For over
100 years, we've only used our eyes and ears to watch movies and listen to
music, but
FLEXOUND Augmented Audio™ creates
a unique, holistic, immersive listening experience that you can feel as well as
hear. It combines full-range high-quality
audio with gentle physical sound wave vibration, to add the sensation of touch
to any listening experience, be it music, games, television, streaming,
meditation, movies, VR or any other sound content. Originally designed and engineered in Finland to help autistic children, the
technology solves problems and adds value in many industries.
Our sense of touch is
amazingly sensitive to sound and has been consistently underused in
high-quality audio, until now. FLEXOUND aims to make audio a whole-body
experience that enhances quality of life. Unlike
loudspeakers that vibrate sound into the air, FLEXOUND Augmented Audio™ radiates the vibration through foam, providing a
soft, near-field listening experience. Patented FLEXOUND Augmented Audio™ technology can be embedded into seats, cushions
and anything that is soft and in contact with the body.
FLEXOUND
Pulse™ seat, for example, is the world’s first fully loudspeaker-free cinema
concept that transforms any space – small or large – into a superior, immersive
soundscape and multisensory cinema. Stores, malls, auditoriums, museums, live theatres and concert arenas can all
become fully functioning cinemas or gaming stations without any external
loudspeakers. At home, you can use it as your office meeting audio instead of
loudspeakers, as a gaming station, for sound massage or to enjoy a premium
cinema experience from the comfort of your living room.
With FLEXOUND Pulse™, You Can Sit Inside the Sound
It creates a personal soundsphere and
a deeper focus and immersion into music, stories, relaxation or gaming.
The multisensory experience of FLEXOUND Pulse™ also enhances the emotions
created by the content, enriching art and making it
accessible to more people, such as the hearing impaired.
Previously, the sound frequencies felt in a cinema
would mostly be the thump of the high-powered subwoofers firing sub-bass at
you. With FLEXOUND Pulse™ you are able to literally feel frequencies up to 500
hertz with your body, and even up to 1,000 hertz with your hands and skin.
Because FLEXOUND Pulse™ does not rely on far field listening or filling a room
with decibels like traditional loudspeakers, sound leakage from
room to room is considerably less.
FLEXOUND
Pulse™ provides equal sound quality and the sensation of touch for every
person, in every seat. By listening through your skin as well as your ears, you
don’t need as many decibels to achieve clarity of speech, and dramatic scores
and sound effects won’t ever drown out dialogue, even during the most chaotic
action movie sequences.
Miia Karhu, a second-generation
cinema owner in Finland and a leading voice in the cinema community, recently updated the sound systems in her
cinemas, but now wishes that FLEXOUND Augmented Audio had come to her first. “I was really
surprised by the quality of the surround sound,” she said. “If I hadn’t been
told that the sound was coming only from the FLEXOUND Pulse™ chair, I wouldn’t
have known – the sound seemed to come from everywhere” Karhu explained after
testing the concept.
Riku Jaro, a sound engineer with 30 years of professional expertise
in sound design, installation and optimisation, said, “I'm not an outsider
watching the screen anymore. I'm inside the movie because the sound is all
around me… it's a full-body experience.”
“I can see the
FLEXOUND Pulse™ being adopted across the world by audiences, because of the deep,
immersive experience that it will give them,” continued Jaro. “FLEXOUND Pulse™ makes every chair the ‘golden chair’ [in the cinema], because it
delivers the ideal sound equally to every listener.”
During market research organised in May, FLEXOUND Pulse™ left a lasting
impression on all previewers, with 91% saying that they would recommend the
experience to others, 77% reporting that they had enjoyed the new sound experience a lot, and 89% saying that they
want FLEXOUND Pulse™ in their local cinemas.
“I definitely want to
have a FLEXOUND Pulse™ even in my man cave,” Jaro added. “No one can disturb
you and you get perfect sound in your own space, whether you are watching
football or enjoying live music.”
The
Applications are Endless
FLEXOUND Augmented Audio™ technology has incredible
potential in terms of revolutionizing the cinematic, home entertainment, and
wellness industries, and others:
- FLEXOUND
Augmented Audio™ is lightweight, compact and energy efficient. It creates a ‘sound bubble’ effect around the user and
ensures minimal sound leakage. It is your
entertainment and music centre, gaming station, sound massager, and your
affordable home cinema.
- FLEXOUND Augmented
Audio™ enables car manufacturers to replace or reduce speakers, add safety by
physical driver feedback, personalize sound zones on seats, add emotion to EVs
by making them sound and feel like traditional cars, and provides health and
wellness benefits in cars.
- The sense of touch and tactile perception of vibration
improves sound clarity and accessibility for the hearing impaired, or in noisy
conditions.
- The vibro-acoustic experience provides pain relief and eases
anxiety. Therapists are using FLEXOUND Augmented Audio™ for children and adults with autism and
development disability, people with chronic pain, rehabilitation of memory
disorders, neurological and sleeping disorders, depression, and speech therapy.
“You can use
more than one FLEXOUND boosted device in a living room. I can be on my sofa
watching
Grey’s Anatomy while my daughter is in the armchair listening to
hip-hop, and we don’t disturb one another,” says Mervi Heinaro, CEO of
FLEXOUND.
Features of
FLEXOUND Pulse™
concept
seat: - Distraction free and safe personal sound
zone.
- Deep focus and immersion into the story.
- High quality sound and integrated natural sound vibration.
- First fully loudspeaker-free cinema concept.
- Premium cinema experience in any premises.
- Minimal sound leakage outside the theatre.
- Supports
all existing sound content.
AvailabilityFLEXOUND Pulse™ cinema seat concept
is ready for pre-orders from cinemas, and for licencing to furniture and
seating manufacturers.
FLEXOUND Augmented Audio™ will
enhance your customer experience by embedding the patented FLEXOUND Augmented
Audio™ technology into furniture, consumer devices, toys, car or theatre
seating — or wherever personal high-quality audio and feel of sound adds value.
The specialist team will co-create the product to match the needs of any brand.
