According to the World Health Organisation, over 5% of the world’s population – or 466 million people – have a disabling hearing loss (World Health Organisation, 2019). In most people’s lives, ambient sounds such as doorbells or smoke alarms provide valuable information which people who are deaf or hearing impaired may not perceive.
This system’s purpose is to inform a hearing-impaired person of such audio events by recording audio, recognising it and then alerting the user locally on an LCD Touchscreen, flashing LEDs to attract attention and sending a message to the user’s smartphone. The person can acknowledge the alert via the LCD Touchscreen or by returning a message from their smartphone.
A Raspberry Pi 4 computer is at the heart of the device with a ReSpeaker 6-Mic Array for audio input and LED display and a 5” LCD Touchscreen for user input.
