Use of hearing protection to discriminate between different and identify individual noise sources to control and reduce risk of noise induced hearing loss

A method comprising:

• monitoring environmental sounds with a hearing protection device;
• transmitting acoustic signatures from the hearing protection device to a portable electronic device,
• wherein the acoustic signatures correspond to the environmental sounds received by at least one externally facing microphone, and
• wherein the environmental sounds are generated by at least one equipment;
• transmitting the acoustic signatures from the portable electronic device to a server;
• correlating the acoustic signatures with information in a database;
• transmitting a message from the server to the portable electronic device indicating the correlation;
• creating a suggestion with the portable electronic device based on the correlation, wherein the suggestion indicates a time duration for each equipment for working in an environment;
• and
• transmitting the suggestion from the portable electronic device to the hearing protection device based on the correlation.

A system comprising:

• a hearing protection device configured to monitor sounds in an industrial environment and transmit acoustic signatures to a portable electronic device;
• wherein the hearing protection device comprises a processor, at least one externally facing microphone and a transceiver,
• wherein the at least one externally facing microphone is configured to receive sound generated by at least one equipment,
• wherein the portable electronic device is configured to transmit the acoustic signatures to a server, wherein the acoustic signatures correspond to the sound generated by the at least one equipment;
• wherein the server is configured to:
• correlate the acoustic signatures with information in a database, and
• transmit a message to the portable electronic device indicating the correlation and
• wherein the portable electronic device is further configured to:
• create a suggestion based on the correlation, wherein the suggestion indicates a time duration for each equipment for working in an environment, and
• transmit the suggestion to the hearing protection device.