HearWear: The Fashion of Environmental Noise Display is a collaborative project by Younghui Kim and Milena Iossifova Berry.
HearWear is an electronic wearable, which is not only a fashion apparel but also reacts to environmental sound with moving light patterns.
[ Vision ]
As a fashion HearWear connects people through sensing and displaying environmental sound. We work not only towards a better environmental awareness for most people, but also towards the unnoticeable integration of technology in your day to day fashion and lifestyle.
It is true that fashion is a statement. With technology, fashion can be more expressive and informative. We are looking forward to wearing more discreet technology in everyday fashion in the near future.
[ Project Description ]
HearWear: The Fashion of Environmental Noise Display is a wearable visual reflection of your auditory surroundings. It perceives sound levels and uses a scale of lights to reflect amplitude in clothing or accessories. The level of light depends on the level of sound; the louder it is, the more your apparel lights up.
HearWear version 1.0 is a skirt reacting to environmental noise. As an everyday apparel, it becomes your lifestyle with its comfort and convenience. On top of that, it enables you to express your experience of the noise levels in the area you pass through.
HearWear perceives and qualifies its noise perception with beautiful light patterns. Colorful light expresses mundane noise visually and alarmingly. It is a city ear painting subtle LED patterns.
The electronics are seamlessly integrated in the wearable design – the sound-detecting sensor is subtle and unnoticeable, and the LEDs and electro-illuminating wire are embroidered in the transluscent textile. The developed system can be applied to any wearable items.
[ Technology ]
HearWear integrates a custom-engineered printed circuit board and software with existing hardware components. We experimented and designed a system that interprets sound with light in an innovative way. A sound recognition module is being driven by a micro-controller to perceive and qualify varying characteristics of noise patterns. The microcontroller is programmed to activate a number of LEDs and electroluminescent wire.
More images of the different versions of HearWear
HearWear v.1.2 Pink EL Trimming Skirt, 2004
—————————————————————————————-
All Rights Are Reserved, copyright 2003-2016 Younghui Kim
(* It’s not OK to take any images or text from this site to republish without a written consent from the author. Linking the actual pages are okay,)
Younghui Kim (Marie) 
Hi! im an argentinian architect, and with my father , who is an otorrinolaringologist, i’m organizing a medical congress. There will be some extra acitvities about industrial design on the congress plan, and we think it could be interesting to contact you, so we can organize some kind of exhibition about your works.
thank you!
arq. Anabella Roitman
Improvements in flexible electronics will speed up the incorporation of circuits and ‘aware’ clothing into our every day life. Nice topic!
I love your blog.. very nice colors & theme. Did you make this website
yourself or did you hire someone to do it for you? Plz
respond as I’m looking to create my own blog and would like to find out where
u got this from. thanks a lot
Hi Evan,
I have set up my site myself using wordpress theme.