Soundhawk was an American

corporation A corporation or body corporate is an individual or a group of people, such as an association or company, that has been authorized by the State (polity), state to act as a single entity (a legal entity recognized by private and public law as ...

headquartered in

Cupertino, California Cupertino ( ) is a city in Santa Clara County, California, United States, directly west of San Jose, California, San Jose on the western edge of the Santa Clara Valley with portions extending into the foothills of the Santa Cruz Mountains. The ...

. In June 2014 Soundhawk introduced a "Smart Listening System", a

hearing aid A hearing aid is a device designed to improve hearing by making sound audible to a person with hearing loss. Hearing aids are classified as medical devices in most countries, and regulated by the respective regulations. Small audio amplifiers ...

designed for noisy situations. The Soundhawk product came with three pieces of hardware: an earphone called a "Scoop", a wireless microphone, and a charging case. The product line used mobile applications and could be personalized to different environments. The company has been defunct since around 2016.

Company history

Soundhawk was founded by Rodney Perkins,

Stanford University School of Medicine The Stanford University School of Medicine is the medical school of Stanford University and is located in Stanford, California, United States. It traces its roots to the Medical Department of the University of the Pacific, founded in San Fra ...

Otologist Otology is a branch of medicine which studies normal, pathological anatomy and physiology of the ear (hearing). Otology also studies vestibular sensory systems, related structures and functions, as well as their diseases, diagnosis and treat ...

. He is also the founder of ReSound and the California Ear Institute at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

Executive leadership at Soundhawk includes Perkins as CEO; Drew Dundas, formerly director of Audiology and Assistant Professor of Otolaryngology at UCSF as President and Chief Technology Officer; Steve Manser former engineering leader at

Apple, Inc. Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Computer Com ...

Palm, Inc. Palm, Inc., was an American company that specialized in manufacturing personal digital assistants (PDAs) and developing software. Palm designed the PalmPilot, the first PDA successfully marketed worldwide, and was known for the Treo 600, one ...

, and

Hewlett-Packard The Hewlett-Packard Company, commonly shortened to Hewlett-Packard ( ) or HP, was an American multinational information technology company. It was founded by Bill Hewlett and David Packard in 1939 in a one-car garage in Palo Alto, California ...

, as Chief Operations Officer and Vice President of Engineering. The Soundhawk product was built by a group of former hardware and software engineers from

, and

Amazon.com Amazon.com, Inc., doing business as Amazon, is an American multinational technology company engaged in e-commerce, cloud computing, online advertising, digital streaming, and artificial intelligence. Founded in 1994 by Jeff Bezos in Bellevu ...

. Soundhawk is backed by True Ventures, Foxconn Technology Group and other

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical area of the Santa Clara Valley ...

entrepreneurs. Soundhawk has suspended operation as per their official website, which as of October 1, 2016 reads "down for maintenance, check back soon". As of March 2018, support pages are no longer available as the domain name connections have expired; nor can it be found through the Apple Store. Amazon.com also lists the device, but says it's currently not available, and they don't know when it will be.

Product

Soundhawk's Smart Listening System included three pieces of hardware: the Scoop, the Wireless Mic and the Charging Case. This system was controlled via a mobile app. The Soundhawk app was used to set up and personalize the system and was available for download to iOS and Android. The app enabled individual hearing profiles to be created for different acoustic environments. The Scoop was an earphone that used adaptive audio processing to enhance specific sound frequencies while reducing background noise. The Scoop connects to users' phones or tablets via

Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is li ...

. The system's wireless mic was used to identify specific sounds in different environments to facilitate

noise cancellation Active noise control (ANC), also known as noise cancellation (NC), or active noise reduction (ANR), is a method for reducing unwanted sound by the addition of a second sound specifically designed to cancel the first. The concept was first deve ...

. The mic could be clipped to clothing, or placed on a table. The product also came with a charging case, and could also be used for phone calls or other smartphone functions such as

virtual assistant A virtual assistant (VA) is a software agent that can perform a range of tasks or services for a user based on user input such as commands or questions, including verbal ones. Such technologies often incorporate chatbot capabilities to streaml ...

References

External links

* {{authority control Wearable devices Audiology organizations Bluetooth software Sound technology