This Startup is Disrupting the Hearable Market with a Simple Device

And you’ll never miss anything anyone says again.

BY SANDRA GUY

Entrepreneurs have emerged amid the coronavirus pandemic to disrupt whole industries — everything from logistics to stock trading and financial services. And now that we’re rushing back into society, a hearable tech startup has introduced a way to dramatically improve our ability to hear a single voice in a noisy place, and at a disruptive price point, to boot.

The company’s name is Noopl, a mashup of the words “new places”, and its product is far from niche. In fact, it’s a major disruptor all its own. The space is huge — and getting bigger.

Noopl, at $249, offers a more sophisticated, clearer and tailored hearing experience than a hearing aid by leveraging the latest iPhone smartphone (iPhone 7 and above) audio and Apple’s AirPods Pro technologies. Noopl uses the smart technology to reduce background noise and provide crisp vocal clarity.

That’s why Sacramento-based Noopl’s founders and top executives — with extensive and impressive backgrounds in audiology — jumped at the chance to lead the venture.

It’s a story that everyone in today’s ubiquitous-earbud-wearing world can understand.

“I can relate from first-hand experience,” said co-founder Steven Verndooner, a serial entrepreneur who co-founded and leads NeuroVision Imaging, a Sacramento medical technology firm.

“My father, who’s 92, has hearing aids. We go to noisy restaurants, and he pulls them out [because they don’t pinpoint one person’s speech],” Verndooner said. “That was the genesis [of Noopl]. We’re creating a new product category in this space.”

Studies show 37.5 million Americans 18 and over report some trouble hearing and 62 million Americans have difficulty hearing in loud environments. However, the hearing loss is not significant enough for them to qualify for a hearing aid.

Apple also has shared its data with the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Make Listening Safe initiative, revealing just how serious the risks are to hearing health in the modern era, not only from users’ headphones, but also just from all of the noise around us in general.

The study collected data from thousands of U.S. participants who signed up using Apple’s Research app and found that “25 percent of participants experience a daily average environmental sound exposure” that’s higher than the limit recommended by the WHO. In this case, environmental sounds include such things as traffic, machinery, public transit, and so forth — all things that many people can’t avoid being exposed to as part of their daily routines.

And then there are the places we frequent and don’t even think about the noise like restaurants and coffeeshops. Even riding in airplanes.

Noopl CEO Tim Trine said he initially met with Verndooner, thinking he’d be bored, but came away thinking that Noopl’s patented technology “was very compelling.”

Trine knows a breakthrough technology as few would. He is a recognized leader in the audiology and hearing sciences industry, having worked for 19 years with Starkey Hearing Technologies in Minnesota before moving to San Francisco in 2017 to be chief technology officer for Eargo, a direct-to-consumer medical device company.

He also served as director of audiology at Vanderbilt University’s prestigious Bill Wilkerson Center, where experts diagnose and treat hearing, speech, language and cognitive problems that affect communication. Trine earned a Ph.D. in hearing science from the University of Minnesota, an M.B.A. from Northwestern University, a master’s degree in Audiology from Vanderbilt University, and his bachelor’s degree in communication disorders from California State University, Northridge.

Trine said that, as an undergraduate student, he got hooked on the perception and understanding of the human auditory system.

“I was thinking of medical or dental school, but I became deeply fascinated with the unique physiology of the ear and the perception of how the brain processes sound,” he said.

His fascination led to the realization that the brain’s auditory cortex picks out meaningful sounds from among a jumble of sound waves that people process in a noisy place — and the underlying brilliance behind the Noopl device. Trine led the effort to license the technology from the National Acoustics Laboratory in Sydney, Australia.

Here’s how Noopl works: Start by downloading the Noopl app.

Noopl clips into the lightning port at the bottom of an iPhone. The device features a three-mic array and beam steering, so that it can latch onto different, individual speakers around a restaurant table, for example.

It uses the head tracking technology built into AirPods Pro earbuds to detect which direction the user is facing. So, when you’re looking directly at someone, their conversation is amplified by up to 15 decibels, while, at the same time, the background noise is reduced, allowing you to hear the speaker more clearly.

As someone else starts to speak and you look toward that speaker, the audio feed follows your head, with a circular graphic on the iPhone’s display pointing in the direction of the person who’s speaking.

You can also use the app’s manual setting to control the microphones’ focus, regardless of where your head is turned. For instance, if you’re looking at the menu or a presentation, you can manually direct Noopl towards whomever is speaking to continue hearing them clearly.

The Noopl app itself features AI technology by Chatable AI 2.0. It’s a unique fusion of proprietary Deep Learning AI with cutting-edge auditory neuroscience know-how and functions that operate much like how the brain processes speech.

The technology behind Noopl takes in sound and produces a clear, loud and precise voice that feeds straight into the ear. The AI continuously learns and improves over time, and regularly updates to the Noopl app.

The company is selling the device direct-to-consumer on its website as an audio device and is not considered a medical device. Trine said that they are planning to launch a version for Android this winter and Noopl continues to update the technology for a smoother, clearer experience.

Noopl earned rave reviews at the Consumer Technology Association’s 2021 CES trade show, with experts calling it “the smartest gadget” there, as well as a significantly higher-quality experience than expensive hearing aids.

That’s because hearing aids can cost thousands of dollars, amplify all sounds and lack the ability to reduce background noise for clearer hearing. They also cannot accommodate widely spaced microphones and so are unable to send strong, focused signals to a targeted device.

Moreover, there is a stigma with hearing aids that defines someone as “old” or makes them feel that way. “The fact that AirPods and AirPods Pro are so ubiquitous, you’re beginning to see a cultural shift. Particularly in big cities. People are wearing AirPods all day, every day,” he added.

And even Verndooner admits Noopl sounds too good to be true. “We’re creating a new product category in this space, and, in this case, hearing is believing,” Verndooner said. “The price point is so disruptive and so is the benefit.”

And that’s how it’s a game changer.

Update: Noopl is releasing a new upgrade to support USB audio on Sept. 1, 2021. Noopl 2.0 is more universal for all iPhones, and offers:

• More consistent, higher fidelity sound at a wide range of audible frequencies
• Better noise reduction and low frequency sound reproduction
• USB audio via the Lightning connector for compatibility with a wider range of phone cases and iOS devices
• More flexibility to personalize the acoustic response based on the individual’s hearing needs
• User interface improvements based on feedback from customers to make the experience even more simple and intuitive

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