I am involved in a battle with the VA over hearing loss. I expect to win t his minor battle, but there is a war still to be fought. I was in a gun ma gazine loading 80 pound projectiles and 35 pound gunpowder charges. There a re many others who suffer hearing loss from flight line or engine room besi des those of us sentenced to the battle field.
This is a preliminary recon into the feasability of producing a very inexpe nsive hearing aid. The target is zero cost, but I would be willing to produ ce at $40/ea. I am looking at various technologies.
Hearing aid would be able to easily fit into a shirt pocket. It would have some type of audio equalizer and an audio input to interface with other pr oducts and an output for ear buds or external speaker. Besides a hearing a id it could take the output from a transistor radio and do equalization and then output to ear buds or external speaker. The point is that it could m ake music sound good as well. It would be compatable with cell phone charg er and perhaps USB or bluetooth as well I would like to get opinions as to doing analog or using micro or DSP type of implementation. I am old time analog guy, but that isn't to say I would be the person doing design. A few pots would probably be ok. A dsp might be able to take hearing test data and program with a pc.
I expect there may be some government (DOD) grant money available. If not t here are plenty of good people who would provide some pro bono work for thi s cause.
So besides the analog/dsp implementation question I would like to hear othe r ideas as far as direction to make this a real product.
thanks Bob