Tiresias - An Open-Source Hearing Aid Development Board

Carlet JVC, Bernardo FP, Henriques BC, Isaac de Oliveira M, Pepino VM, Tangerino de Souza Jacob R, Blasca WQ, Mondelli MF, Berretin-Felix G, Viviane Ferrari D, et al. Tiresias - An Open-Source Hearing Aid Development Board. In: Express Paper. Audio Engineering Society; 2025.pp. 346:1-8. Available from: https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=22897

@inproceedings{Carlet2025_22897,
  author = {Carlet, João Victor Colombari and Bernardo, Felipe Pimenta and Henriques, Bruno Cepeda and Isaac de Oliveira, Mateus and Pepino, Vinicius Marrara and Tangerino de Souza Jacob, Regina and Blasca, Wanderléia Quinhoneiro and Mondelli, Maria Fernanda and Berretin-Felix, Giédre and Viviane Ferrari, Deborah and Navarro, João and Viana Borges, Ben-Hur},
  title = {{Tiresias - An Open-Source Hearing Aid Development Board}},
  pages = {346:1-8},
  url = {https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=22897},
  year = {2025},
  month = may,
  publisher = {Audio Engineering Society}
}

TY  - CPAPER
TI  - Tiresias - An Open-Source Hearing Aid Development Board
AU  - Carlet, João Victor Colombari
AU  - Bernardo, Felipe Pimenta
AU  - Henriques, Bruno Cepeda
AU  - Isaac de Oliveira, Mateus
AU  - Pepino, Vinicius Marrara
AU  - Tangerino de Souza Jacob, Regina
AU  - Blasca, Wanderléia Quinhoneiro
AU  - Mondelli, Maria Fernanda
AU  - Berretin-Felix, Giédre
AU  - Viviane Ferrari, Deborah
AU  - Navarro, João
AU  - Viana Borges, Ben-Hur
SP  - 1
EP  - 8
M1  - Paper 346
PY  - 2025
DA  - 2025/05/12
UR  - https://aes.org/publications/elibrary-page/?id=22897
PB  - Audio Engineering Society
LA  - en
AB  - Hearing loss is a global public health issue due to its high prevalence and significant negative impacts on quality of life, including social well-being and cognitive health. Despite their crucial role in auditory rehabilitation, hearing aids remain inaccessible to many due to their high costs, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. Existing open-source hearing aid solutions typically rely on bulky, high-power platforms unsuited to practical, wearable applications, creating a significant gap in available technology. This work introduces Tiresias, a compact, low-power, open-source hearing aid development board designed for real-time audio processing using affordable electronics. Tiresias integrates essential hearing aid functionalitiesincluding multichannel compression, digital filtering, adaptive beamforming, Bluetooth connectivity, and physiological monitoring onto a compact six-layer printed circuit board (PCB). By leveraging widely available hardware components and firmware built upon Nordics nRF Connect SDK and the Zephyr real-time operating system (RTOS), Tiresias fosters modularity, accessibility, and ease of customization. By addressing existing technological and accessibility challenges, this work provides an effective foundation for open-source hearing aid product innovation, facilitating future research, algorithm refinement, and practical deployment in real-world environments.
ER  -