Direction audio is coming from

The new API allows you to record stereo audio, which lets you hear which direction audio is coming from, but the API doesn't expose a way for you to get a distilled numeric estimation of which direction audio is coming from. This would be a useful feature in many applications, so I would welcome a Feedback assistant report requesting just that.

Please, audio engineers, support this feature to determine which side of the device the audio is coming from with a confidence level! I would love to make an app for the deaf and hard of hearing to be able to localize sound with the support of their iPhones!

We're interested in understanding the details of your use cases a little better. Natural sound fields can be quite complex, and generally involve multiple audio sources that appear from different directions and occupy different points in time and frequency. So there are a number of closely related features that all fall under the banner of "which way is sound coming from," but in fact are subtly different, for example:

• Frequency-domain sub-band direction of arrival estimation. This is the elevation and azimuth angle of where the dominant source is for each time and frequency. This too much information for applications, but gives maximum flexibility.

• Broad-band direction of arrival estimation for the dominant source. This is a single elevation and azimuth angle of where the loudest sound source is, aggregated over all frequencies and a certain window of time.

• Source tracking. This is where you get a trajectory of directions over time for a few of the dominant sources in the scene. There are a number of extra technical difficulties involved in this approach, like how many sources are there? & what if a source stops making sound for a little while?

Can you please each file a feedback assistant feature request explaining your use case in detail? Exactly what kind of audio direction estimation do you want and what's the end application that you're trying to achieve? I don't want to lose track of anything, so please post the feedback assistant IDs here after you file.

My use case is I have single sided deafness so I can not tell where a noise is coming from. The app could link multiple phone together for more accuracy. The app could also use dead reckoning to determine the location of the phone as it moves so it can get multiple samples to allow for "multiple microphones". My specific use case right now is I have a beeping in my house that I can not find. I sounds like a smoke detector with a dead battery but it is apparently something else as I have checked the smoke detectors.

While I am not a programmer, I can relate to pottmi's issues. I too have single sided deafness. There is a rattling sound in our minivan that I cannot find. The minivan is only 4 years old and should not be rattling. Other members of the family (all have normal hearing) have tried and been unsuccessful in accurately locating the noise. Trips to dealerships have resulted in no resolution. An app utilizing this information would greatly benefit us.