Conventional Hearing Protection Devices (HPDs) are known to significantly reduce the wearer’s spatial hearing ability (the ability to correctly perceive the direction and proximity of sound sources through hearing alone). Spatial hearing is also the primary mechanism by which our brains can focus on specific sounds, such as speech, in noisy environments.

Those working in Urban Search and Rescue (USAR) contexts often decline to wear HPDs in order to preserve spatial awareness and speech perception – despite the fact that the sound pressure level produced by USAR cutting equipment  is known to be the cause of early-onset long-term hearing damage in such occupation, with similar dichotomies existing in many blue-collar jobs.

HEAROIC allows the wearer to hear their surroundings at safe listening levels by automatically adjusting the gain applied to the externally mounted microphones. HEAROIC also employs a novel approach to capturing real-time spatial hearing cues in the microphone signal – the details of which remain confidential at this time (unless you know the password).