India is home to over 60 million people with hearing impairment, many of whom belong to lower income groups. For the hearing impaired, maintaining a normal life is difficult as daily occurrences go unnoticed. Such as sounds of doorbells, babies crying, fire alarms and so on. Missing moments such as these could be critical. Existing assistive devices or aids however, still remain very expensive and are therefore unaffordable to the masses.

The Blee Wearable for the hearing impaired tries to address this critical gap in the market by creating a wearable easy to use affordable device that notifies hearing impaired individuals of certain activities and sounds of which they need to be vigilant. The wearable notifies the user of pre-recorded sound alerts using lights and vibrations. There is a unique set of vibrations for each sound alert. The device is connected to the user’s phone via Bluetooth where all the sounds are pre -recorded and stored. The capability of the device increases as the repository of pre-recorded sounds grow. The device can also be used independently as a smart phone application.

Still in a prototype stage, the innovation thus far has been tested by hearing impaired people across Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune and Patiyala. It aims to impact over 1 million hearing impaired individuals in the next 3-5 years.

The Blee Wearable for hearing impaired tries to address this critical gap in the market by creating a wearable easy to use affordable device that notifies hearing impaired individuals of certain activities and sounds they need to be aware of. The wearable notifies the user of pre-recorded sound alerts using lights and vibrations. There is a unique set of vibrations for each sound alert. The device is connected to the user’s phone via Bluetooth where all the sounds are pre -recorded and stored. The capability of the device increases as the repository of pre-recorded sounds grow. The device can also be used independently as a smart phone application.