Skyted at CES: a mask for professionals, gamers… and spies.

Ever felt annoyed by someone taking a call next to you, causing you to listen, inadvertently, to everything that is being said?

This rather inconsequential nuisance is sometimes unavoidable. That vital call has to be answered or it’s a work call that can’t be rescheduled. And when the content is best kept private, things can become rather awkward for the speaker.

This particular problem is one that often confronted Stéphane Hersen, a former VP at Airbus. So strong was his belief that there was demand for a solution that Stéphane, with the backing of Airbus and the European Space Agency, has gone on to launch his own company looking to address it. The result is Skyted, a French startup first announced at CES 2023 and with whom we caught up at this year’s show.

Below is our interview with Emile Leverger, one of its lead strategists, edited and shortened for clarity.

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Could you please introduce yourself and the company?

My name is Emile Leverger and we are Skyted, a French startup.

We have developed a sound-absorbing mask that allows you to make confidential calls anywhere and at anytime. In the mask there’s a resonator developed by ONERA – the French version of NASA – which enables one to do “silent calls”, meaning, when you wear the mask, you can talk normally yet people around you won’t be able to make out what you are saying. Here at CES, with hundreds of people talking around us, you can’t make out my words while I wear the mask. If we were in a quiet environment, like a hotel room, you might hear the sound of my voice but it would be intelligible, you wouldn’t be able to understand anything.

Our CEO, Stéphane Hersen, was a VP for Airbus in Singapore, where he was presented with the problem of “how can hundreds of airplane passengers take a call at the same time without doing any sound” – it was to address that problem that this mask was developed.

You mentioned airplane passengers before – who’s your target audience exactly?

In terms of target audience, business people are of interest. This is a mask mostly for people doing work calls. For example, if I were to jump on an unscheduled call, right now, here at CES with all this noise around me, I’d be able to do so because I can just speak into the mask and have it connected to my phone. It won’t capture the outside noise and no-one will be able to hear me.

We are actually launching the mask on Kickstarter this week. Gamers are another target audience, as this enables them to use in-game voice without disturbing the rest of the household.

What’s the price of Skyted masks?

We have a few early bird prices but for the wired mask it’s roughly $399 and for the wireless mask – which has a lot of other features – it’s likely around $599.

Editorial note: as with most beta products, prices have changed since this interview took place. As of last update date, the wired mask has had its price updated to 249$ and the bluetooth/wireless one to 299$, both on Kickstarter. Refer to Skyted for up to date prices. 

What are some of those additional features?

One of them is encryption. When you are in a call it’s your voice that will be completely encrypted; it doesn’t happen on your phone or on an application, it happens in the mask itself. We are calling it “lips-to-ear” encryption. It’s 128-bit encryption so if you are using our mask, no-one will be able to hack it or listen in.

Another feature is a voice booster. If you’re in an environment where you really need to keep noise to an absolute minimum, you can whisper into the mask, which then boost yours voice for the people on the receiving end.

Then you have the sound level “Sound Bubble” which is an interface that tells you whether your voice is intelligible or not.

Finally, there’s a feature called voice awareness, which acts like a balance control, so that users can understand when they are talking too loud.

With all these features, is it fair to assume this could be useful for high-risk professions?

Yes, for example we are working with the French army. During an operation, they have to signal with their hands or talk very quietly. Our mask is a really good solution for that. There are similar other use cases as well.