HearThere is a wearable device with head-tracking infrastructure, demonstrating our vision for scalable indoor and outdoor auditory augmented reality (AAR). It was built by Spencer Russell and Gershon Dublon of the Responsive Environments group at the MIT Media Lab
The system consists of an iOS application, commercially-available bone-conduction headphones, and a custom wearable head-tracker that uses ultra-wideband localization and a 9DOF intertial measurement unit to track the user's head orientation
The development board form-factor of the head tracker gives access to signal lines, serial I/O, and data logging. The device can easily be miniturized to around the size of a stick of gum
All audio rendering is done on the iOS device, which communicates with the head tracker using Bluetooth Low-Energy
We evaluated the system in a large outdoor environment, asking participants to locate virtual sounds in the environment using only their ears
This shows an overhead view of the test area, including traces of the users walking around within the space
