Since I was young, I have suffered complications with my ears, including 3 ruptured eardrums. As a result I have lost a significant amount of hearing. I recently made the decision to get a hearing aid, to help myself hear more clearly. The case for the hearing aid I purchase has a flawed mechanical and electrical design. It does not fully enclose the hearing aids, and it must be plugged into the wall to charge them. I wanted to make the experience more seamless for myself so I decided to design my own charging case, inspired by the Apple AirPods case.
The main problems with the design were:
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The wireless charging case contained no battery, and thus had to be plugged into the wall. Essentially rendering the case more of a docking station. This proved to be quite useless since I travel often and take the hearing aids on the go.
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The design of the case does not enclose the hearing aids, and the hearing aids are not magnetized to the case. This makes it so the hearing aids constantly fall out of the case.
I aimed to remedy both of these problems by designing a PCB that would provide regulated 5V output from a 3.7V Lithium Polymer battery, as well as allow the user to charge the battery via a standard micro USB cable. This PCB was designed to plug directly into the micro USB port of the PCB that was already included in the case.
The case was completely redesigned to accomodate the new PCB and its various features, including an RGB LED indicator and an ON/OFF switch.
