The iPhone (or any other smartphone) certainly makes people’s lives a whole lot easier with all sorts of apps, but this new app called the BioAid, from the folks over at the University of Essex, is going to be a blessing for people with a hearing impairment. It converts the iPhone, iPod touch and iPad into hearing aids.

The BioAid app makes use of the iPhone’s microphone, audio processing capability, and earphones. All that a user has to do is install the app and choose a setting that will allow them to hear properly. And since the app has six fixed settings, each one of which has four fine-tuning sub-settings, users will be able to target specific frequencies. And that’s not all. The app can bring up low sounds while simultaneously turning down loud noises in the earphones.

In theory, there’s no need for those hearing aids worth hundreds of dollars and no need to visit the hearing aid specialist. There is that need to own an iDevice, though. It will be a great help if there is also an Android app available. Hopefully in the future we might see BioAid available with tiny behind-the-ear gadgets or smartwatches, and its settings might even be adjusted remotely.

A beta version of the BioAid is available for free on iTunes. It is certainly an interesting idea, though it probably is no match for specialized hearing equipment at this stage. What do you think?

[Source]

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The idea of using bone conduction as a means of hearing for the deaf is nothing new. Beethoven was known to have cut the legs off of his piano and sitting naked on the floor while playing after he lost his hearing so the vibrations through his body would make up for the loss of hearing.

While that’s not exactly a societally acceptable option for most situations, another idea of his seems to have caught on. Around the turn of the 19th Century, he was also said to use a wooden rod with one end closed in the lid of his piano and the other clutched in his teeth to transfer the sound directly to his skull.

This same concept has been applied to Sonitus Medical’s SoundBite hearing aid, which has been approved for use in the U.S. and Europe with FDA and European CE Mark certification.

The SoundBite is custom-fitted to a user’s rear upper molars, where it uses bone conduction to transmit sounds through the teeth and skull to the bones in the inner ear. The SoundBite package includes a second piece, similar to a hearing aid, to wirelessly transmit data to the device on the tooth.

While it’s not for those who can get by with a hearing aid, the company says it does work to restore spatial hearing to those who are stone deaf in one ear.

[Sonitus Medical]

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