History
The foundation for the company began with the vision of creating electronic systems that could hear the way people do. As a student and researcher, Dr. Lloyd Watts worked with leading neuroscientists to understand the way people actually hear, process, and perceive sounds. He first designed a chip that modeled the human cochlea, the portion of the inner ear that converts vibrations into electrical signals that are processed by the brain as sound. He then led development of a technology solution that could reproduce functions of the human hearing system, from the inner ear to the brain, reverse-engineering how complex mixtures of sound are grouped, evaluated and processed.
Audience was founded by Dr. Watts to create a company that would commercialize auditory neuroscience for the mass market. From that foundation, the company began development of products based on the science of human hearing, creating its earSmart™ intelligent voice technology. earSmart Advanced Voice processors work like the human ear to enhance voice quality and suppress noise, with the goal to improve communications for the mobile, telecom and computing markets. The company’s first voice processor chip was introduced for mobile phones in 2008.
Today, handsets featuring our earSmart technology are available from leading manufacturers such as Samsung, LG, HTC, Sharp, and Pantech in markets across Asia, North America and Europe.