A communication device concept that integrates hearing aid functionality into a fashionable consumer electronics ear piece. The user interface controls are located on your paired smartphone making volume or directional sound adjustments as socially invisible as checking your email or sending a text message.

Western Washington University’s Senior Industrial Design studio took on the challenge by Anvil Studios to define and design a solution for the emerging social wearable health market. The students identified market needs, for which they designed a wearable device, a charging dock, and user interface paired to a smart device.

In the United States, over 37 million individuals suffer from some form of hearing loss. This would create the largest disability class, though hearing loss is not officially recognized as a disability. This leads many users to take up to eight years before being fitted for a hearing aid while dealing with impaired hearing. The stigma behind the hearing aid and its association with a disability was the largest driving force behind users waiting, followed by poor accessibility and poor adjustability due to small controls.

Our goal was to eliminate the stigma associated with hearing impairment, while emphasizing trends and current technology. The wearable device uses a unique form factor different from any other hearing apparatus on the market. Creating a unique device makes it dissociable with the market, and viewed more as an entry into the technology market then the medical. By not covering the ear the device makes the user still appear approachable, and not closed off from the world, inviting conversation.

Adjustment of the device was moved onto the the users smartphone. Not only does this allow for users to easily change settings, but the processing power of a smartphone can personalize and adjust the hearing directly for the user, diagnosing on the fly. This interface can also benefit the general earphone wearer, not only the impaired. Identifying speech and important information automatically, while also pairing with other devices in the environment gives the everyday person added listening and communication ability that everyone can benefit from.

This was a sponsored project that lasted from January to April 2013. The first month the students work independently to identify and research a problem of interest to each of them, then each student had to present their findings and discuss as a group the merits of each. The second month the students continued on their own and conceptualized multiple solutions for each problem. After 2 rounds of concept generation, the concepts were down selected to the 3 most innovative and fresh approaches and the students broke into 3 relative groups to work through the rest of the project collaboratively. The third month focused on the group effort to further iterate and validate their solutions through physical mockups and user testing. The last month refined the details as each group had to then incorporate consistent design languages applied across all 3 divergent end products: a wearable, a stationary charging dock, and an on-screen user interface.

Eliminates the stigma associated with hearing impairment, while emphasizing trends and current technology.