A research team supervised by Assoc. Prof. Theo Hughes-Riley from Nottingham Trent University has designed a smart vibrating pillow sleeve prototype, to alert people who are deaf to fire and burglar alarms. The device was recently presented at the Association for Computing Machinery CHI conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, at the Barcelona International Convention Centre in Spain.
It replaces bulky uncomfortable technology that users had to keep under their pillow. Such gadgets ended up affecting restful sleep.
“This smart design represents a significant step toward inclusive emergency alert systems, allowing deaf and deafblind individuals to sleep more safely — and with greater peace of mind and comfort,” says Dr. Hughes-Riley. “It has been an entirely user-led development, stemming from feedback from the deaf community, who told us exactly what kind of real world challenges they face which might be solved with electronic textiles.”
The thin textile sleeve contains four mini haptic actuators (3.4 x 12.7 mm) that are covered with a yarn-like fabric layer. It has been rigorously tested for resilience, including being put through several washing cycles.
PhD researcher Malindu Ehelagasthenna, who developed the sleeve as part of his doctoral studies at the Nottingham School of Art & Design, says “The electronics we have embedded in the yarns of the sleeve are so tiny that they cannot be felt by the users, but when an alarm sounds they can be made to vibrate intensely in order to wake even the most heavy sleepers.”
The pillow sleeve fits over a standard-size pillow placed inside a pillow case, with the sensors facing the bottom side of the bed. It links up to a smartphone via a microcontroller that can be wirelessly connected to household alarms. Different pulses can be programmed to distinguish between fire alarms, burglar alarms and phone calls.
This isn't the first type of alert system for the deaf or hard of hearing, though. New Atlas has previously reported on the SoundWatch, a smartwatch that detects certain sounds and responds by alerting users with a vibrational signal and a visual display. It could work in conjunction with the vibrating pillow sleeve, to aid users during waking hours.
The sleeve prototype is being refined by the research team with the goal of finding a production partner to help bring the device to the market.
Source: Nottingham Trent University
