Kristen Regelein, head of global sales at smartwatch maker Pebble – who went deaf at age three – uses a Pebble watch in business meetings to alter the volume on her hearing-aids.
“My personal and professional life depends heavily on my listening and communication out to the world. When your job is to negotiate deals, it could be challenging to find an appropriate way to adjust my hearing aids with my iPhone [which potentially could be intrusive in a group].”
In her current role, Regelein is working to make wearable (or should that be hearable) technology more functional to users from all backgrounds, who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Another solution pairing the Pebble watch with a smartphone, is the ISeeWhatYouSay app from VoxSense, a realtime speech to text tool with output to the smartwatch. Taxi drivers in the US are using this pairing to ‘hear’ what passengers are saying from the back seat and to receive additional instructions while driving their chosen transit route.
