Dear Tinnitus Talk members & visitors,
We are proud to announce the launch of our very first app to help tinnitus patients! It's called TinnitusPlay and is now available for free at the App Store – iPhone only for now.
What Does TinnitusPlay Do?
TinnitusPlay is a sound generating app. But it does not just offer standard masking tracks like water and cricket sounds (though we do offer those too). It also includes sound techniques that are based on science and that offer some tinnitus patients longer-term relief; although more testing is needed on this.
The sound techniques featured are:
- Notched Audio – Your tinnitus frequency is "notched out" of a sound sequence
- Neuromodulation – A tonal repetition centered around your tinnitus frequency
- Amplitude Modulation – Sounds that vary in loudness according to a certain cycle
What Does the Science Say?
You can read about the supporting evidence in the Information section of the app. In short, there is some preliminary evidence that such sound techniques can have longer lasting effects to reduce tinnitus in some patients. But a lot more research is needed to find out for whom it works and how to optimize these effects. The sound modules of TinnitusPlay were validated by a scientist knowledgeable on sound therapy for tinnitus.
Who Funded TinnitusPlay?
TinnitusPlay was conceived of and funded by a philanthropist who wishes to remain anonymous. He suffers from severe tinnitus and wants to put his money to use to help other tinnitus patients. To this end, he frequently donates to curative research, but he also wanted to make something available that could help patients in the short-term, by providing sound techniques that are often marketed to patients commercially entirely free of charge.
How Was TinnitusPlay Developed?
The philanthropist mentioned above approached us, Tinnitus Hub, about two years ago. He asked whether we would partner on this project and release the app under our brand; we gladly agreed.
A development team was hired by our philanthropist for the technical side, while we were responsible for supplying both the content of the app and instructing the developers on what the app should look and feel like. As you can imagine, this has taken up many hundreds of hours of our time over the past two years!
All sounds in the app were created by our very own @Steve. Our scientific advisor has been Patrick Neff from Regensburg University.
Availability/Cost
Currently, the app is only available to iPhone users; we hope to release an Android version in future, but we don't yet know when.
The app is completely free. There are also no hidden costs, e.g. there are no ads, and we don't collect your personal information. In short, we are not seeking to sell you anything or profit from this in any way.
We would however very much appreciate your financial support to keep this forum, and all of our projects, up-and-running.
Plans for the Future
Apart from making it available to Android users, we hope to expand on the functionalities of TinnitusPlay over time. One major step forward would be to log user data that could help assess treatment effectiveness. In an ideal world, we would collect all kinds of data (with user consent of course) that could point to new/improved sound-based treatments or combinations with other treatments or help define for which patient groups certain treatments are more/less effective. To this end, the app could for instance be linked to other apps like Track Your Tinnitus, or to web-based platforms, for more enhanced features.
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