Binaural hearing assistance operation
First Claim
1. A method of operating a binaural hearing assistance system that comprises a binaural hearing device that comprises first and second earpieces, each earpiece adapted to be worn over, on or in one ear, each earpiece comprising an electroacoustic transducer that converts an input electrical audio signal for the ear into sound, and at least one microphone that converts external environmental sound into an electrical microphone output signal, where the binaural hearing assistance system is adapted to use a binaural beamforming microphone algorithm to directionally process microphone output signals from microphones from both earpieces using a digital signal processor to create the electrical audio signals that are used to drive the transducers of both earpieces, to increase speech intelligibility in the presence of noise, the method comprising:
- detecting when one of the first and second earpieces is dropped and is no longer over, on or in an ear; and
in response to detecting when one of the first and second earpieces is dropped, either;
modifying the binaural beamforming microphone algorithm by turning off a microphone bias of a microphone of the dropped earpiece;
orturning off the output of the transducer of the dropped earpiece;
orreducing an output level of the transducer of the dropped earpiece.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A method of operating a hearing assistance system that includes a binaural hearing device with first and second earpieces, each earpiece adapted to be worn over, on or in one ear. Each earpiece has an electroacoustic transducer that converts an input electrical audio signal for the ear into sound, and at least one microphone that converts sound into an electrical microphone output signal. The hearing assistance system is adapted to process microphone output signals from both earpieces to create the electrical audio signals that are used to drive the transducers of both earpieces. A situation in which one of the earpieces is not over, on or in an ear is detected, and in response the processing of at least one of the microphone output signals that creates the audio signals is modified.
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Citations
14 Claims
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1. A method of operating a binaural hearing assistance system that comprises a binaural hearing device that comprises first and second earpieces, each earpiece adapted to be worn over, on or in one ear, each earpiece comprising an electroacoustic transducer that converts an input electrical audio signal for the ear into sound, and at least one microphone that converts external environmental sound into an electrical microphone output signal, where the binaural hearing assistance system is adapted to use a binaural beamforming microphone algorithm to directionally process microphone output signals from microphones from both earpieces using a digital signal processor to create the electrical audio signals that are used to drive the transducers of both earpieces, to increase speech intelligibility in the presence of noise, the method comprising:
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detecting when one of the first and second earpieces is dropped and is no longer over, on or in an ear; and in response to detecting when one of the first and second earpieces is dropped, either; modifying the binaural beamforming microphone algorithm by turning off a microphone bias of a microphone of the dropped earpiece;
orturning off the output of the transducer of the dropped earpiece;
orreducing an output level of the transducer of the dropped earpiece. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 13)
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7. A method of operating a binaural hearing assistance system that comprises a binaural hearing device that comprises first and second earpieces, each earpiece adapted to be worn over, on or in one ear, each earpiece comprising an electroacoustic transducer that converts an input electrical audio signal for the ear into sound, and at least one microphone that converts external environmental sound into an electrical microphone output signal, where the binaural hearing assistance system is adapted to use a binaural beamforming microphone algorithm to directionally process microphone output signals from microphones from both earpieces using a digital signal processor to create the electrical audio signals that are used to drive the transducers of both earpieces, to increase speech intelligibility in the presence of noise, the method comprising:
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detecting when one of the first and second earpieces is dropped and is no longer over, on or in an ear; and in response to detecting when one of the first and second earpieces is dropped, modifying the binaural beamforming microphone algorithm by band limiting the microphone output signals from the dropped earpiece, so as to reduce the impact of the dropped earpiece on the binaural hearing assistance system. - View Dependent Claims (8, 9, 14)
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Specification