With the audio industry increasingly converging with new wellness and health applications in wearables and hearables, there is a trend to explore the possibilities of using earbud devices during sleep to help monitor and improve sleep. Meeting this trend, xMEMS created a reference design that utilizes the company’s patented Skyline DynamicVent technology to deliver improved comfort and automatic ambient control using a physical vent and DSP noise detection in miniaturized earbuds.
According to xMEMS VP of Marketing and Business Development Mike Housholder, the purpose of the design is to demonstrate how such technologies can power a new generation of sleep buds that provide sound isolation with closed vents to assist sleep, while also enabling enhanced comfort through open vents when ambient noise is low.
"Today’s sleep buds typically rely on noise masking sounds from a legacy coil speaker and noise blocking from a silicone or foam eartip," Housholder says. "However, these eartips occlude the ear and amplify self-generated noises such as your own breathing, snoring or your ear rubbing against the pillow. Our Skyline DynamicVent leverages a noise-detecting microphone and DSP to vent the ear and reduce these occlusion effects that could disrupt sleep. But when outside noise is detected, the vent will close to achieve the best noise isolation. All told, this technology takes the sleep buds category to new levels of usability and more importantly, comfort."
Skyline can be closed for superior noise blocking, or opened to vent the ear and reduce occlusion effects. If required, during times of louder noises, xMEMS’ Cowell MEMS microspeaker can also be turned on to provide noise-masking sounds that work in conjunction with the noise blocking eartips and closed vent.
The reference design is available to xMEMS partners and equipment manufacturers to serve as a starting point for their own product innovations. The design consists of a pair of tiny wireless earbuds and a charging case, similar to consumer true wireless earbuds. Inside the earbuds are the xMEMS Cowell micro speaker, the Skyline DynamicVent, a MEMS microphone and a Qualcomm QCC5171 true wireless stereo system-on-chip for Bluetooth connectivity and DSP functions.
"CES is the premiere destination to launch and demo the technologies that will shape not only the products we buy, but the processes behind how those products are produced," Housholder concludes. "Through sleep buds and various other reference designs at CES 2024, xMEMS is demonstrating how our world-first all-silicon, monolithic MEMS micro speakers and DynamicVent products deliver exceptional sound quality, comfort, and style for consumers, while unlocking new efficiencies for manufacturers through our solid state semiconductor manufacturing process – which delivers a better sounding speaker with far greater production efficiency and product uniformity."
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