Tiny throat mic can detect and broadcast silently mouthed words

A small patch worn on the throat can pick up even silently mouthed speech and broadcast it, which could help some people who are unable to speak

By Matthew Sparkes

24 February 2023

This throat patch can detect silent speech and act as a speaker

Q. Yang et al

A patch worn outside the throat can detect your speech and broadcast it even when you silently mouth words. It could help workers in noisy environments or people with speech difficulties communicate.

Some throat microphones already exist, but they tend to be bulky and can only detect vibrations from quiet speech, not silently mouthed words.

To improve on this, Qisheng Yang at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China, and his colleagues have created a patch just 25 micrometres thick and …

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