The hearing aid industry charges £3,000–£8,000 for hardware, then locks you out of it. Your audiogram is a measurement of your body. It belongs to you. OpenHear gives it back.

Commercial aids from Phonak, Signia, and Starkey still ship with proprietary AI that mangles your own voice, whistles during hugs, and dies in sweat. Replacements cost £3,000–£8,000 and lock you into manufacturer fitting software. OpenHear is the sovereign alternative: an open-source DSP pipeline with adaptive feedback cancellation, own-voice bypass, and sweat-proof 3D-printed ITE shells you manufacture at home. Every algorithm is inspectable. Every parameter is yours. No cloud. No subscription. No lock-in. MIT licensed.

OpenHear is an open-source sovereign audio pipeline for people who wear commercial hearing aids and are tired of factory AI making decisions about their own hearing without their consent.

It works with aids you already own. It runs on hardware you already have. It does not require an audiologist appointment to change a setting.

Tested on:

• Phonak Naída M70-SP (Marvel platform)
• Signia Insio 7AX (Augmented Xperience platform)

Required hardware:

• Noahlink Wireless 2 (~£80 on eBay)
• Windows laptop (for fitting software)
• iPhone or Android (for streaming)

Modern hearing aids are extraordinary pieces of engineering. They are also, deliberately, black boxes.

When you buy a Phonak or Signia aid, you get a device that:

• Constantly reclassifies your acoustic environment without telling you
• Applies compression, noise reduction, and beamforming algorithms you cannot inspect
• Stores your audiogram and fitting profile in a proprietary format you cannot read
• Requires a registered audiologist and £200+/hr of fitting time to adjust a single parameter
• Reverts to factory defaults if the fitting software version doesn't match

This is not a safety requirement. It is a business model.

The audiogram stored in your hearing aids is a biometric measurement of your nervous system. The fitting profile is a record of how your brain processes sound. You generated that data. You wore the sensors. You sat in the booth.

It is yours.

World → Microphone → Custom DSP Engine → Bluetooth Stream → Your Aids → Your Ears

Core module — reads your existing fitting data out of your aids via Noahlink Wireless. Exposes it as plain JSON. No proprietary format, no locked PDF.

DSP module — real-time Python audio pipeline. You control the compression curve, the noise floor, the beamforming angle, the voice frequency emphasis. Tuned to your audiogram, not a population average.

Stream module — sends processed audio directly to your aids over Bluetooth. No extra hardware. Works on iPhone and Android.

Audiogram module — reads, visualises, and exports your hearing thresholds in open formats. The data your audiologist has been keeping in a system you can't access.

Learn module (phase 3) — a preference engine that adjusts to your own corrections over time. Your hearing profile improves every day, not once every two years.

This project is the second work in a body of work on data sovereignty — the principle that data generated by or about your body belongs to you and not to the institution that measured it.

The first work is The Burgess Principle — a legal framework asserting void ab initio against bulk-processed warrants and tainted data records.

OpenHear applies the same logic to audiological data:

• Your audiogram was generated by measuring your auditory nerve response. It is yours.
• Your fitting profile was created by adjusting parameters until your perception was satisfied. It is yours.
• The Noahlink Wireless is your key. The open standard is your right. The algorithms are yours to read, copy, modify, and improve.

See SOVEREIGN_AUDIO.md for the full framework.

1. Install the OpenHear mobile app (Android) from /mobile/ — see mobile README
2. Load your audiogram JSON (export from your audiologist or create one using audiogram/data/FORMAT.md)
3. Pair your aids via Bluetooth Classic or ASHA
4. Tap ▶ — the sovereign DSP pipeline runs on your phone in real time

1. Set your aids to linear mode (kill the factory AI — see instructions below)
2. pip install -r requirements.txt
3. python -m core.read_fitting — reads your current fitting data
4. python -m dsp.pipeline — starts the real-time audio processor
5. Edit dsp/config.py to tune compression, noise floor, and voice clarity

1. Scan your ear using Polycam/Scaniverse photogrammetry (see workflow)
2. Customise the parametric shell in OpenSCAD (see parametric_shell.scad)
3. Print on Elegoo Saturn 4 / Anycubic (see print settings)
4. Apply nano-coating for sweat-proofing (see sweatproof guide)
5. Assemble with OpenHear electronics, load the mobile app, and own your sound

Before using Path 2 or 3, set your aids to linear mode. This alone will transform your sound.

Phonak Naída (Marvel/Paradise/Lumity):

1. Install Phonak Target on Windows
2. Connect Noahlink Wireless 2 via USB
3. Open fitting → Gain & MPO → set processing to Linear
4. Disable AutoSense OS scene classification
5. Save and close

Signia Insio (AX platform):

1. Install Connexx on Windows
2. Connect Noahlink Wireless 2 via USB
3. Open fitting → set to linear amplification
4. Disable Own Voice Processing auto-switching
5. Save and close

• Hardware identification and compatibility testing
• Noahlink Wireless 2 bridge protocol research
• core/ — fitting data reader (JSON export)
• dsp/ — real-time Python pipeline (PyAudio + NumPy)
• stream/ — Bluetooth audio output module
• audiogram/ — threshold reader and visualiser
• hardware/ite-shells/ — parametric ITE shell design + sweat-proofing
• dsp/feedback_canceller — adaptive feedback cancellation (LMS)
• dsp/own_voice_bypass — own-voice detection and DSP bypass
• mobile/ — Android real-time DSP app (Kotlin + Oboe)
• learn/ — on-device preference learning engine
• ui/ — desktop GUI (the OSCAR moment)
• iOS version of mobile app
• Community scan library
• tinyML Learn module v2

If you wear hearing aids and you're frustrated — this is your repo too.

If you're a DSP engineer who wants to build something that actually matters to real people — open an issue.

If you're an audiologist who believes your patients should own their own data — we especially want to hear from you.

OpenHear does not modify, reverse-engineer, or redistribute any proprietary firmware. It uses the Noahlink Wireless 2 and standard fitting software interfaces in the same way any hearing care professional would. It streams audio to hearing aids using standard Bluetooth audio profiles.

Your audiogram is yours. Your fitting data is yours. This software helps you access both.

MIT Licensed.

⚠️ EXPERIMENTAL PROJECT — NOT A MEDICAL DEVICE

OpenHear is an experimental open-source project. It has not been evaluated, approved, or cleared by any regulatory body (FDA, MHRA, CE/UKCA, or equivalent). It is not a medical device. Consult a qualified audiologist before making any changes to your hearing aid configuration. Use at your own risk.

Lewis Burgess — also the author of The Burgess Principle.

Two repos. One argument. Your data belongs to you.