French university installs Sennheiser’s MobileConnect tech

Sennheiser’s MobileConnect assisted-listening technology has been chosen selected for inclusion in all amphitheatres and classrooms that accommodate more than 50 people at the Faculties of the Catholic University of Lille, in France.

MobileConnect was specified because of its ease of use, high audio quality and the exceptional ergonomics of its dedicated application.

The Faculties at the Catholic University of Lille’s Programmed Accessibility Agenda project required a contemporary approach to assisted listening. A solution was required that was user-friendly, hygienic and easily scalable for a centralised hardware solution.

The solution proposed by Sennheiser was based on the BYOD concept. The audio stream is sent directly to the students’ personal smartphones, making it easily accessible and intuitive to use. People with hearing loss do not have to ask for a specific receiver device and can settle anywhere the faculty’s WiFi ​ is available.

As a centralised solution for assisted listening, the 20 MobileConnect stations are located in the server room and span several buildings. The streaming system delivers high-definition sound to the student’s smartphone, thus transforming it into an audio receiver.

MobileConnect converts a speaker’s microphone signals into audio streams that can be easily accessed via the campus Wi-Fi system. So students wearing hearing aids, cochlear implants or headphones can comfortably follow the lectures, with barely any noticeable latency.

Aurélien Trancart, multimedia project manager for the Faculties of the Catholic University of Lille, says: “MobileConnect offers us great flexibility because it not only enables assisted listening, but also allows for live translation and audio retransmission in other rooms with Dante. This flexibility is important for us as an educational institution.”

Vianney Delory, multimedia manager for the Faculties of the Catholic University of Lille, adds: “The users of the solution are fully autonomous. Students who have a hearing implant or have any disability they don’t want to show can scan the QR code at the entrance. This is an undeniable advantage over assisted listening via induction loops, where users must sit in the front rows. With MobileConnect, they can place themselves wherever they want in the room.”

As students can use their own smartphones to access the audio stream, there is no need to distribute and clean rental devices for assisted listening, which minimises health risks.