Tickle Tuner - Haptic Smartphone Cover for Cochlear Implant Users' Musical Training

Cochlear implants (CIs) allow hearing impaired individuals to understand speech with remarkable efficiency. On the other hand, they poorly perform in music perception. It may be possible to improve the music experience with the use of other senses such as touch. We present Tickle Tuner, a haptic feedback device suitable for musical training of CI users. The prototype is composed of two high-quality hapticactuators and an external Digital to Analogue Converter (DAC) hosted in a 3D printed enclosure coupled with a smartphone. We describe the design and implementation of the prototype, the analysis of its characteristics and we introduce a test bench for the design of different mappings between sound and vibrations.