Mobile technology that brings personalized audio into your life

Project Information

TuneFork

Grant agreement ID: 836601

DOI

10.3030/836601

Project closed

EC signature date 15 November 2018

Start date 1 December 2018

End date 31 May 2019

Funded under

• INDUSTRIAL LEADERSHIP - Innovation In SMEs

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

LISTENING APPLICATIONS
Israel

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - TuneFork (Mobile technology that brings personalized audio into your life)

Reporting period: 2018-12-01 to 2019-05-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

TuneFork is an audio personalization technology that delivers an optimal hearing experience, improving the quality of life for people with hearing loss and seniors.

Hearing loss affects more than 460 million people around the world making their everyday life challenging. Many of them experience difficulty using their smart devices such as smartphones, smart homes, smart assistants, smart automotive and more, all of which rely on, or are in the process of transitioning to, voice command operation.

TuneFork enables the user to perform a simple hearing test and characterizes the user's specific hearing problem. The test results, paired with flexible algorithm which adjust frequency response, create a personally-optimized, custom-made audio experience for the user – a Personalized Audio Profile.

TuneFork is a completely software solution that can be integrated into any operating system and can personally optimize all audio content: phone calls, smart assistant voice, GPS instructions, music, videos, voice messages, and more.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

We have released the first version of the fully developed product – as an SDK we are licensing to other apps. Our SDK allow the host app to perform a full hearing test, convert the results into personal audio filter, and then adjust all the digital audio content in the app according to the personal profile.

We have tested the technology on more than 20 users with hearing loss. We conducted a trial with the HLAA – the Hearing Loss Association of America, the biggest global organization in this field. The feedback we received from test subjects was great –

1) 91% of the subjects reported that they would use the test periodically to track their hearing
2) Tunefork’s solution was reported to add clarity to speech, add overtones to music tracks and generally enrich audio. It was preferred by 86% of our test subjects to regular sound.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

We have more than 10,000 downloads of our demo-app and thousands of users completed the hearing-test and received their results.

We participated in several conferences, events and competitions – in Israel, Europe and China – and raised awareness to hearing problems and technological solutions that improve the quality of life for people with hearing loss and elders.

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