Mobile phone scanning, 3D printing, and artificial intelligence bring customized close fitting headphones

Customized in ear headphones tailored to the precise shape of the ears are usually beyond the reach of most consumers. Now, Sennheiser's Ambeo Immersive Audio division is collaborating with 3D printing technology company Formlabs to develop a fast, cost-effective, and consumer centric customized headphone solution aimed at producing affordable customized headphones for safer fit and improved noise isolation when going out.

The collaboration between Formlabs and Sennheiser's Ambeo Immersive Audio department is not aimed at masks, but rather aims to achieve customization by making the ear tips safer. The manufacturing process will start with buyers using cameras on their smartphones to scan their ears. For the prototype, developers used Healables 3D scanning application to obtain results in less than a minute. Then, the scan results are sent to a cloud based machine learning system, which uses statistical modeling to convert the data into user specific headphone designs and forward them to Formlabs PreForm software to prepare 3D printing files for printing on the Form3 3D printer.

Thanks to the low force stereo lithography technology of Form 3B, the 3D printed earplugs have high accuracy and exceptionally smooth and meticulous surface treatment. Prototype earplugs are produced in various materials and colors, including initials and logos, to achieve additional personalization. They are certainly not like the dome shaped tips provided by most consumer headphones, they are designed to be pushed into the ear canal to achieve a unique, safe and comfortable fit for each user. This not only makes the headphones less prone to detachment during exercise, but also improves the passive noise isolation effect.

The main objective of this project is to come up with a scalable production method to provide customized headphones to buyers in a fast and cost-effective manner. Formlabs believes that with such a workflow, buyers can provide their unique scan on one day and then send out customized close fitting headphones the next day, possibly even on the same day. However, at this stage, there is no news indicating when Sennheiser headphones utilizing this process will be launched, or even whether they will be available to consumers.

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