Whether you enjoy music, podcasts, audiobooks, movies, or games, sound quality profoundly impacts your overall experience. Moreover, with our digital and physical lives increasingly intertwining, the need for high-quality sound extends beyond just entertainment, and into our professional lives. Therefore, consumers seek better and clearer audio experiences on their devices. Nokia has been constantly working to improve audio quality on smart devices. As a next step in this evolution, we created Nokia Immersive Voice, an end-to-end spatial audio solution for natural, real-life voice communication. It provides a more engaging and seamless interface between people and devices by leveraging natural human communication methods—speaking and listening. Nokia Immersive Voice brings all call participants together in the same spatial dimension as if they were right next to each other.

Bridging distances in real-time connections

People have started to discover new ways to express themselves using modern multimedia technologies. Spatial audio is becoming an integral part of how we communicate by using, for example, instant voice messaging and stories apps. We refer to this as Spatial Audio Communication. In addition to various consumer use cases, Nokia Immersive Voice can also open new possibilities in how communications are made in business and industry. These range from enabling safer and more efficient remote collaboration for industrial and enterprise applications, to creating a more experiential and intimate digital world. The following are just a few use-case examples of how Nokia Immersive Voice can be utilized, with a truly immersive audio experience being the common thread.

Achieving clear directional communication

Crystal-clear communication is essential in working environments where safety is paramount and every millisecond counts. Immersive Voice allows workers in locations such as factories, mines, or ports to communicate via hands-free audio connections on their hard hats. This enables immersive discussions in which colleagues have no need to ask for the direction of their counterparts as it is replicated virtually in the audio within their hard hats.

Feel the presence virtually, as if you were there

In large operating environments where physical presence isn't always feasible, Nokia Immersive Voice enhances remote expert assistance by allowing on-site personnel to address issues with guidance from video and spatial audio streaming. The expert, equipped with this technology, receives all necessary audio information to swiftly pinpoint and resolve problems as they hear exactly what the on-site participant does. Additionally, by wearing an XR headset, users can access a virtual working space, see colleagues' avatars, and communicate as if in person, complete with shared sounds from their environment. This setup also allows users to move around a virtual office while the avatars' voices remain fixed, enhancing realism and immersion in the digital realm.

Enhancing safety in hazardous work environments

Immersive audio can help remote monitoring achieve new levels of safety, with the benefit of real-time rendering of remote environments. This feature comes into its own in dangerous locations where only robots can venture. By allowing the remote user to hear sounds relative to their camera view, spatial audio increases situational awareness and enables speedy reaction times that are vital for optimal control. This can be used by integrating a microphone array or attaching a spatial microphone to industrial vehicles which are then sent to an industrial monitoring site elsewhere with 3D audio (and video) capabilities.

Living room gatherings go virtual

However, it’s not just about what you can do within the industry and at other workplaces. Nokia Immersive Voice can also help people experience a sense of presence like never before in their leisure time. Watching sports or any other exciting event together takes on a new dimension. For example, friends from different locations can sync the video stream of a game via the dedicated app on their device, and the group can then listen to the commentator from a frontal sound source, with everyone’s voices coming from multi-directional sources. This soundscape replicates the experience of being sat around sofas in the living room together.

Creating a natural soundscape for every conversation

There is no doubt that our daily lives are increasingly moving into the digital environment, so it’s important to remember that creating a near-real experience includes being able to hear other callers around you multi-directionally rather than having all voice tracks coming from a single central source inside your head. Nokia’s technology is key in providing an immersive audio experience that enhances virtual communication by capturing and conveying the ambient sounds and nuances of the caller’s surroundings, creating a more realistic and engaging interaction.

Find out more at https://www.nokia.com/ozo/