What is “sound leakage” and what does it have to do with your privacy?

Sound that can be heard outside of the area in which we want it to be heard is referred to as sound leakage.

As you may know, sound travels in waves, bounces off obstacles and then gets thrown back. This is, for example, how the interesting acoustic phenomena such as echo is created. But it also means that we often hear things we don't really want to hear - or accidentally overhear our friends or colleagues talking when we really don't want to.

Definition of sound leakage

Sound that can be heard outside of the area in which we want it to be heard is referred to as sound leakage. The great challenge in acoustics is knowing how to avoid this, especially with open systems. Those who use headphones capture the sound in a closed environment, where it cannot leak outside and the sound leakage is minimal. But what about an open system like audio glasses?    

This is how we minimize sound leakage in audio glasses

When you listen to music or podcasts with your audio glasses, make calls or use the voice assistant, you want to be the only one who can hear the sound - nobody else. Similar to headphones, your audio glasses should ensure your privacy. To make this possible, we have placed the audio module with the speakers in the Fauna audio glasses in a way that enables the sound to go straight into your ear. And since each ear is different, we calculated the best possible speaker orientation from a database of thousands of ear shapes. In technical terms, this is called beamforming. Our microphones work on this principle as well. That way the voice assistant recognizes your voice perfectly and your conversation partners hear you loud and clear during a phone call. Fauna audio glasses are the first and only audio glasses that ensure your privacy while still spoiling your ears with crystal clear sound.