The earphone-type wearable device

【About the Project】

*This project is “All or Nothing” type. This project is published on the Global and Japanese sites in parallel, the project will only be approved if the total domestic and global pre-order results reach the target amount by the end of the project, January 17, 2023.
* You can check the Japanese page from here , but you cannot pre-order globally from this page.
*The products are not a medical device, and are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Project to realize “A world where anyone can utilize digital contents both safely and securely”

Rapid digital transformation is making society overwhelmingly convenient. At the same time, risks such as 'identity theft' are increasing. This is where biometric identification technology is expected to come in. Biometrics plays an important role in connecting the real and digital worlds through the door of 'security'. NEC is building a multimodal, advanced authentication system at the entrance to the digital world that uses everyone's biometric data as a 'key' and combines multiple biometrics as required, thereby eliminating the risk of impersonation and malicious attacks and realizing a society in which everyone can take full advantage of the convenience of digital technology safely and securely.

In this project, NEC is simultaneously looking for supporters globally who will work together to achieve an exciting near future for everyone using a hearable device equipped with NEC's "Ear Acoustic Authentication" technology, one of NEC's biometric authentication technologies.

Therefore, for the supporters of this project, we would be enabling limited access to the application development SDKs officially prepared by NEC to facilitate the realization of ideas that utilize not only the hearable device itself but also the ear acoustic identification and sensor technologies.

*The SDK (Software Development Kit) is available for iOS/Android.
For any other questions on product specifications, please contact us via “Contact the maker".

Creating an imagined near future with hearable devices

The near future that we can imagine now, for example, is the realization of a digital world in which you can communicate safely and securely on a virtual network space that only authorized people can access by simply wearing a hearable device on your ear or the real-world services such as personal assistants that empower individuals.

【Use cases for hearable devices】
As various corporate solutions

Wide range of usage scenarios, including telework environments as well as shops and warehouses.

The system can be used to personally identify operators in home-based call centers to strengthen security measures in telework environments.

Also, in shops and warehouses, where ambient noise can be cut, a voice recognition engine can be used to convert speech into text and voice instructions to the system. In addition, data from the device's built-in sensors and other devices can be analyzed in the cloud to detect impacts on the wearer's head and activity status and to remotely monitor the wearer.

Hearable device that identifies “you”

This hearable device uses a biometric technology called ear acoustic authentication.

Biometrics is a system for authenticating individuals using their physical or behavioral characteristics. NEC has been working with biometrics for half a century and has contributed to some 70 countries and regions around the world with its world-class biometric authentication technology. As biometric authentication uses each person's unique physical characteristics as a key, it is suitable for identification in situations where impersonation and forgery are difficult and more reliable security is required. There is no need to carry a physical key and it cannot be lost. In addition, the use of non-contact, hygienic biometrics is increasingly expected in line with recent changes in hygiene values.

The acoustics inside the ear is unique to everyone, like fingerprints or the iris of the eye, and NEC's ear acoustic authentication technology identifies individuals using sound echoes determined by the shape of the wearer's ear canal, which varies from person to person. Biometric identification using the structure of the ear uses information from inside the human body, making it difficult to spoof and highly secure. Even when wearing glasses, hats, masks, or gloves, 'hearable devices' allow instant and stable authentication.

Hearable devices equipped with various sensors

In addition to a 'microphone' to transmit words, 'earphones' to listen to sounds, 'biometric identification' to identify individuals, and '9-axis sensors' to visualize the user's condition, this hearable device is equipped with new technology that can sense 'ear canal surface temperature' and 'pulse related information, allowing the user to visualize 'when' and 'in what condition' he or she is.

*Technology capable of sensing pulse related information is currently available on an experimental level. Sensing accuracy is not guaranteed.

We believe that the development of applications using ' hearable devices' as authentication devices will also enable the implementation of various services that can be used hands-free, such as the provision of personalized content.

If the above future can be realized, unlike smartphones and wearable glasses, both hands and vision will remain free, and services can be used without stress.

We also believe that beyond this, the system can contribute to the future of a wide range of fields such as entertainment, business, education, and tourism.

Two microphones in one earphone

Equipped with a noise canceling system that uses two sound-collecting microphones located inside and outside the earphone microphone to detect noise with high precision. The type of noise that remains in the ear after the earpiece shields the sound depends greatly on the shape of the ear and the wearing condition of each person.

By attaching the microphone to the sound conduit inside the ear, it is possible to catch not only low-frequency noises such as those of airplanes but also mid-to-high-frequency noises such as those of people's voices and busy streets. By accurately identifying the noise, accurate in-phase cancellation waves can be generated in the entire bandwidth, thus achieving a high noise cancellation performance.

The "Hearable Device" uses a microphone inside the ear-tip to collect "your voice echoing inside your ear" and an outer microphone to pick up "noise mixed when talking", thereby cancelling out the noise component. This allows a clear, noise-free voice to be delivered to the other person, enabling smooth conversation as usual.

NEC has researched 'how to muffle noise at what kind of time' and 'how to control the noise' and has built up a technology to adjust the volume of unnecessary noise without degrading the quality of the required voice volume.

NEC's proprietary technology enables to deliver of a clear voice by using a new method that efficiently extracts personal characteristics from the collected speech, even in situations where it is difficult to hear the human voice, such as background noise in speech sounds, telephone line noise, and situations where multiple speakers' voices are mixed. In addition, conventional noise-canceling earphones that acquire sound information between the eardrum and the driver mainly have a microphone installed in front of the driver, but this product has a microphone installed behind the driver, which enables biometric information to be acquired while maintaining sound quality without disturbing the sound coming from the driver. The microphone is placed on the back of the driver, so that the sound quality is maintained without disturbing the sound coming out of the driver. (Foster Electric patent pending).

[Active Call Noise Canceling]
▼ You can experience a simulated call active noise canceling in a noisy environment.

Usability-oriented product design

The outer circumference, which is in direct contact with the ear for long periods of time, is made of silicone from the perspective of reducing stress on the ear and fitting. In addition, a touchpad has been adopted to improve operability and prevent water and sweat from entering from the outside and to comply with IPX4 (outside).

It also has a built-in proximity sensor to determine whether it is being worn on the ear. This also ensures that the device does not consume unnecessary battery power when it is not being worn, and other basic functions as a hearable device.

The product uses a 4.85 mm ultra-compact dynamic driver, which improves the fit to various ears and enables more accurate biometric data acquisition. In addition, the product also features easy-to-maintain mesh ear tips that can be kept clean to prevent earwax and debris from getting inside the product, thereby reducing the accuracy of biometric identification due to earwax.

The previous project results

About two years ago, we launched the ' hearable device' project to improve communication accuracy by canceling the noise made when ' communicating' in online meetings, and we were able to deliver all 500 units we had prepared to our supporters.