Knowles Corp. has developed a new digital voice vibration sensor for true wireless stereo (TWS) earbuds. The V2S200D is a high bandwidth, low-power specialized vibration sensor. Working in combination with microphones, the vibration sensor improves voice call quality in noisy environments by picking up the speaker’s voice and filtering out ambient sounds.
The V2S200D is designed to help solve challenges in noisy environments like public places with distracting noises, including traffic noise and high winds that can also severely degrade voice call clarity in outdoor environments, said Knowles. The sensor provides 50-dB acoustic isolation in a noisy environment such as bars, airports and windy outdoor spaces.
In addition to improved voice call quality, the sensor enables other use cases like voice activity detection, imposter rejection and personalization.
The V2S200D works by selectively picking up the speaker’s voice while suppressing all other sounds and does it by blending low-band voice signals from the V2S200D with the high-band voice signals in TWS microphones, the company said. When integrated into the system, the sensor emulates a digital mic with pulse density modulation (PDM) interface, which is said to ease both hardware integration and software development.
Housed in a small 3.30 × 2.20 × 0.93-mm package, the V2S200D provides a high (64.5 dB) signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) and consumes low power for always-on usage.
The V2S200D is sampling now with lead customers, followed by mass production later this year. An evaluation kit is available from Digi-Key.
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