The disclosure relates to a hearing device comprising a housing surrounding a venting channel comprising a valve member moveable relative to the venting channel between different positions comprising a first valve position and a second valve position, an actuator configured to provide an actuation force with a direction and a magnitude acting on the valve member, and a controller a controller configured to provide a first control signal controlling the actuator to provide the actuation force in a first direction, and to provide a second control signal controlling the actuator to provide the actuation force in a second direction. The disclosure further relates to a method of operating such a hearing device.

A method for generating an acoustic stimulus for use in an ear biometric process on a user, the method comprising: receiving an indication of stimulation frequencies for use in the ear biometric process; grouping the stimulation frequencies into bands of a psychoacoustic scale; generating the acoustic stimulus, the acoustic stimulus comprising a masked bandpass component within each band of the psychoacoustic scale that comprises one or more of the stimulation frequencies.

While a first wearable audio output component of a wearable audio output device is in a first position relative to a first ear of a user and a second wearable audio output component of the wearable audio output device is in the first position relative to a second ear, a computer system operates the wearable audio output device in a first mode. While doing so, the computer system detects a change in position of the first component from the first position to a second position; and, in response, while the second component is maintained in the first position, the computer system transitions the wearable audio output device from the first mode to a different, second mode that is a pass-through mode in which audio outputs provided via the wearable audio output device include pass-through audio components that include at least a portion of ambient sound from the physical environment.

A digital signal processing method for ambient sound acoustic dosimetry. Strength of a microphone signal generated by a watch worn by a user is determined and converted into a sound sample having units for sound noise exposure. This is repeated multiple times to produce a time sequence of sound samples that is written to a secure database access to which is authorized by the user. Other aspects are also described and claimed.

An in-ear device occludes an ear canal of an ear of a user. The in-ear device is configured to be calibrated such that the user perceives audio content as though the in-ear device is not occluding the ear canal. A transducer of the in-ear device presents audio content, and an inner microphone of the in-ear device detects sound pressure data within the ear canal. A controller of the in-ear device determines a blocked sound pressure at the entrance to the ear canal based on sound pressure data from an outer microphone. The controller generates sound filters custom to the user based in part on the detected sound pressure within the ear canal and the blocked sound pressure at the entrance to the ear canal. The controller adjusts audio content using the sound filter, and the transducer presents the adjusted audio content to the user.

A detection device includes a pressure sensor, which provides a pressure signal indicative of an ambient pressure in an operating environment. An electrostatic-charge-variation sensor provides a charge-variation signal indicative of a variation of electrostatic charge associated with the operating environment, and processing circuitry is coupled to the pressure sensor and to the electrostatic-charge-variation sensor so as to receive the pressure signal and the charge-variation signal, and jointly processes the pressure signal and the charge-variation signal for detecting a variation between a first operating environment and a second operating environment for the detection device. The second operating environment is different from the first operating environment.

An apparatus, method and computer program is described for: receiving, over a period of time, a signal indicative of a pressure measured by a pressure sensor of an earpiece, the earpiece comprising an ear tip configured for insertion into an ear canal of a user, wherein the pressure sensor is arranged to measure a pressure within the ear canal whilst the ear tip is inserted into the ear canal; determining one or more characteristics of the signal; and determining a measure of a quality of a seal between the earpiece and the ear canal based on the one or more characteristics.

A method for controlling headphones. The headphones include a feedback microphone and a speaker. The method includes: obtaining an ear canal audio signal by collecting an audio signal in an ear canal by the feedback microphone; obtaining an audio signal feature parameter by conducting feature extraction on the ear canal audio signal; determining a tightness level of the headphones in a current wearing status; generating an audio feature to be identified according to the audio signal feature parameter and the tightness level; inputting the audio feature to be identified into a preset interactive operation identification model, and outputting an identification result, where the identification result includes an interactive operation identifier; determining a control instruction corresponding to the interactive operation identifier; and controlling a playback status of the speaker according to the control instruction.

A method of determining an audio controller for a headphone that is configured to use an acoustic transducer to develop sound that is delivered to an ear of a user and that includes a feedback microphone that is configured to sense sound developed by the acoustic transducer, and a related computer program product and system. A first audio transfer function between the acoustic transducer and the feedback microphone is measured. A second audio transfer function between the acoustic transducer and the feedback microphone with a feedback controller applied is determined. The audio controller is calculated based on both the first audio transfer function and the second audio transfer function.

A device to test the seal quality of an earpiece. Audio processing circuitry produces an audio signal for driving a speaker. Output from the microphone while the speaker is being driven by the audio signal is used to determine the seal. The device or method further includes control circuitry to evaluate a seal quality of the device. Other embodiments are disclosed.