Listen to music without disturbing your neighbors, soon possible thanks to a new "made in France" speaker

You're on your sofa, watching a match of the French team or the latest episode of your favorite series. But your spouse sitting 10 centimeters from you hears nothing or almost nothing. This is what is made possible with this speaker that is able to target you, and only you, with sound.

The “targeted” person hears the sound, just as if you were wearing headphones. And the others hear a very attenuated sound. We feel that the sound is going in a straight line in a specific direction. Normally, sound waves propagate everywhere. These French engineers managed to make them propagate in a precise direction, like the beam of a flashlight. A kind of column of sound that starts from the speaker and goes in the direction of your choice. A technology that could be integrated into TVs for example to target you according to the location you occupy on the sofa without disturbing your neighbors.

We could integrate this technology into an alarm clock that would “target” us without waking up the person sleeping next door.

Usefulness in the context of a health crisis

One can think of many potential applications. Behind this invention, a French start-up, “Akoustic Arts”, it should be noted that it is not primarily intended for individuals. But actually, integrated into the screen of the plane, this technology would allow you to watch a movie without headphones and without bothering the neighbor who is sleeping next to you. By car, too, if you're the only one who wants to listen to music.

Another application, in the museum. You stand in front of a painting, and an audio guide will start without disturbing other visitors. And then if we project ourselves a little, when we will be able to miniaturize this technology, we will be able to integrate it into a smartphone or a tablet. No more headphones or headphones, you can watch your videos on YouTube or listen to your music without bothering anyone and it's a Made in France technology. The loudspeaker is manufactured in the Lyon region and near Rennes.

And oddly, this technology is also useful in the context of a health crisis, to help respect barrier gestures.

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We are using this technology to reinvent the good old hygiaphone. Invented in France at the time of the 1945 flu which had killed and contaminated many, in particular the SNCF counter agents, we had designed this Plexiglas plate which lets sound through, but which stops viruses. “Akoustic arts”, which brought this concept up to date and modernized it. They designed a directional hygiaphone, installed in several hospitals. Plexiglas protection coupled with this loudspeaker that allows you to hear a person very clearly even if they are far away.

Concretely, this means that when the counter clerk speaks, he can be quite far away, three meters from me and behind glass, the sound will reach my ears as if he were 10 centimeters from me. The sound is transported like the beam of a flashlight which will aim at my ears via loudspeakers placed in the store. And nobody else around me hears anything, like I'm in a bubble. A spectacular technology that I had the opportunity to test and which is being deployed in certain businesses.