Developed by CuteCircuit, the innovative shirt uses advanced haptic technology to translate stadium sounds into immersive physical sensations.
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00:00So, we originally designed SoundShirt as a version of something called HugShirt, which
00:29allows you to send hugs to anyone, anywhere in the world.
00:33And after a few years, we got some requests from concert venues where they had said, we
00:39have some people that have deaf friends and they'd like to bring their friends, do you
00:42think that they could use the HugShirt to feel the music?
00:45And we thought, yeah, that sounds really possible, but we just need to do some software revisions.
00:50This was the launching of the SoundShirt for the enjoyment of music.
00:54And then we got a contact from Newcastle and CELA about a year ago, and they were asking,
01:00is there a way that we could also make the atmosphere of the stadium become more engaging
01:05for our deaf fans?
01:06And we thought, this is a perfect application of SoundShirt because it doesn't have to be
01:10applied just to music.
01:11It can be applied to anything like games or cinema, or as we see, sports events.
01:18Wherever there is fabric, you have sensation.
01:21We're literally mapping the whole stadium onto the shirt.
01:24Anything that's happening on the south side of the stadium, you feel it on the right-hand
01:28side, and anything on the north side of the stadium, you feel it on the left-hand side.
01:31So you can actually tell where activity is happening within the stadium just on what
01:35you're feeling in the shirt.
01:40We have some amazing feedback from all the children who tried it on the first game on
01:45April 13th, and their feedback was just amazing.
01:48And one of the things that they usually say is that they feel connected.
01:52And some of these children, they say, oh, this changed my life.
01:56I feel like I am part of the team.
01:59I am part of all the other fans, and we are just one.