Engineers have developed a speaker that can send audio to a specific listener without others nearby hearing it, according to a report from Interesting Engineering. The device uses a single element to beam sound directly at one person, a departure from conventional speakers that broadcast audio in all directions.
The research comes from a team at Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), as reported by Mid-Day. The new design is described as capable of delivering personalized audio to one listener in a shared space, potentially reducing the need for headphones in public settings.
Interesting Engineering reports that the single-element construction is a key advance, as prior attempts at directional audio often required complex arrays of multiple transducers. By simplifying the hardware to one element, the approach could make targeted sound more practical for everyday devices.
The technology works by focusing sound waves so they reach only the intended recipient, according to the coverage. This could have applications in vehicles, museums, or personal entertainment, where different people might want separate audio streams without interference.
Mid-Day’s report emphasizes the personalization aspect, noting the speaker can isolate audio for one person even when others are in close proximity. The exact mechanism and performance details were not fully disclosed in the summaries available.
This development follows a broader trend in acoustic engineering toward spatial audio control, where sound is treated as a beam rather than a diffuse wave. The POSTECH team’s work suggests that simpler hardware could achieve what previously required more complex systems.
What to watch next: whether the single-element design scales to commercial products and how it performs in noisy, real-world environments outside the lab.
