About us

Our Goal is to make the worlds Best Digital Hydrophones.

Ocean Sonics designs and manufactures icListen, the world’s first smart digital hydrophone. Compact and easy to use, its small size makes it the perfect tool for sound data collection. Listen in real-time and improve decision making or use as an acoustic recorder for long term deployments. The best data is collected with the best tools. icListen’s internal processing saves time as digital sound is streamed live.

Integration and arrays have been simplified with the first in a new generation of smart hydrophones, icListen Kayak. Its small diameter makes it the best option for creating complex arrays, easily deployed by an individual or small team. Kayak maintains the range of depths, bandwidth and high-quality data while being the lowest power and towable.

Ocean Sonics is dedicated to your success, and we are always guided by our three pillars of excellence, Simplicity, Accuracy and Reliability. We provide services in deployment, system design and integration, and data processing.

Listen Now. The Ocean Sonics Way.

Where We Started

It all started with a big hurricane and a small leak…

Named after the complex and ever-changing ecosystem we work in, Ocean Sonics was created in 2012, to help better understand, protect and harness the power of our oceans. A small leak has led to a flood of innovation from Ocean Sonics, dedicated to the preservation and prosperity of our oceans.

In 2005 BP Thunderhorse was the largest semi-submersible oil platform in the world. Located in the Gulf of Mexico, it was expected to service 1% of total US oil production, until Hurricane Dennis howled into the gulf.

Hurricane Dennis damaged the rig, resulting in a leak that left Thunderhorse tilting at 20 degrees. After multiple attempts to discover the location of the leak, officials reached out a small ocean acoustic company in Great Village: Instrument Concepts.

Using our ‘Big Ears’ hydrophone, a leak was discovered in a critical pontoon. The rig was righted, livelihoods and jobs were saved and potentially disastrous environmental impacts in a critical ocean environment were avoided.

Our success in the Gulf inspired us to reaffirm our dedication to the responsible collection of data and acoustic exploration of our oceans. We knew that there were many people with projects outside of the massive oil and gas industry that would benefit from our technology and design.

Following the success of the Thunderhorse venture, the Instrument Concepts team pushed forward, designing environmental acoustic instruments for both inland(geophones) and aquatic purposes. The growing need for effective and non-invasive aquatic instruments led Mark Wood and Desiree Stockermans to focus their efforts in the ocean environment.

Sitting around a dining room table late one summer evening in 2012, Ocean Sonics was created. With increased research, monitoring and investments in our waterways, as well as the growing number of threats facing our oceans, Ocean Sonics, knew it was time to grow. Ocean Sonics created the icListen to provide improved and more reliable products and services, able to be employed by researchers, scientists and institutions using acoustics to better understand and protect our oceans.

Ocean Sonics is constantly innovating to provide the best products and services to our users. Our team combines many years’ experience in designing and manufacturing world-class ocean acoustic instruments. We know that there is much more to making reliable ocean instruments than just producing great data. Every product is evaluated for usability and ease of deployment. We design all of our products to be compact and user-friendly as well as non-disruptive to the ocean environment. Our three pillars of excellence are accuracy, reliability and simplicity.

2019 has been a year of growth for Ocean Sonics. In April, we launched the first in the newest generation of Smart Hydrophones, icListen Kayak. Our team has expanded to 18 full-time employees and with the opening of our new office headquarters in Truro Heights, NS, we have more room to grow, innovate and create.

Sustainability and B-Corp™ status

Ocean Sonics is passionate about the environment, sustainability, social stewardship, and understanding and protecting our oceans. In 2017 Ocean Sonics became a certified B Corp, further cementing our dedication to responsible exploration of our oceans.

Since 2017 we have earned Best for the World: Environment in 2018, 2019, and 2021. This title is given to companies globally who are in the top 5% of their corresponding size groups for leading business practices which aim to benefit the environment and have the least impact on the environment in the process.