WHY COMMAND
Hearing protection
that stays on.
Hearing protection only protects while it is worn. In loud workplaces, people take it off to talk, to follow an instruction or simply to feel less cut off – and every minute without it counts. COMMAND is being developed so that they no longer have to choose between protection and conversation.
THE PROBLEM
Protection that isolates
gets taken off.
Good hearing protectors are built to block noise. But they also block speech: the colleague next to you, an instruction from the shift lead, a shouted warning. The German statutory accident insurance puts it plainly in its rule on hearing protection:
“Too much sound attenuation can lead to overprotection and a feeling of isolation.”DGUV Rule 112-194, Annex 3[1]
The DGUV’s specialist committee on hearing protection adds that hearing protection in noisy areas is often not worn because it is uncomfortable, or because it impairs the perception of warning signals and speech intelligibility.[2] In practice that means a cup lifted to answer a question, earmuffs pushed back to follow a briefing, protection left off for “just a minute”.
EVERY MINUTE COUNTS
A few minutes without protection
undo most of it.
Noise exposure adds up over the whole shift. Because the decibel scale is logarithmic, the loud minutes without protection dominate the daily dose. Take an 8-hour shift at 100 dB(A) and a hearing protector that lowers the level at the ear by 30 dB:[3]
Dashed line: 85 dB(A), the maximum permitted daily exposure at the ear under German law[4]
Laboratory measurements suggest the real loss after short removals can be smaller than this model predicts[5]; occupational safety rules nevertheless require hearing protection to be worn throughout the exposure. The conclusion stays the same: the best hearing protector is the one that stays on, all shift long.
WHAT IT COSTS
Hearing loss, accidents
and absence.
recognised cases of noise-induced hearing loss in Germany in 2025, the most frequently recognised occupational disease. 340 new occupational-disease pensions were granted for it in the same year. The damage is permanent.[6]
higher risk of a work injury requiring hospital admission for workers in ambient noise of 100 dB(A) or more, in a study of 46,550 noise-exposed workers. Missed warnings and impaired communication are among the suspected causes.[7]
Studies of industrial workers associate high noise exposure with more accidents and more sickness absence, most strongly among workers who are highly annoyed by the noise.[8][9]
Noise is also a burden beyond the ear: in its report on environmental noise, the WHO links long-term noise exposure to cardiovascular disease, sleep disturbance and tinnitus.[10]
WHAT A SPEECH ENABLER CHANGES
Talk without
taking it off.
Longer wear time
When a conversation works with the protection on, there is one reason less to take it off.
Less isolation
Colleagues, instructions and team communication stay audible, so people remain part of what happens around them.
Fewer missed instructions
Speech is separated from the machine noise instead of being turned up together with it.
Warning signals in view
Warning-signal awareness is a core requirement and is assessed for every configuration.
COMMAND is in development. In industrial pilots we measure what matters on your site: speech intelligibility, wearer acceptance across shifts, attenuation and warning-signal awareness.
SOURCES
- DGUV Regel 112-194 „Benutzung von Gehörschutz“, Anhang 3. Quote translated from German. publikationen.dguv.de
- DGUV Sachgebiet Gehörschutz: „Publikationen zur Signalhörbarkeit beim Tragen von Gehörschützern“ (2019), summary paraphrased from German.
- Energy-equivalent averaging of the daily exposure level, as used for the selection of hearing protectors (DIN EN 458) and in German exposure assessment. Own calculation.
- Lärm- und Vibrations-Arbeitsschutzverordnung (LärmVibrationsArbSchV), § 8: maximum permitted exposure values at the ear, taking the hearing protector into account. gesetze-im-internet.de
- Laboratory study on the brief removal of earmuffs, which found the loss of protection predicted by the energetic model to be overstated. IOS Press
- DGUV statistics: recognised occupational diseases and new occupational-disease pensions, 2023–2025 (BK 2301, noise). Recognised cases · New pensions
- Girard SA et al.: Occupational noise exposure and noise-induced hearing loss are associated with work-related injuries leading to admission to hospital. Injury Prevention 2015;21:e88. injuryprevention.bmj.com
- Melamed S, Luz J, Green MS: Noise exposure, noise annoyance and their relation to psychological distress, accident and sickness absence among blue-collar workers – the Cordis Study. Isr J Med Sci 1992;28:629–635.
- Self-reported noise exposure as a risk factor for long-term sickness absence (Danish register study, 2009). University of Copenhagen
- WHO Regional Office for Europe: Burden of disease from environmental noise. Quantification of healthy life years lost in Europe (2011). who.int