According to one aspect, a method for determining voice activity is disclosed, the method including receiving a frame of an input audio signal, the input audio signal having a sample rate, and spitting the audio signal into a plurality of subbands, the plurality of subbands including at least a lowest subband and a highest subband. The method further comprises filtering the lowest subband to reduce an energy of the lowest subband, estimating a noise level for at least some of the plurality of subbands, and computing a signal-to-noise ratio for at least some of the plurality of subbands. The method also includes determining a speech activity level based at least in part on the computed signal-to-noise ratios and an average of an energy of at least some of the plurality of subbands.