Cheap earbuds in smartphone hearing screening (IMAGE)

University of Washington

Cheap earbuds in smartphone hearing screening

Caption

A team led by researchers at the University of Washington has created a new hearing screening system that uses a smartphone and earbuds. One reason the commercial device is expensive is that its speaker has been designed to play the two tones without any interference. The UW researchers found that they could use affordable earbuds — where each earbud plays one of the two tones — instead. The earbuds are connected as shown here to a probe that can be placed in the patient's ear.

Credit

Raymond Smith/University of Washington

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