Picture the scene: you're watching Dune (in preparation for Dune 2) and you're having a ball. Then bam – it happens again. The scene gets serious, voices drop to whispers and one of your group can't hear what's being said amid the cacophony of sand worms. Cue a dash for the remote, the spilling of chips and a broken mood.
That's apparently why the new wireless speaker OSKAR was created – faller (the company which makes it) is a new brand from revered German audio specialist sonoro, and its inception comes from this growing real-world issue – hearing difficulty.
Founder Marcell Faller decided that he would find a way to help his father enjoy watching the TV again with his family, so started work on the OSKAR wireless TV speech amplifier.
OSKAR was developed and designed in Germany and is available now for £259/€269 in the UK and Europe directly from faller as well as Amazon and selected TV and audio retailers. That works out at around $325 or AU$480, although official availability and pricing for these regions is not yet known.
Analysis: hearing loss, and in particular hearing during movies, is a problem faller is right to try to ease
Why is this particular wireless speaker any different to one of the best soundbars or best TVs for sound, say? OSKAR focuses on two things: ease of use and dialogue definition – and given that the National Institute of Health claims about one-third of older adults have hearing loss, its a good niche to have identified.
OSKAR's maker tells us there's nothing complicated here, just one large control wheel on the top of the speaker for power ON/OFF and volume, plus a single ‘Speech Filter’ button on the side, which can be activated to scroll through OSKAR’s three speech settings.
The OSKAR TV voice amplifier boasts an "innovative voice optimisation technology", which, once connected to the TV (options include Bluetooth with LC3, 3.5mm aux-In, Toslink Optical Audio Input or USB-C) actively emphasizes voices and important frequency bands for speech, while dynamically filtering and minimizing distracting background noise.
Two full-range 35mm speakers and a passive bass driver do the heavy lifting here, and the supplied docking station provides an easy way to charge the voice amplifier when not in use – faller says you'll get 16 hours of wireless playtime from OSKAR, and it'll charge fully from flat in four hours.
With a range of up to 30 meters, OSKAR also allows you to take the sound of the TV with you, if walking a little further from the source.
Will it be better other solutions, such as a Sonos Beam 2nd Gen soundbar at the small end, or the five-star JBL Bar 1300X soundbar at the high end – both of which have speech enhancement options? Neither has the OSKAR's advantage that you can place it right next to you. It's hard to say before testing ourselves, though it's important to stress that I do not experience problems with hearing (not yet, anyway).
That said, this is a relatively cheap and simple solution, aimed at the older user, and one I cannot wait to test. Watch this space…
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