Headphones make it easy to listen to music without disturbing your family or coworkers. But what if you could privately enjoy music without wearing uncomfortable cans or earbuds? A new “sound beaming” speaker from Noveto Systems, called the SoundBeamer 1.0, promises to give you that perfect private listening experience by shooting ultrasonic audio toward you and you only.
Ultrasonic audio is out of the range of human hearing. But when the ultrasonic waves from the SoundBeamer come in contact with your head, they form an audible “sound pocket.” This “sound pocket” gives you the sensation that you’re listening to music on a speaker, but nobody else can hear it.
Noveto Systems says that the SoundBeamer technology could stand in for headphones at work, at school, or at home. Still, the technology seems a bit quirky. While some people suggest that music from the SoundBeamer sounds “3-D,” it may be a bit too weird for some people. Even Noveto Systems CEO Christophe Ramstein thinks that the SoundBeamer sensation is strange, stating “the brain doesn’t understand what it doesn’t know.”
SoundBeamer also has to track your ears, which can limit your mobility in some environments. It may be more convenient to stick with headphones if there isn’t a clear path between the SoundBeamer and your ears. One of the notable perks of this tech is that you can hear your surroundings while listening to music, which is easy to achieve with small and portable bone conduction headphones.
Noveto expects to release a “smaller, sexier” version of its prototype SoundBeamer 1.0 speaker by Christmas 2021. Still, we’re curious about the technology and would love to learn more.
Source: Noveto Systems via AP
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