HeadFi II: Toward More Resilient Earable Computing Platform.

Earables are embedded devices that can be placed in, on, or around the ear to sense human motions and physiological activities over an extended period of time. However, today's earable design principle heavily relies on dedicated sensors (e.g., accelerometer, gyroscope, proximity sensor), which inevitably adds cost, weight, and power consumption to earable devices, constituting a critical bottleneck in their wide adoption. Moreover, the tight coupling of sensors with onboard microcontrollers makes existing earables difficult to program, raising the barrier of entry to earable computing. In this poster, we describe HeadFi II, a stand-alone earable computing platform that integrates sensing and computing into a tiny hardware device with low power and computation footprint. We describe the design guideline and technical challenges as well as potential solutions. We believe this project would open up a new dimension of cutting-edge research and exciting educational opportunities. The developed solutions will lead to considerable advancements in both low-power hardware designs and efficient earable sensing algorithms, lowering the barrier of entry to earable computing by providing the research community with a versatile earable platform.