We came across a post in The Conversation Africa that really intrigued us. Picture this. A seriously deaf person hears their hearing aid battery going down. They have no spare, but they do have a piece of chew gum. They know chewing slowly charges hearing aid batteries and are soon back on the air again.
Could Slow Chewing Really Charge Hearing Aid Batteries?
It sounds reasonable, and should be possible now we think of it. The Conversation Africa cites research in IEEE Explore titled Energy Harvesting for In-Ear Devices Using Ear Canal Dynamic Motion. It goes back a while but we judge it’s still worthy of a post.
The motivation for the research was two-fold. In the first instance, a seriously-deaf person loses contact with the world when their battery fails. They are in a silent world full of people speaking. Imagine the loneliness of that! Could kinetic energy make a difference?
Hearing aid batteries are also expensive, especially if the government or medical aid does not cover them. We’ve heard they could end up costing more than the hearing aid, if it lasts 10 to 15 years with good care.
How Chewing Slowly Could Make the Difference
Try this experiment. First gently insert a little finger into your ear opening on that side. Then open and close your mouth slowly. You’ll feel the pressure changing on your fingertip. This occurs as the movement compresses the tissues around the ear canal, changing its shape.
Researchers at the time of the earlier article were thinking of converting that flexing inside the ear into electrical energy. They had found just 10 minutes eating during lunchtime could potentially provide a quarter of the energy to operate a hearing aid for a day.
Unfortunately, that’s where the trail runs cold. One Camilo Oliveros did apply for a patent for a kinetic hearing aid, but abandoned the idea. Chewing slowly could charge hearing aids in theory but that’s all we know for now. If this post interests you please do write and share your story.
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