hear.is · an acoustic accessibility map

Hear it before you go. hear.is maps what public places sound like, so you can find somewhere you can actually hear each other.

What hear.is is

You know the feeling: you walk in, and within a minute you know you’ll be shouting all night. hear.is is like Shazam for the sound of a space: real places, listened to by real people, described in plain language so you find that out before you go instead of after you’ve sat down.

The map covers cafés, restaurants, bars, shops and other public spaces. Each entry says how the space sounded and when it was last heard, in words rather than numbers, alongside the readings behind them.

How it works

Someone who is actually at the place answers one clear question about conversation.
On supported devices, the phone also listens for fifteen seconds, analyses the sound on the device. The audio is discarded immediately. On the current iPhone and iPad web path, no microphone permission is requested and the person’s answers provide the evidence.
Only the useful non-audio sound picture joins the public map, dated, so the next person can read it before they walk in.

No audio is kept, and no venue can change the sounds: not by asking, not by paying. Every sound on the map comes from someone who stood in the space.

More about hear.is

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