Inflating an air mattress in the Himalayas leads to soundproofing breakthrough — Innovation Hangar

His launch product is the AirHush Silence Panel, which when inflated is a 24 by 27 inch block. Since it is transparent, light can flow into structures made of these modules, so no additional energy is needed to provide lighting inside AirHush structures. That, along with the reduced shipping volume when deflated (about an inch) makes them very carbon-footprint friendly compared to other forms of soundproofing.

 Jim has been involved in the sound attenuation industry for about a decade now. “Once I had the core idea of what turned out to be the novel concept of inflatable soundproofing, I designed some initial prototypes and was fortunate to discover the idea actually worked very well to soundproof a simple basement music studio,” he said. “After filing for patents I then consulted with soundproofing industry experts and academics in the field of acoustics, and built and tested further prototypes while my patents applications were being considered.”

Getting the word out

Once the patents were issued, Jim approached a leading manufacturer in the acoustic elements industry, Pinta Acoustic, inc., of Munich, Germany and Minneapolis, MN, and they asked for a license to manufacture and distribute the AirHush launch product for one of the many markets in the acoustics realm. AirHush is now seeking additional licensees, customers and investors. To acquire these, Jim is using his recently-launched website AirHush.com, along with Vimeo, where there is an instructional video describing the product. Jim expects the traffic driven to these sites to boost public and investor awareness of his revolutionary technology.

“We are expecting to sign up additional licensees and serve customers in a wide variety of fields such as healthcare, with mobile operating rooms and soundproofing partitions for hospitals, entertainment industry customers such as independent filmmakers, musicians and multimedia producers, along with larger recording and movie studios. Industrial noise control in construction sites is also something we’re looking into, as well as high-tech, soundproof ‘clean rooms’. AirHush can also be used educational settings, such as soundproofing in mobile classrooms, and perhaps eventually aviation and transportation fields.”