About this project
Hush | The World's First Smart Earplugs
$593,255
4,415
Another ergonomic option for those who prefer silicone tips!
We listened and have confirmed that we can squeeze a spare foam compartment into the carrying case! Awesome idea brought up by a number of backers - keep those suggestions coming!
We want to hear what you want to hear. Help shape Hush by suggesting and voting for the sounds you want us to incorporate! Restricted to Backers only.
We see Hush as a piece of silence, a small, portable, yet powerful device to enjoy quietness anywhere, anytime. If you want to sleep you should be able to fall asleep and stay asleep regardless of the noise around you. Hush combines sound eliminating foam with noise masking to isolate you from your surrounding environment.
However, we all have responsibilities, and there are times when we need to be brought out of sleep. Hush connects wirelessly with your smartphone so you can fully power off with the peace of mind knowing that you'll be woken up when you're needed.
The Traveler
A loud flight is a bad flight. Because of noise, sleeping on a plane isn’t always the most pleasant. Headphones are bulky and uncomfortably heavy after a few hours of use. Hush is a lightweight wireless solution for the long haul.
The Student
Your roommate is nocturnal but you have class in the morning. Sleep in peace through his nighttime antics and wake up discretely in the morning without disturbing his slumber.
The Couple
One in four American couples sleep in separate bedrooms because of snoring. Hush lets you sleep in the same bedroom again while letting you still hear an emergency phone call from your teenager who is out past curfew.
With an in-ear sleeping device, our biggest concern was comfort. We focused all of our design around addressing this. To do this, we tested almost every foam earplug we could find on the market and 3D printed hundreds of housing shapes to find the ideal design that would accommodate a broad range of ears. The process was highly iterative as we had multiple people sleep through entire nights with the prototypes to provide real-world feedback so that we could learn and adjust accordingly.
Our final design has four defining design elements that enable our comfortable fit.
As a wireless miniature device that has to play sounds and stay connected to the phone for over 10 hours, battery life was one of our biggest concerns. To do this, we had to design everything with low power in mind. By using Bluetooth Low Energy and playing back locally stored audio files, Hush is able to surpass this requirement on a battery that other wireless in-ear products exhaust in two hours.
Hush is very simple, everything is controlled by your smartphone.
Hush notifies you and you alone, that way when your alarm goes off it doesn't bother anyone else.
Hush can play soothing sounds to drown out more noise than a traditional earplug and at the same time help you fall asleep. Hush is currently able to play the following sounds:
- White Noise
- Brown Noise
- Pink Noise
- Ocean Waves
- Rainfall
- Fan
- Crackling Fire
- Babbling Brook
- Waterfall
- Thunderstorm
Hush can also play binaural beats.
Play a certain pitch in one ear and a slightly higher pitch in the other ear - your brain interprets the difference to encourage certain brain states, either making you relaxed and calm or awake and alert. When mixed with soothing sounds, it creates a sleep stimulating experience.
Control which alerts you let through while you're asleep. Silence unimportant notifications and choose to be woken up by what matters most, whether it be your alarm or phone calls from specific contacts.
Misplaced your Hush? Track them through our app and make them sound to find them.
The Hush Case is small and light so you can recharge Hush wherever you go.
The Hush Case has its own rechargeable batteries that can recharge Hush up to 10 times without plugging in.
We put an extra USB port on the case so that you can charge Hush and your phone at the same time. No fighting over outlets.
Two of the most popular methods of dealing with noise disturbances when you're trying to sleep are earplugs and sound machines. However, earplugs have physical limitations in blocking out sound because even when your canal is completely sealed off, sound still gets through to the eardrum by conducting through your bones. Similarly, sound machines are limited in how much sound they can mask as they can only be played so loudly until they become a deterrent to sleep themselves.
Hush combines these two existing solutions by using the earplug as the first line of defense and then masking out any of the residual sound that gets through the earplug - enabling Hush to achieve a much greater level of noise isolation than is possible with either solution independently.
White Noise Demo
Yes, our team has three Daniels. It's impossible to make sense of group texts and email threads but we like it that way.
From working on drones, lasers, and semiconductors in large companies to developing apps as weekend projects, our team brings together a variety of engineering skill sets to make Hush a reality.
In addition to our core team, we have a number of high powered advisors guiding and monitoring our progress. We've also partnered with a top engineering firm to ensure we're able to bring Hush to market in a timely manner.
As college students, we experienced first-hand the pain of trying to sleep in noisy environments. Whether it was the party across the hall, snoring roommates or garbage trucks in the morning, we were always at the mercy of our surroundings.
As engineers we weren't satisfied with "just dealing with it," so we set out initially to build Hush as a means to solve our own problem. However, when we started talking with more people to see who else would be interested, we found this problem wasn't just limited to our college student demographic. Married couples and frequent travelers also had powerful stories of their personal sufferings.
Fueled by the fire to provide a better way for all these people across multiple demographics to sleep in the context of the world around them, we are a passionate young team surrounded by an experienced team of advisors that will do everything in our power to ensure that Hush is brought to market.
So far we have a working prototype and we're ready to take it to the next step. Your funds will help turn our dreams into a reality and help kickstart three passionate engineers in bringing their product to market!
Your funds will be used to:
- Finalize charging dock design
- Order injection mold tooling
- Pay for initial cost of goods
- Most importantly, bring Hush to you!
Thank you for all the love and support! We know we couldn't have gotten as far as we have now without our friends, family, mentors, community and backers. We cannot express how grateful we are and can't wait to bring Hush to market!
Special Thanks to:
Risks and challenges
As with any hardware product, there are always potential risks in launch delays whether it be manufacturing errors, supplier backorders, and the like. We understand that this is only compounded with the fact that we're young engineers.
We've addressed possible product delay concerns in two ways. One is that we've partnered with an engineering firm that has brought products to market a hundred times over. By drawing from their expertise, we feel confident that we can hit the milestones as currently projected. The second way we are addressing product delay concerns is by manufacturing everything locally here in San Diego. Many crowdfunded projects attempt to go overseas for manufacturing which are never justified given the limited quantities they are producing. Working with people to manufacture your product on the other side of the world that speak a different language is asking for delays. By manufacturing locally, should any delays come up in manufacturing, we are there to debug and quickly resolve any issues within a matter of hours.
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Funding period
- (40 days)