For Audiologists
What Can Neosensory Do For My Patients?
Neosensory builds inexpensive, non-invasive technology to enhance sound perception through the skin. Our wristband is a complementary device to amplification (e.g. hearing aids, cochlear implants).
This is a research-backed device that provides clinically-meaningful benefits (sound awareness, improvement in speech discrimination, and tinnitus-reduction). See research papers below.
For Your Tinnitus Patients
Tinnitus affects 10 – 15% of people. It’s not rare, but it can be difficult to live with. There’s no cure for tinnitus, but new neuroscience research shows that pairing notes with touch (known as bimodal stimulation) can reduce the volume and annoyance of ringing in the ears. This was originally done with tones plus shocks on the tongue, with strong results: about 80% of participants were significantly helped, with an average of 25% reduction in symptoms.
Our Tinnitus Solution: Neosensory Duo
For Neosensory Duo, we have made this simpler and more effective. First, no doctor’s visit is required. We mail the equipment to your home. You simply download our free app, put on the wristband, and listen to a specially designed series of notes for 15 minutes a day. The sounds and our patented vibrations are synchronized, which tells the brain which sounds are external and which are internal. Over the course of weeks, neuroplasticity sets in to pay less attention to the internal sounds. Tinnitus becomes less challenging to deal with on a daily basis. Most customers participate in our subscription program for 2 months, some find it useful to keep it for 3 months, and others keep it forever.
Symptomatology monitoring: our free app includes a Tinnitus Functional Index tracker, allowing your patients to record their improvement effortlessly over time. In the recommended follow-up visit after 8 weeks of exercises, patients should bring their smartphone to share with you their TFI results.
Relief over duration of program
91% of users find relief
Figure 1. Efficacy of the Neosensory Tinnitus Program. Results from 29 participants. (a) Average tinnitus severity diminished by one-third. (b) The vast majority of users found significant relief.
Perrotta M & Eagleman DM (2021). Use of sound-touch bimodal stimulation to reduce symptoms of tinnitus. Frontiers in Neuroscience. In preparation.
Conlon B, Langguth B, Hamilton C, Hughes S, Meade E, Connor CO, Schecklmann M, Hall DA, Vanneste S, Leong SL, Subramaniam T (2020). Bimodal neuromodulation combining sound and tongue stimulation reduces tinnitus symptoms in a large randomized clinical study. Science Translational Medicine. 12(564).
Eagleman DM (2020). Livewired. Pantheon Books.
Marks KL, Martel DT, Wu C, Basura GJ, Roberts LE, Schvartz-Leyzac KC, Shore SE (2018). Auditory-somatosensory bimodal stimulation desynchronizes brain circuitry to reduce tinnitus in guinea pigs and humans. Science Translational Medicine. 10(422).
Clarify for Speech Comprehension
Nearly 20% of the world’s population suffers from hearing loss, and even those with healthy hearing can have difficulty understanding speech, especially in noisy environments.
To help with speech understanding, we have developed Clarify: your AI-powered partner that helps you understand speech via small vibrations on your wrist.
Introducing Neosensory Clarify
The Clarify wristband delivers spatially unique vibrations to the wrist in correspondence with target phonemes that are typically the most difficult to hear, especially in the presence of noise. The wristband picks up sound from the environment through an onboard microphone, and uses a machine learning algorithm to filter background noise and extract target phonemes from speech.
With practice, the brain learns to combine information from the skin with auditory signals from the ears. The user is then able to understand a complete and meaningful message through the integration of complementary sensory inputs.
Proven improvement over just six weeks
Improvement over six weeks, as measured by the Abbreviated Profile of Hearing Aid Benefit (APHAB). The chart represents the change in perceived level of disability over the course of six weeks of wearing the wristband. Envelope represents standard error of the mean.
Our clinical studies show that Clarify successfully transforms speech sounds into haptic vibrations on the wrist, helping users better understand speech. This markedly improves the quality and productivity of daily activities, including the ability to connect with others in noisy environments and fully enjoy conversations, movies, and podcasts. The Clarify wristband can be used by itself or in conjunction with traditional hearing aids.
For Your Deaf and HoH Patients
For years we have studied how people who are deaf or hard of hearing can learn to identify sounds that are algorithmically translated into spatiotemporal patterns of vibration on the skin of the wrist.
In our peer-reviewed, published data, we have demonstrated that in a three-alternative forced choice task, participants could determine the identity of up to 95% of the stimuli simply by the spatial pattern of vibrations on the skin. Performance improved significantly over the course of 1 month. Similar results were obtained with pattern discrimination, in which a pattern representing the sound of one word was presented to the skin, followed by that of a second word. Participants answered whether the word was the same or different.
With minimal difference pairs (distinguished by only one phoneme, such as “house” and “mouse”), the best performance was 83% (average of 62%), while with non-minimal pairs (such as “house” and “zip”) the best performance was 100% (average of 70%).
These results demonstrate that participants are capable of using the channel of the skin to interpret sound.
Interested in learning more about Neosensory for your patients? Get started.
Our Technology
Our algorithms use over 29,000 different patterns based on sound intensity and pitch. Our studies in bimodal stimulation demonstrate clinically-significant reductions in tinnitus severity for 87% of users. The frequency response is adjustable to customize the experience.
Developed by Stanford neuroscientist Dr. David Eagleman with Dr. Scott Novich.
Why Does This Work?
Learn more about our company’s groundbreaking developments with sensory substitution in our TED talk.
How does this fit into the concepts of brain plasticity?
Read the Pulitzer-prize nominated book by Stanford University neuroscientist David Eagleman, Neosensory’s CEO.
Get in touch with one of our sales specialists today.
Technical Spec Sheet
| Band | |
|---|---|
| Weight – Large (grams) | 51 |
| Weight – Small (grams) | 49 |
| Max operation temp (C) | 51 |
| Water resistance rating | IP54 |
Buzz is a device that takes sounds around the wearer’s environment and translates them into patterns of vibration.
| Battery | |
|---|---|
| Battery type | Lithium Polymer |
| Max battery voltage (V) | 4.1 |
| Battery capacity (mAH) | 270 |
| Peak current (mA) | 568 |
| Typical active current average (mA) | 24 |
| Idle current (mA) | 2.6 |
| Off current (mA) | .9 |
| Typical battery life (hours) | 39 |
| Microphone | |
|---|---|
| Frequency range (Hz) | 300 to 7500 |
| Reference test frequency (kHz) | 1 |
| Harmonic distortion reference (SPL) | 105 |
| Harmonic distortion (%) | .2 |
| Directionality | Omni |
| Equivalent input noise (dBA SPL) | 29 |
| Dynamic range (dB) | 91 |
| Acoustic overload point (dB SPL) | 120 |
| Absolute max (dB SPL) | 160 |
| Sensitivity levels3 | 3 |
| Feedback suppression | Yes |
| Ambient noise suppression | Yes |
| Frequency range adjustable | Yes |
Plots bottom at 29dB (noise-floor)
Typical Microphone Sensitivity vs Frequency (mid motor activation)
Typical Microphone Sensitivity vs Frequency (minimum motor activation)
| Vibration units | |
|---|---|
| Type | Linear Resonant Actuators |
| Resonant frequency (Hz) | 175 |
| Number of vibration units | 4 |
| Virtual vibration points1 | 256 |
| Typical end-to-end latency (ms)2 | 23 |
| Connectivity | |
|---|---|
| Wireless support (optional) | Bluetooth LE |
| Wireless Tx Active (dBm) | -2 |
| Charger port | USB-C |
| Charge time (minutes) | 45 |
| App support | iPhone and Android |
| Everyday mode | |
|---|---|
| Ambient noise suppression4 Low sensitivity (dB) | 30 |
| Ambient noise suppression Medium sensitivity (dB) | 4 |
| Ambient noise suppression High sensitivity (dB) | 2 |
| Attenuation5, Low sensitivity (dB) | 61 |
| Attenuation, Medium sensitivity 2 (dB) | 16 |
| Attenuation, High sensitivity 3 (dB) | 0 |
| Night mode | |
|---|---|
| Ambient noise suppression4 Low sensitivity (dB) | 0 |
| Ambient noise suppression Medium sensitivity (dB) | 0 |
| Ambient noise suppression High sensitivity (dB) | 0 |
| Attenuation5, Low sensitivity (dB) | 26 |
| Attenuation, Medium sensitivity 2 (dB) | 6 |
| Attenuation, High sensitivity 3 (dB) | 0 |
| Music mode | |
|---|---|
| Ambient noise suppression4 Low sensitivity (dB) | 0 |
| Ambient noise suppression Medium sensitivity (dB) | 0 |
| Ambient noise suppression High sensitivity (dB) | 0 |
| Attenuation5, Low sensitivity (dB) | 36 |
| Attenuation, Medium sensitivity 2 (dB) | 26 |
| Attenuation, High sensitivity 3 (dB) | 11 |
Footnotes
1 Certain algorithms on Buzz leverage a haptic illusion that can give the effect of 256 points of vibration around the wrist
2 Typical time between the Buzz picking up a sound and vibrating
3 Buzz supports 3 “Sensitivity Levels,” as indicated by the device LEDs ranging from Level 1 (1 LED) = least sensitive to Level 3 (3 LEDs) = most sensitive. These levels indicate how loud sound in the environment needs to be for Buzz to vibrate.
4 Suppression is how many dB above the background noise a sound needs to be for Buzz to vibrate
5 Attenuation is how many dB above the microphone’s own noise floor sound needs to be for Buzz to vibrate
Scientific References
Perrotta MV, Asgeirsdottir T, Eagleman DM (2021). Deciphering sounds through patterns of vibration on the skin. Neuroscience. [text]
Fletcher MD, Zgheib, J. (2020) Haptic sound‑localisation for use in cochlear implant and hearing‑aid users. Nature Scientific Reports [text]
Fletcher MD, Song H, Perry SW (2020) Electro-haptic stimulation enhances speech recognition in spatially separated noise for cochlear implant users. Nature Scientific Reports [text]
Fletcher MD, Thini N, Perry SW (2020) Enhanced pitch discrimination for cochlear implant users with a new haptic neuroprosthetic. Nature Scientific Reports [text]
Fletcher MD, Cunningham RO, Mills SR (2020) Electro-haptic enhancement of spatial hearing in cochlear implant users. Nature Scientific Reports [text]
Fletcher MD, Hadeedi A, Goehring T, Mills SR (2019) Electro-haptic enhancement of speech-in-noise performance in cochlear implant users. Nature Scientific Reports [text]
Novich SD, Eagleman DM (2015). Using space and time to encode vibrotactile information: toward an estimate of the skin’s achievable throughput. Experimental Brain Research. 233(10):2777-2788. [text]
Novich SD (2015). Sound-to-Touch Sensory Substitution and Beyond. PhD Thesis from Dr. Eagleman’s laboratory. [text]