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 rooms. Each entry says how the room sounded and when it was last heard, in words rather than numbers, alongside the readings behind them.

How it works

Someone standing in the room holds their phone still for fifteen seconds while it listens.
The sound is analysed on the device, in the moment, and the audio is then thrown away. Only the description travels, never the sound itself. Fifteen seconds of maths, zero bytes of speech saved.
The room joins the public map, dated, so the next person can read it before they walk in.

Nobody is recorded 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 room.

More about hear.is

The live map and the fifteen-second listen need JavaScript. Turn it on, or read the pages above.

Operated by Peter Bergmann · Level 1/457-459 Elizabeth Street, Surry Hills NSW 2010, Australia