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Doorbell for a Hearing-Impaired Person

Doorbell for a Hearing-Impaired Person

Ian Bok
March 21, 2017
15 Comments

Individuals with hearing impairments rely on their sight for a variety of circumstances in which those who can hear simply use their ears. Designed with this in mind, the Light Bell was conceived to inform deaf users when there’s a visitor at the door.
'Light bell' repeats turning on and off the light five times when someone rings a doorbell.
People can notice whether visitors came or not, by looking at the lights.
Now, the hearing-impaired can greet their family coming home from work.



Over 5% of the world’s population 360 million people has disabling hearing loss.
Focusing on hearing-impaired people's way of communication, I've explored various concepts in order to establish the most reasonable mechanism with all potentials of their senses kept open. Basically, the ultimate goal of Light Bell is not to make a new device, but to make door bells naturally permeate into hearing-impaired people's lives. Light Bell found a reasonable middle ground between familiarity and novelty from the minimum transformation and minimum decoration.


What I put the biggest emphasis on, in terms of appearance, was to find a form that can unite the identities of a light bulb and a bell into one. I sketched with a plus pen, modelled by using Rhinoceros, and rendered in Keyshot. The package design work was done by using CAD and Illustrator, and all the finishing touch was done in Photoshop.






One hearing-impaired person actually left a comment, telling that "This is absolutely needed. Thank you so much for your concern for hearing impaired people" and it really impressed me as it would be the greatest compliment to a designer. Disability is not a misfortune, but just a minor inconvenience. I wish to contribute to making the world a brighter place.

Light Bell is an ongoing project for production.
Starting from this first project of mine, I will also keep updating other projects continuously soon. If you are interested, please follow me on Behance.
https://www.behance.net/ianbok

Ian Bok

15 comments on “Doorbell for a Hearing-Impaired Person”

  1. I'm hearing impaired I need to know where I can order doorbell blinking lights or a sensor when someone at my door.

  2. Hello Ian Bok

    it's really great as I heard its from by internet, as I aware of a deaf but to be an where can I buy it in London as which name shop store? would let me know.

  3. As a deaf consumer, the Light Bell is needed to make oir lives easier. My question is, it works off Bluetooth, does the home owner need internet or wifi capabilities of the home? Or perhaps it will work as a cellphone Bluetooth?
    Would people who live in the country where no internet or barely cell service be able to use this?

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