Sound Awareness Technology

Assistive technology systems that detect, classify, and communicate environmental sounds to deaf and hard of hearing users through visual, haptic, or text-based notifications. Examples include smartphone apps that identify doorbells, alarms, and speech, as well as smartwatch-based systems like SoundWatch that provide real-time sound labels and loudness information. While early systems relied on predefined sound categories, newer approaches using generative AI and audio-language models can provide richer contextual descriptions of auditory scenes. Key design considerations include customizability, privacy implications of continuous audio capture, and balancing information richness with cognitive load.