Patent ID: 11895465
Assignee: STARKEY LABORATORIES, INC.
Field: Audio-visual technology (Electrical engineering)
Classification: CPC H | IPC H

Claim 25:
26. An ear-worn electronic device configured to be worn by a wearer, comprising:
a housing configured to be supported in, on or about an ear of the wearer;
electronic circuitry disposed in the housing and comprising a processor;
a power source and a receiver or a speaker respectively disposed in or on the housing; and
a microphone array disposed in or on the housing and operatively coupled to the electronic circuitry, the microphone array comprises a plurality of microphones;
wherein the processor is configured to:
operate a set of two or more of the microphones in a directional mode;
detect degradation in performance of any microphone of the microphone set;
switch microphone operation from the directional mode to a safe mode using at least one non-degraded microphone of the microphone set in response to detecting the microphone performance degradation; and
generate an alert signal in response to detecting degradation in performance of any microphone of the microphone set, and communicate the alert signal to an external electronic device configured to communicatively couple to the ear-worn electronic device.