Hearing loss is particularly harmful for language acquisition and neuro-development if it is left undetected in early childhood. Newborn hearing screening technologies using otoacoustic emissions (OAE) rely on detecting soft sounds generated by a healthy cochlea. High-income countries like the United States frequently implement hearing screening programs for every child at birth. However, such universal hearing screening is significantly less common in low- and middle-income countries, partly due to the conventional wisdom that the test requires sensitive and expensive acoustic hardware that costs thousands of dollars. In our MobiSys paper[1], we present the first wireless earbud design for low-cost hearing screening. Our hardware-software system reliably performs hearing screening using low-cost acoustic hardware, while being in the form-factor of a wireless earbud (Figure. 1a,b). The earbud hardware is designed to work across a large age range from newborns to adults. By developing low-cost and open-source wearable technology, our work may help address global health inequities in hearing screening by democratizing these medical devices.

Justin Chan

Antonio Glenn

Malek Itani

Lisa R. Mancl

No Ear Left Behind: Wireless Earbuds for Low-Cost Hearing Screening

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