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ADR-v2-061 — Ambient Audio-Event Guard

Status: Accepted (2026-07-02) · Wave H Context links: [[adr-v2-033-wake-word]] (activation vs environmental awareness), [[adr-011]]

Context

Wave H research (#2) — auto-pause dictation (and optionally alert) when an interrupting real-world sound is heard: doorbell, phone ring, alarm, your name, a baby cry. So you neither dictate over an interruption nor miss it (a Deaf/HoH awareness win too). Anchors: lightweight SELD for wearables (arXiv 2509.14650), E2PANNs real-time emergency-sound detection (2506.23437).

Distinct from Wake-Word (an activation phrase) — this is environmental awareness / interruption handling, the inverse.

Decision

Add an opt-in Ambient Audio-Event Guard: [audioguard] enabled=false, cooldown_frames=30. Two pure cores: event_policy(label) maps a detected sound-event label to a policy (pause | notify | ignore), and EventDebouncer fires a policy once then suppresses repeats during a cooldown (so a ringing phone doesn't retrigger every frame). Both dependency-free. The PANNs/SELD sound-event classifier is lazy behind a soundawareness extra. OFF by default.

Consequences

  • First environmental-awareness feature; strong accessibility value.
  • Pure policy map + debounce → fully testable with no audio.
  • Privacy (ADR-011): frames classified in-RAM, never stored/sent (mirrors the gaze pattern).
  • Caveat: sound classifiers misfire → conservative default (ignore unknown labels) + cooldown; off by default.