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Portrait of a pensive woman touched her head with closed eyes From boardrooms to concert halls, direct broadcast audio is reducing fatigue, boosting productivity, and reshaping how we experience sound. As we quickly approach CES 2026, I find myself reflecting on a journey that began two years ago at CES 2024. At that show, I met with Chuck Sabin and Dave Hollander from the Bluetooth Special Interest Group. They demonstrated a new broadcast audio standard called Auracast. At the time, it felt like a quiet revolution. Last year, at CES 2025, I met with the team from Listen Technologies to experience Auracast further. This time, it was in a room designed for 500 participants. What I experienced was not about amplification or louder sound. It was about clarity without strain. It was communication without fatigue. As someone who has lived with hearing aids all my life, the difference was striking. But I left that session thinking about more than just accessibility. I left thinking about business, culture, and human wellbeing. The Everyday Strain of Hearing In my work, focused on auditory health, accessibility, and sound wellness, I see firsthand how much effort goes into hearing. We often overlook it, but auditory fatigue is real. It is the silent drain that builds when we have to concentrate just to follow speech, when background noise makes every word a challenge, and when we leave meetings tired in a way that has less to do with content and more to do with effort. This is not simply about those of us with diagnosed hearing loss. It affects everyone. Consider the open-plan office. Conversations overlap, HVAC systems hum, keyboards clatter. Every one of those sounds competes with the voice you are trying to follow. Your brain works harder to separate signal from noise. That extra work comes at a cost. What the Research Tells Us The science is clear. Decades of studies show that poor sound environments drain both performance and wellbeing. MORE FOR YOU Performance losses. Researcher Valtteri Hongisto found that task performance can decline by 4 percent to more than 40 percent when background speech is present, depending on the task type. A noisy office or muddled meeting is not just irritating, it is a measurable productivity loss. Higher workload and stress. Controlled studies show irrelevant speech increases perceived workload, reduces task accuracy, and raises stress hormone levels. Wellbeing costs. Surveys of open-plan offices reveal that noise annoyance is strongly linked to reduced performance and more symptoms related to mental health. Cognitive effort. Reviews of hearing effort show that the brain has limited resources. The harder it has to work to decode speech, the less capacity is left for problem-solving and creativity. The World Health Organization has even classified environmental noise as a public health issue. That framing matters. Sound is not just a nuisance. It is a wellness factor, as important to the workplace as lighting, ergonomics, and air quality. The Overlooked Gap in Workplace Wellness Most companies today have wellness programs. They address sleep, exercise, nutrition, and mental health. But very few address hearing health. And yet, hearing is the act we perform most at work. It is the foundation of meetings, presentations, brainstorming sessions, and even informal conversations that shape culture. When employees are left to battle noise, reverberation, and unclear speech, they leave meetings depleted. They disengage sooner. They miss details. And over time, that fatigue compounds into stress, lower morale, and even turnover. It is time for businesses to treat hearing health as part of wellness. Just as they measure air quality and lighting, they must begin measuring hearing conditions. And just as they invest in ergonomic chairs and mindfulness apps, they should invest in technologies and designs that reduce hearing effort. Why Auracast Matters Now This is where Auracast enters the picture. Auracast is built on Bluetooth LE Audio, and it allows a single transmitter to stream high quality audio to an unlimited number of receivers, hearing aids, earbuds, or headphones. It is not a niche hearing-aid feature. It is a communication tool for everyone. In practice, that means a lecture hall, a corporate training, a boardroom, or even an airport gate can broadcast an audio channel that anyone can join. You simply select the stream on your device and hear. Suddenly, clarity is not dependent on room acoustics or speaker placement. The speech is direct, precise, and consistent. For me, using Auracast at CES 2025 in a 500-person session was a revelation. I walked out not drained, but energized. That experience showed me what Dr. James Fielding of Audeara has said in a recent interview with Bluetooth, Auracast is not “a deaf person tool, this is a communication tool.” It is about better managing your hearing health and reducing auditory fatigue. And then last October, I experienced Auracast in an entirely different setting—Lincoln Center. ReSound hosted a concert featuring a new work composed by Richard Einhorn, broadcast over Auracast. Sitting in that hall, hearing music carried directly and clearly to my hearing aids, I felt something profound. It was not only the beauty of the performance but the realization that I was part of the moment without strain or compromise. The experience moved me to tears. For the first time, I could sit in a world-class concert hall and not fight to stay connected. I was simply present. That is the promise of Auracast, not just clearer meetings, but fuller participation in culture itself. From Innovation to Infrastructure For employers and investors, this is not a niche moment. It is the inflection point where a technology born in the hearing aid space begins to reshape mainstream environments. As we saw with Wi-Fi and mobile networks, adoption starts in pockets and then becomes infrastructure. Auracast is following that path. Already, airports, universities, and performance venues are beginning to integrate Auracast transmitters. What began as a specialized assistive system is evolving into an open platform that will soon feel as natural as connecting to Wi-Fi. From Accessibility to Advantage We should stop framing Auracast as a tool only for those with hearing loss. That undersells its value. This is not about disability, it is about human performance. Why would you not choose for your world to sound better? When businesses adopt Auracast, they are not just complying with accessibility standards. They are giving every employee the chance to hear with less effort. They are lowering stress. They are creating meetings where details are captured and energy is sustained. It is an accessibility win, yes. But it is also a productivity win, a culture win, and a wellness win. To the Skeptics To the naysayers of Auracast, I have only this to say: stop, open your ears, and pay attention. Think back to the early days of Wi-Fi, when coverage was unreliable, or the first cellular networks, when dropped calls were routine. Those technologies were dismissed too. And now we cannot imagine life without them. To deny Auracast is not just to doubt a technology. It is to deny people the right to hear better and to suggest that fatigue, stress, and missed communication are acceptable costs of participation. They are not. People now have choices. They can walk into a room, connect, and hear with clarity. That is not a luxury. That is a right. The Call to Action As CES 2026 approaches, I challenge leaders to make hearing part of their wellness agenda. Audit your hearing environments. Treat sound like lighting and air quality. Measure noise levels, reverberation, and intelligibility. Deploy Auracast in key spaces. Install transmitters in conference rooms, training centers, and auditoriums. Give employees the option to connect directly. Train for clarity. Develop meeting norms that prioritize clear audio, reduce crosstalk, and respect hearing effort. Elevate hearing health. Position auditory wellness not as a niche accommodation but as a central pillar of human performance. I return often to that 500-person room at CES where I realized Auracast was not a future promise but a present reality. And I return, too, to Lincoln Center, where an Auracast-enabled concert reminded me that sound can bring us to tears of joy rather than fatigue. The next time you step into a meeting, an airport, or a concert hall, ask yourself: why should hearing health be optional? Auracast shows it does not have to be. When your world sounds better, you bring your best self. It is time to make that the expectation, not the exception. Editorial StandardsReprints & Permissions
