Say goodbye to wild sound reduction values and hello to new ISO acoustic standards!

ISO standard for measuring phone and meeting pods’ sound attenuation finally published.

Although phone pods and meeting pods have been on the market for quite some time now, there has never been a standardized ISO speech level attenuation measurement method to measure or declare these properties…until now!

The new ISO acoustic standard for office furniture

In June 2020, a new international ISO 23351-1 standard has been accepted, that is specifically designed to measure speech sound level attenuation for office furniture solutions, such as work stations, phone pods and meeting pods. Many furniture manufacturers have joined the group that adheres to this standard, and many more will do so.

The new standard will place all manufacturers on the same footing, and will put an end to previously declared levels of sound proofing that were quite wild and frankly unrealistic.

Proven sound reduction

Testing procedures now put in place will allow the end user to get a clear picture of a product’s sound reduction performance before procurement, based on the test results.

If you are planning on acquiring a phone pod or meeting pod, then ask your supplier for the results of the ISO 23351-1 standard test, so you can be sure about what you are getting.

As an example, the Vetrospace GROUPSPACE XXL achieves a speech attenuation value of Ds:32dB, placing it in category A.

Read the more about ISO 23351-1 testing method at iso.org