Enhancing Musical Accessibility: A Novel Device for Individuals with Hearing Impairments using Vibrations and LED Lights Synchronized with Music Tempo

Abstract

Our project is centered on the concept of making music accessible to all individuals, including those with hearing impairments. Music can often play a large role in many lives, able to serve as a source of emotional comfort for many. As the numbers of hearingimpaired individuals rise significantly each year, it is important to enhance accessibility within their lives, including ways to experience the joy of music. By creating a device with vibrations and LED lights that sync with the beat/tempo of each song, this new way of music is easily accessible to all, especially to those with hearing impairments [7]. Leveraging our coding skills, we designed a program that could analyze a specific audio file. The analyzed information is then sent to our raspberry pi, connected to a haptic controller and LED lights through GPIO pins, this allows an easily accessible and functioning process for all users [8].