Soundfree is a company that creates tools for people with hearing loss. This tool recognizes important sounds like smoke detectors or a baby's cry.
Johanna Kaare is a student at the University of Tartu. She did her bachelor's thesis to help improve the Soundfree tool. Her goal was to create an algorithm that extracts the important signal from an audio clip.
It is difficult for the hearing impaired to record sounds themselves because they do not hear well. Therefore, an algorithm was needed to do this for them. The algorithm extracts the important part of the audio clip and trims away the background noise.
Another important question was how many audio clips are needed to train the model. Johanna found that 10 clips are enough. In some cases, even 5.
The Soundfree tool requires a microphone and a smart device. The microphone records sounds, and when the model detects an important sound, the user receives a notification.
Johanna's work showed that the model recognizes sounds almost as well as a human. For example, the sound of a doorbell or smoke detector is easy to recognize. Knocking is more difficult.
Johanna continues to work on further developing the Soundfree tool. Her work helps the hearing impaired live more safely and comfortably.