arXiv subjects

Jonas Hummel

Publications and source records attributed to Jonas Hummel.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Characterizing In-the-Wild Personal Listening Device Use to Inform Earable Application Design

Ear-worn devices are evolving from audio-playback tools into sensing platforms for health, interaction, and context-awareness. Yet, earable systems are typically designed and evaluated under strong assumptions about how long, how often, and in which situations people actually wear personal listening devices (PLDs). To ground these assumptions in-the-wild behavior, we combine a survey of 330 adults with multi-year, passively logged headphone audio-exposure records donated via Apple Health by 90 of them. We characterize where and when people use PLDs, how logged use has changed in recent years, and how psychological traits and social context associate with PLD usage. Our results show that logged mean daily use has increased from 37 minutes in 2020 to 64 minutes in 2024. Listening was intermittent: no listening was logged on 48% of participant-days in 2024, and sessions were fewer but longer on weekends. Sensation seeking, particularly disinhibition, showed small to medium positive associations with self-reported PLD use. Younger adults listened at higher volumes than the 25-34 group. High-volume exposure was uncommon, with only 4% of participant-weeks exceeding World Health Organization (WHO) safe-listening limits. Finally, most participants also reported avoiding PLD use in social situations. We translate these findings into implications for earable computing: realistic expectations of intermittent rather than continuous wear, contextual coverage that anticipates systematic gaps, targeted safe-listening interventions, and personalization grounded in psychosocial and demographic profiles rather than assumptions of uniform use.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2026

CHOMP: Multimodal Chewing Side Detection with Earphones

Chewing side preference (CSP) has been identified both as a risk factor for temporomandibular disorders (TMD) and behavioral manifestation. Despite TMDs affecting roughly one third of the global population, assessment mainly relies on clinical examinations and self-reports, offering limited insight into everyday jaw function. Continuous CSP monitoring could provide an objective proxy for functional asymmetries. Prior wearable approaches, however, mostly use specialized form factors and demonstrate limited performance. We therefore present CHOMP, the first system for chewing side detection using earphones. Employing OpenEarable 2.0, we collected data from 20 participants with microphones, a bone-conduction microphone, IMU, PPG, and a pressure sensor across eleven foods, five non-chewing activities, and three noise conditions. We apply the Continuous Wavelet Transform to each sensing modality and use the resulting multi-channel scalograms as inputs to CNN-based classifiers. Microphones achieve the strongest single-sensor unit performance, with median F1 scores of 94.5% in leave-one-food-out (LOFO) and 92.6% in leave-one-subject-out (LOSO) cross-validations. Fusing sensing modalities further improves performance to 97.7% for LOFO and 95.4% for LOSO, with additional evaluations under noise interference indicating robust performance. Our results establish earphones as a practical platform for continuous CSP monitoring, enabling clinicians and patients to assess jaw function in everyday life.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2025

EarXplore: An Open Research Database on Earable Interaction

Interaction with sensor-augmented earphones, referred to as earables or hearables, represents a major area of earable research. Proximate to the head and reachable by hand, earables support diverse interactions and can detect multiple inputs simultaneously. Yet this diversity has fragmented research, complicating the tracking of developments. To address this, we introduce EarXplore, a curated, interactive online database on earable interaction research. Designed through a question-centered approach that guided the development of 33 criteria applied to annotate 118 studies and the structure of the platform, EarXplore comprises four integrated views: a Tabular View for structured exploration, a Graphical View for visual overviews, a Similarity View for conceptual links, and a Timeline View for scholarly trends. We demonstrate how the platform supports tailored exploration and filtering, and we leverage its capabilities to discuss gaps and opportunities. With community update mechanisms, EarXplore evolves with the field, serving as a living resource to accelerate future research

cs.HC↗

arXiv2025

Heatables: Effects of Infrared-LED-Induced Ear Heating on Thermal Perception, Comfort, and Cognitive Performance

Maintaining thermal comfort in shared indoor environments remains challenging, as centralized HVAC systems are slow to adapt and standardized to group norms. Cold exposure not only reduces subjective comfort but can impair cognitive performance, particularly under moderate to severe cold stress. Personal Comfort Systems (PCS) have shown promise by providing localized heating, yet many designs target distal body parts with low thermosensitivity and often lack portability. In this work, we investigate whether targeted thermal stimulation using in-ear worn devices can manipulate thermal perception and enhance thermal comfort. We present Heatables, a novel in-ear wearable that emits Near-Infrared (NIR) and Infrared (IR) radiation via integrated LEDs to deliver localized optical heating. This approach leverages NIR-IR's ability to penetrate deeper tissues, offering advantages over traditional resistive heating limited to surface warming. In a placebo-controlled study with 24 participants, each exposed for 150 minutes in a cool office environment (approximately 17.5 degrees Celsius) to simulate sustained cold stress during typical sedentary office activities, Heatables significantly increased the perceived ambient temperature by around 1.5 degrees Celsius and delayed cold discomfort. Importantly, thermal benefits extended beyond the ear region, improving both whole-body comfort and thermal acceptability. These findings position in-ear NIR-IR-LED-based stimulation as a promising modality for unobtrusive thermal comfort enhancement in everyday contexts.

cs.HC↗