Two questions for the development team please. Firstly, what is the development road plan for Tympan – I notice the designs have been stable for a while – what’s in the pipeline?
Secondly what is the sound quality like. Accepting that Tympan is a development system how does it compare to commercial hearing aids. In other words, apart from the aesthetics what’s missing.
Those are great questions! What would you like to see in the next generation Tympan? What have you used it for in the past?
Tympan Rev-E (600MHz)
With the release of the Tympan Rev-E, the processing power now hits 600Mhz, allowing the Tympan do do multiband compression algorithms in real time, for front/rear microphones, in stereo (with the earpiece shield)! This is thanks to the Teensy 4.1 core. To accompany this, we’ve released several new libraries–some exploring new features and others filling in gaps to bring new users up to speed.
Tympan Mobile App
We’ve launched a mobile app (TympanRemote), that you can program the layout of using Arduino code. Need a button? Just add it to your Arduino code and send the desired layout of the app via Bluetooth to your phone. (Also on Apple Phones). Getting started guide here.
BTE Earpieces
Soon, we will receive our first short production of BTE earpieces that feature a Knowles PDM mic and a RIC used in commercial hearing aids. We’ve been working with a bunch of skilled folks in hearing, from UNL, BoysTown National Research Hospital, and Purdue to qualify the Tympan and earpiece using a Verifit Hearing Aid Test Box, as well as human subjects with binaural hearing loss. The tests look promising.
Project Examples
And we just concluded a design challenge launched at the Acoustical Society of America (ASA), where (10) projects were given Tympan hardware to integrate into their research. I was quite impressed at the range of topics. Here’s a quick glimpse… check out the presentations here.
Phew!!! Personally, I would love to see the Tympan in the hands of undergrad and graduate students to provide an open-access tool for learning about audio processing.
Hi erk1313,
Do you know when the first shipments of Tympan Earpieces will be available for order? Is there any way to get on a list to access first samples for testing?
I recall seeing some green earpieces at IHCON 2022 in CA, but I’m unsure if these were Tympan earpieces, OpenMHA, or another brand’s prototype.
Any updates?
Thanks!
Jon
Hi @femto_jon, welcome to the Tympan Forum!
We will be receiving the first production pieces of the Tympan BTE this month, and they will be available for purchase on our site. You can follow us on Twitter to get late updates and photos. I will also be posting here as we bring the new product on-line.
Hi @biomurph,
That’s awesome news. I’ll keep an eye out. Thanks for getting back to me on this; looking forward to developing with Tympan and trying out the ear pieces.
Regards,
Jon
@biomurph do you have any updates as to when the RIC for the Tympan BTE ear pieces will become available? If not soon, is there another RIC that I could connect to begin testing my algorithms?
Thanks!
@femto_jon The RIC pieces come in a wide variety, not only variants in the actual connector, but also in the receiver that is used. These parts are also considered consumable, in that they wear out or break. It is not easy to select a ‘one-size-fits-all’
If you have ideas or thoughts about the best RIC to use, please share them.
@biomurph Thank you for the explanation. Right now I am searching for any RIC that has a CS-44 connector that can connect to the earpieces. I haven’t been able to find any that have this. It seems most CS-44 connections are used for programming hearing aids, rather than the RIC connection.
Do you know of any RICs out there that have this? I am not sure how I can connect an RIC to the earpieces without this.
Thanks!
