Our story

Fascinated by the way that animals have evolved to hear sound, Ron Miles, a professor at the University of Binghamton, spent years studying how nature’s best auditory systems have evolved to hear. Historically, we have taken principles of human hearing to inspire the design of microphones. However, when trying to miniaturize microphones into extremely small form factors, such as those found in our consumer devices, why not take a look at how the small auditory systems in nature work? Insects, in particular, are very small yet have evolved to sense where sound comes from with incredible accuracy. And they do so using different principles than the human ear. This was the concept that started Professor Miles down the path of building a directional microphone that could both be very small and very sensitive, and eventually led to research into one of the world’s tiniest creatures: the spider.

As a professor at Binghamton University, Ron Miles was introduced to Professor Ron Hoy, a researcher at Cornell University. Professor Hoy had found that even though spiders don’t have traditional ears, they were able to sense sound through the hairs on their legs and even their spider webs. Intrigued by these tiny sensing mechanisms that seemed to move very well with the surrounding motion of air, Professor Miles along with PhD student Jian Zhou studied the acoustic properties of spider silk. It turns out that rather than responding to the sound pressure like the much larger human ear, these “sensors” responded directly to the motion and flow of air around them. This was the concept that inspired Ron and Jian to create directional microphone designs with incredible performance.