METHOD FOR OPERATING A HEARING SYSTEM AND HEARING SYSTEM

Abstract

A method for operating a hearing system having a hearing aid and a mobile device includes using at least one microphone of the hearing aid to record and convert sound signals into associated electrical microphone signals. The microphone signals are checked for the presence of speech components. Existing speech components are examined by using voice recognition and a voice profile thus recognized is assigned to a specific speaker. The mobile device is used to obtain additional information about the specific speaker that goes beyond personal information and the information is presented to a user of the hearing system. A hearing system for performing the method is also provided.

Claims

1. A method for operating a hearing system including a hearing aid and a mobile device, the method comprising: using at least one microphone of the hearing aid to record and convert sound signals into associated electrical microphone signals; checking the microphone signals for a presence of speech components; using voice recognition to examine existing speech components and assigning a voice profile recognized by the voice recognition to a specific speaker; using the mobile device to obtain and present to a user of the hearing system additional information about the specific speaker going beyond personal information; checking for language information about the specific speaker relating to a foreign language primarily spoken by the specific speaker; and presenting a translation of words spoken by the specific speaker to the user upon corresponding language information being assigned to the specific speaker.

2. The method according to claim 1, which further comprises using the mobile device to keep a conversation history of already made conversations for the specific speaker, and providing the user of the hearing system with a current status of the conversation history as additional information, upon recognition of the specific speaker.

3. The method according to claim 1, which further comprises outputting appointment information linked to the specific speaker as additional information.

4. The method according to claim 3, which further comprises retrieving the appointment information from a database managed by using the mobile device.

5. The method according to claim 1, which further comprises, in an event of unsuccessful voice recognition, sending a request to the user for assignment to a specific person of an unknown voice profile contained in the voice components.

6. The method according to claim 1, which further comprises asking the user to confirm the specific person upon recognizing a voice profile.

7. The method according to claim 1, which further comprises, during a learning phase for the specific speaker, recording the voice profile of the specific speaker in different acoustic environments.

8. The method according to claim 1, which further comprises using the hearing aid to record signal processing being dependent on the specific speaker.

9. The method according to claim 8, wherein the signal processing is voice profile-dependent.

10. A hearing system, comprising a hearing aid and a mobile device configured to perform the method according to claim 1.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE SEVERAL VIEWS OF THE DRAWING

[0028] FIG. 1 is a diagrammatic, plan view of a hearing system and a speaker; and

[0029] FIG. 2 is a flow chart of a method performed by the hearing system.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0030] Referring now in detail to the figures of the drawings, in which parts corresponding to each other are always marked with the same reference signs, and first, particularly, to FIG. 1 thereof, there is seen a diagrammatically illustrated hearing system 1. The hearing system 1 includes a hearing aid, specifically a hearing aid to be worn behind the ear (referred to as “hearing device 2”), and a mobile device, in this case a Smartphone 4.

[0031] The hearing device 2 includes two microphones 6 for recording sound from the environment, a signal processor 8, which is set up for frequency-dependent filtering and amplification of sound signals (or: microphone signals) supplied by the microphones 6, as well as a speaker 10. When the hearing device 2 is operating as intended, the sound signals processed in the signal processor 8 are acoustically output by using the speaker 10.

[0032] The Smartphone 4 has a software application which, due to its installation on the Smartphone 4, forms a control for the hearing system 1 and is therefore referred to as “control app 12” in the following. Control app 12 is used to perform a method described in more detail below. For this purpose, the Smartphone 4 is set up to establish a bidirectional, wireless communication connection 14 (e.g. using the Bluetooth standard) with the hearing device 2 during intended operation. Within the scope of the above-mentioned method, the hearing system 1 is set up to recognize a specific speaker 16 by using acoustic analysis.

[0033] As shown in FIG. 2, in a first process step 20, sound from the environment of the hearing device 2 is recorded by using the microphones 6 of the hearing device 2 and fed to the signal processor 8 in the form of electrical sound signals.

[0034] In a subsequent process step 30, the signal processor 8 analyzes whether the sound signals contain a voice component 32 of a person. In the case that such a speech component 32 is contained, in a further process step 40 it is examined whether this speech component 32 contains a known voice profile. For this purpose, the voice profile determined for the speech component 32 is compared with the voice profiles assigned to known persons of the hearing device wearer who wears hearing device 2 and to whom the smartphone 4 belongs. For this purpose, the control app 12 accesses a contact database, which is managed by using an address book app 42 installed on the smartphone 4. In the contact database, any known voice profiles are assigned to specific contacts (i.e. individual persons) of the hearing device wearer.

[0035] If the currently determined voice profile is known and also assigned to a contact of the hearing device wearer, the control app 12 assesses this contact as the specific speaker 16. In a process step 50, the control app 12 displays the name of the contact as the current speaker 16 by accordingly controlling a display control 52 of the smartphone 4. If a picture is stored for this contact, the picture of the contact is also displayed. In addition, the system asks whether this contact is actually the current speaker 16.

[0036] If this is not the case, the control app 12 asks to which contact the currently determined, but previously unknown, voice profile can be assigned.

[0037] If the specific speaker 16 is confirmed, the control app 12 retrieves additional information about the specific speaker 16 from the address book app 42—or, for example, from another app—in a method step 60. In concrete terms, the app retrieves how often the hearing device wearer and the specific speaker 16 have spoken to each other in the last 10 days. This information is displayed to the hearing device wearer on their smartphone 4.

[0038] For the case in which the address book app shows that the hearing device user (only) speaks a foreign language, the hearing device user is offered the provision of a (e.g. machine, simultaneous) translation, for example, to display translated text on the smartphone display or to output it acoustically through the speaker 10 of hearing device 2.

[0039] The subject matter of the invention is not limited to the embodiment example described above. Rather, further embodiments of the invention can be derived from the above description by the person skilled in the art.

REFERENCE CHARACTER LIST

[0040] 1 Hearing system [0041] 2 Hearing device [0042] 4 Smartphone [0043] 6 Microphone [0044] 8 Signal processor [0045] 10 Loudspeaker [0046] 12 Control app [0047] 14 Communication link [0048] 16 Speaker [0049] 20 Process step [0050] 30 Process step [0051] 40 Process step [0052] 42 Address book app [0053] 50 Process step [0054] 52 Display control [0055] 60 Process step