Guest: Nick Morgan-Jones - Butterfly Audio

Topic: Sound Enhancing Wearables that Inspire People

Nick sits down with Dave on the podcast this week to discuss his passion project, Butterfly Audio, which is an attempt at totally reimagining "hearing aids." Nick, who was diagnosed with high-frequency hearing loss at 10 years old (now 28 years old), describes his own personal journey with hearing aids, which began with him deciding to abandon his prescribed hearing aids for the first 10 years of his diagnosis due to the social stigma associated with them.

According to Nick, the problem that young people with hearing loss face is a market that largely caters to older adults. Everything from the advertising to the ways in which the products are described (hearing aids) are tailored toward folks with age-related hearing adults. As a result, young people are forced to treat their hearing losses with devices that have inherent connotations with old age.

Nick believes that the design of the devices have almost uniformly followed suit with progressively becoming smaller and smaller. Why do hearing aids need to be "invisible?" Yes, some users want discreet devices, and that market is already being served with a variety of offerings, but as the two discuss, there are a variety of advantages to making devices clearly visible, and utilizing novel form factors and device positioning.

As a designer by trade, Nick is designing, prototyping and attempting to build his own custom, "sound enhancing wearables," (again, note the change in language used) that he personally would feel inspired to use. As he notes, he's going to need help, so if his message resonates, his door is open and he welcomes you to connect with him.

Twitter: @ButterflyAudio_

LinkedIn: Nick Morgan-Jones

Transcript: here

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Future Ear RadioBy Dave KempJul 24, 2020