Proposed Design - Rough Sketch
Background
A Hearing Aid, based on Microcontroller or Microprocessor is being proposed here.
A previous experience with Analog Hearing Aid explored the possibilities and situations in this area. We saw people in a range on ages – students and grand parents – lacking the availability of Hearing Aids, who would not only talk about the technical problems, but also about the mental status due to availability or unavailability of a Hearing Aid, be it simple or very rich-featured.
The Analog version was a trial, and even if it worked it was more like a simple audio amplifier than a Hearing Aid.
Our experience till now and survey of available Hearing Aids tell us following facts and trends -
1) In India, a low end Hearing Aid costs somewhere around Rs. 1500 – 2500/-. In this range, these are supposed to be wired devices, meaning – the earphone and the main cabinate are connected using Wire and Audio Jack.
2) Wireless devices, are a trend to be seen in metrocities, as it is costly. Note that whether one has a wireless device or not is NOT a function of Quality but that of the Trend.
3) The service
providers prefer providing Digital Hearing Aids. Digital Hearing Aids
are available on the market, irrespective of Rural or Urban scenario.
When it is digital, Programmable and Non-Programmabel are the sub
categories.
Image 2: Various form factors available on Market
Proposed Design - Block Digram
Image 3: Subblocks of the proposed device.
The proposed system has been divided in three main blocks.
- Analog input preconditioning
- Digital data processing
- Analog signal player
