Vesper Launches 2nd Generation Smart Piezoelectric Voice Accelerometer with ZeroPower Sensing

Vesper continues to redefine its range of MEMS solutions for voice applications with the launch of the VA1210, Vesper’s 2nd generation analog piezoelectric smart voice accelerometer. The VA1210 offers higher sensitivity (+17 dB) and higher (+6 dB) SNR than the 1st generation VA1200 in voice pickup. Additionally, new intelligent features of Wake-on-Voice (WoV) and hardware voice activity detection (HVAD), introduced into the VA1210, enable a drastic improvement of voice quality True Wireless Stereo (TWS) earbuds.

Vesper, the pioneer in piezoelectric MEMS microphones and sensors that is now empowering edge-AI applications in consumer devices, closed a $18M financing round led by Accomplice. Vesper also received investments from Applied Materials Ventures, Sands Capital, Bose, Amazon Alexa Fund, Gopher Asset Management, ITIC, World Peace Group, Unitrontech, and MegaChips. The round brings Vesper's total funding to date to $73M.

Vesper introduced the VA1200, which the company calls the world’s first analog piezoelectric voice accelerometer (a.k.a. bone conduction sensor). This low-power vibration sensor can be used in true wireless earbud designs to pick up the wearer’s own voice through bone conduction. Using the VA1200 in conjunction with a standard microphone and a sensor fusion solution, the application can achieve superior background and wind noise reduction. Vesper calls this combination OnePlusOne.

At the end of July 2020, audioXpress ran a product release on Vesper's VM3011 intelligent digital micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) microphone. Its claim to fame is a power saving architecture that enables battery standby life that otherwise would be unattainable without the "smarts." There are another half-dozen developers working on integrating all sorts of capabilities within the MEMS mic package. This article, originally published in The Audio Voice newsletter, discusses those developments.