Can a Mobile Phone in a Pocket Reliably Recognize Ambient Sounds?

We investigate how different locations inside clothing influence the ability of a system to recognize activity relevant sounds. Specifically, we consider the recognition of sounds from 9 household and office appliances recorded using an iPhone placed in 2 trouser pockets, 2 jacket pockets, a belt holster and the users´ hand. The aim is not to demonstrate good recognition rates on the above sounds (which has been done many times before) but to compare recognition rates from the individual locations and to understand how to best train the system to be location invariant.