Hearing Aid Provides Lip Reading Functions

A new hearing aid devices’ learning process can understand wifi and radio data from people wearing masks with 80% and 83% accuracy. The accuracy increases to 95% and 91% when speakers are not disguised, according to research funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

The drawback of conventional hearing aids is that they amplify background noise, which frequently makes it difficult for wearers to follow discussions in big gatherings.

The smart technology is able hook traditional hearing aids up to a gadget that gathers extra data, one feature being a camera that provides improved lip-reading functions. Although there are issues with the use of these including limitations when people wear masks, and concerns about privacy.

The new approach opts for radar sensor radio- frequency and wifi over video. Volunteers’ data both with and without a face mask will be used to train machine learning and create algorithms to distinguish between oral motions and correspond them to vowel sounds.

Approximately 430 million individuals have some level of hearing difficulty and modern technologies may be crucial in improving their quality of life.

Dr. Qammer Abbasi, leader of the research, explained that “given the ubiquity and affordability of wifi technologies, the results are highly encouraging which suggests that this technique has value both as a standalone technology and as a component in future multimodal hearing aids.”

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