designaffairs studio: ecocoon

‘ecocoon’

information overload is the norm of today’s world. with advancing mobile technologies and the internet, people are expected to be readily available. thus, for those who wish to withdraw from this continuously flowing stream of information and reverse sensory overload, designaffairs studio from germany have developed ‘ecocoon’. it is a hearing aid that shuts out exterior stimulation and instead refocuses the user on internal signals from the body. with the choices of high, middle or low range frequencies, users can choose to mildly turn down or completely shut off all background noise. in this latter mode, ‘ecocoon’ makes audible the user’s own pulse or breathing patterns. successively slow respiration and the rhythm of a beating pulse make it possible to calm down and temporarily retreat into a kind of virtual cocoon where one is ‘offline’.

the status of the hearing aid is indicated by a pulsating colored light.left to right: off, traffic (peak frequencies suppressed), office (mid-range frequencies suppressed such as voices), and offline mode

the reverse hearing aid also features two silicon caps to guarantee a perfect fit, a switch between modes found at the bottom of the design and an adjustable pulse-reading unit.