all scored improvement with Clementine Wear processing. We were delighted."

Media Contact
Mr. Mark Kaal
Phone: (+31) 6 26 03 29 72
Email: mkaal@samplified-audio.com

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Related Links

NSF Hearables Challenge

Clementine Wear Indiegogo landing page

SOURCE Clementine Wear