Practical Test & Measurement: The Smart Way of Testing Smart Home Devices

In this article for audioXpress, Hans W. Gierlich, managing director of HEAD acoustics, explains how to test the different performance parameters of smart speakers and smart home devices under real-life conditions, how to deal with the challenges of optimizing systems for voice and audio quality, how to simulate environmental conditions, user behavior, and test the performance of the various functionalities. This article was originally published in audioXpress, January 2019.

SoundChip introduced Soundstation Array, a spatially-limited diffuse sound field measurement platform designed to help brands characterize and tune hybrid noise cancelling headphones. Soundstation Array leverages SoundChip-sponsored post-graduate research into the minimum requirements for generating a sound field that is sufficiently diffuse for ensuring repeatable and reproducible measurements of noise cancelling headphones, without the need for an anechoic or reverberation chamber.

In 2016, Audified introduced its MixChecker Pro mix-assisting plug-in which was able generate emulations of classic reference studio monitors as well as consumer loudspeakers in order to check how a production would translate in different environments. Now the Czech company announced availability of MixChecker Pro, advancing the solution further with a whole host of new features, including the ability to simulate acoustical surroundings and whole range of new categorized devices.

In response to the trend towards high-quality audio in mobile phones and the increasing popularity of headphones and headsets for communication and entertainment, Brüel & Kjær has developed the new High-frequency Head and Torso Simulator (HATS) Type 5128. The new HATS was shown for the first time in public at the 143rd AES convention in New York. The improved version of the “green man” will open a new world of opportunity for the audio industry.

In this article, Steve Temme discusses the issues that are common to testing all types of headphones. As more and more loudspeaker engineers find themselves employed in the fast-growing headphone market, it is important that the unique challenges of testing headphone packages are fully understood.