High-tech headsets improve hearing on the battlefield

 

With the slogan "No noise - only your voice", a Scandinavian company is winning military contracts with its jawbone technology headsets. Matthew Stock reports.(photo grabbed from Reuters video)
With the slogan “No noise – only your voice”, a Scandinavian company is winning military contracts with its jawbone technology headsets. Matthew Stock reports.(photo grabbed from Reuters video)

REUTERS — This headset turns the vibrations from your jawbone into sound.

Swedish company Invisio says it allows wearers to communicate clearly even if they were standing in front of a roaring jet engine.

The in-ear device is positioned so it just touches the jawbone, with user’s voice transmitted up the bone to the microphone and then sent to the radio.

“It’s a bone conduction technology that we use for voice pick-up and we pair that with very advanced hearing protection for both continuous noise and also for impulse noise. So the user will get a system where he has very good hearing protection in concert with very good communication possibilities, but also retains situational awareness and can hear everything that is going on in the environment, ” Lars Hojgard hansen said.

It can also help protect military personnel’s hearing by cancelling external noise.

Every year the United States pays billions of dollars for hearing aids and compensation for veterans who’s hearing was damaged in the line of duty.

Invisio’s tech brings loud noises like explosions or gun shots down to a safer level.

The company estimates the market for its products to be about $492 million dollars.

They’ve recently taken orders from countries including Britain, Canada and Australia.

And French security forces will be wearing the headsets during the Euro 2016 football championship in June.