SoundWatch

Quick Info

Project Date Sept. 1, 2018 - Present
PIs: Jon E. Froehlich (Co-PI)
Sponsors: NSF
Keywords: wearables, haptics, accessibility, deaf, hard of hearing, sound visualization, sound awareness, smartwatch

News

Dhruv Jain Receives Microsoft Dissertation Grant

Aug 18, 2021 | Jon

Congratulations to Dhruv Jain who was selected for the prestigious Microsoft Research Dissertation Grant for his work on “Sound Sensing and Feedback Techniques for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Users.” The MSR Dissertationg Grant aims to "increase the pipeline of diverse talent receiving advanced degrees in computing-related fields by providing a research funding opportunity for doctoral students who are underrepresented in the field of computing." Read more on the Allen School news page.

Dhruv Jain Selected for Google-CMD-IT LEAP Alliance Fellowship

Aug 05, 2021 | Jon

Congratulations to Dhruv Jain who was selected for the Google-CMD-IT LEAP Alliance Fellowship. CMD-IT stands for the Center for Minorities and People with Disabilities in IT and is dedicated to "promoting innovation that enriches, enhances, and enables our target communities, such that more equitable and sustainable contributions are possible by all communities."

Dhruv Jain Passes General Exam

Dec 11, 2020 | Jon

It's my pleasure to announce that Dhruv Jain passed his General Exam entitled Sound Sensing & Feedback Techniques for d/Deaf & Hard of Hearing Users: A Dissertation Proposal. His dissertation work was thoughtfully presented, well rehearsed, and even included two live demos (of HomeSound and of SoundWatch). Congrats DJ! Thanks also to the wonderful committee, including co-chair Professor Findlater and fellow committee members Professors Mankoff, Ladner, Wobbrock, and Bigham—literally an all-star cast of HCI+accessibility experts. You can download the slides here or watch the whole thing on YouTube! A few screenshots of the talk (all but the presenter + interpreters had video off):

SoundWatch Wins Best Artifact Award at ASSETS

Oct 29, 2020 | Jon

Members of the newly launched UW CREATE accessibility center won all three top awards at ASSETS2020—the top publication venue in accessibility research—including Best Artifact for our SoundWatch work, Best Paper awarded to Professor Leah Findlater and her PhD student Lotus Zhang, Best Student Paper awarded to PhD student Megan Hofmann and colleagues (including her advisor and CREATE co-director Jennifer Mankoff). Congrats all! Relatedly, Sarah McQuate wrote a lovely article on our SoundWatch work—check it out!

SoundWatch and Navigating Grad School with a Disability Accepted to ASSETS'20

Jul 22, 2020 | Jon

We just received news that two of Dhruv Jain's first-authored submissions were accepted to ASSETS'20—an amazing accomplishment. Importantly, the work itself is impactful and diverse. Congrats DJ and all collaborators! The papers are linked below: Jain, D., Potluri, V., Sharif, A. (2020). Navigating Graduate School with a Disability: A Trio-Ethnography. Proceedings of ASSETS 2020. 17 pages. To Appear. Jain, D., Ngo, H., Patel, P., Goodman, S., Findlater, L., Froehlich, J. E. (2020). SoundWatch: Exploring Smartwatch-based Deep Learning Approaches to Support Sound Awareness for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Users. Proceedings of ASSETS 2020. 16 pages. To Appear.

About

Two example use cases of SoundWatch

We bring you SoundWatch, an Android app that provides glanceable, always-available sound feedback on smartwatches for d/Deaf and hard-of-hearing users. Created by a diverse team at University of Washington and led by a hard-of-hearing innovator who wanted to build for his community, SoundWatch uses machine learning to alert its users to important sounds occurring in their environment. With everything from critical fire alarms to speech alerts, users know they can rely on SoundWatch to make their environment more accessible. In the spirit of innovation and the spread of knowledge, SmartWatch is freely available and open-sourced for anyone wanting to learn more and contribute to its development. Download the app here: soundwatch.dhruvjain.info