Aurakey

AURAKEY is a jewelry-like multisensory wearable that translates sound into light, vibration, and subtle visual cues. It adapts across necklace and bracelet modes to support awareness, communication, and emotional calm throughout the day.

AURAKEY offers a quiet, intuitive layer of perception—helping users navigate the world with confidence when hearing becomes uncertain.

Inspiration

Research

Defintion of Hearing Loss

A diverse group of people with different hearing levels, communication preferences, and cultural identities.

Common Causes of Hearing Loss

Proportion and Scale of Global Hearing Loss

Approximately 1.5 billion people worldwide experience some degree of hearing loss (20>dB), with this figure projected to rise to 2.5 billion by 2050.

Moderate to Severe/Disabling Hearing Loss (Requiring Rehabilitation)

Currently, approximately 430 million people worldwide suffer from disabling hearing loss (35>dB), including about 34 million children. By 2050, this figure is projected to exceed 700 million people.

A Large Population, Yet a Small Market

Although the hearing-impaired population keeps growing, market investment remains minimal.   By 2025, the global hearing-care industry is worth only USD 10.3 billion—less than 0.2% of the healthcare economy—revealing a clear gap between real needs and societal attention. Accessibility and inclusive technologies for hearing loss remain at the margins.

Degree of hearing impairment

Distribution of Hearing Loss Causes

Daily Challenges Faced by People with Hearing Loss

Information Access Barriers

In public spaces such as subways or airports, hearing-impaired individuals often miss important announcements due to the absence of captions or visual cues.

Fire and Emergency Alerts

When fire or emergency alarms rely solely on sound, people with hearing loss may not react in time to evacuate.

Healthcare & Government Services

The absence of captions or sign-language support often leads to miscommunication.

Barriers in Business and Leisure

Voice-based interaction in restaurants, cinemas, and social venues reduces accessibility and engagement.

Barriers in Education and the Workplace

Classrooms and workplaces rely heavily on spoken communication, with limited captioning or interpretation.

Case Studies

Benchmarking

From the case study, four core functions were identified for hearing support systems: Bio-Physiological Monitoring, Emotion Recognition & Regulation, Real-time Communication & Social Assistance, and Long-term Tracking & Adaptive Intelligence. These reflect user needs across different adaptation stages and guide future interactive system design.

Bio-Physiological Monitoring

Track changes in body signals to detect risks or fatigue in advance.

Record changes in the user’s state and enable the system to optimize accordingly.

Long-term Tracking & Adaptive Intelligence

Real-time Communication Assistance

Maintain clear communication and social engagement in situations of information overload or communication barriers.

Emotion Recognition & Regulation

Help users become aware of their emotions and facilitate relief or healing.

Design Concept

From self-awareness to external connection  A wearable system that integrates perception, emotion, and response into everyday life.

Core Functional Layers

A modular wearable system built around sensing, interpretation, and feedback.

Target users-young professionals

Designed for a new generation who value both function and fashion.   Young professionals seek technology that blends seamlessly into daily life —  smart, lightweight, and expressive enough to be worn openly.

Product Work Flow

APP Design

Informational Architecture

Prototype Technical Validation

Sketches

These sketches explore how a wearable device can visually disappear into jewelry-like forms, while still maintaining clarity, comfort, and interaction logic. The focus is on validating proportion, structure, and wearability before digital modeling.

3D Modeling

Technical Experiment

To verify whether the wearable assistive-hearing device can achieve the core interaction loop of “sense → interpret → respond → adapt”, I conducted a series of hardware tests. Each module corresponds to a potential functional component of the device: environmental sensing, physiological monitoring, user input, and haptic feedback.

Sensor testing

Sensor 1：Soundlevel

Utilize the sound sensor module to read environmental noise intensity in real time, providing foundational data for adjusting the device's auditory sensitivity.

Sensor 2：Vibration

Adjustable-intensity haptic feedback is achieved by controlling the vibration motor via PWM.

Sensor 3：Buttonswitch

Enable users to quickly switch between different modes using button inputs.

Sensor 4：GSR

Utilizing skin conductance response (GSR) to detect users' emotional fluctuations, providing real-time physiological feedback for emotional regulation functions.