With masks becoming a part of our daily lives due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a former Regina resident is developing a product that could aid those individuals who have developed difficulties with communication due to masks.

Brian Kendall is currently developing  VoiceViewer, a mask with a LED screen built-in, that uses speech to text via Bluetooth to the mask’s screen.

The idea of VoiceViewer came to Kendall with the increased usage of masks caused by the pandemic and the difficulties that some individuals may have with communication. “To come up with the idea was just basically there’s got to be a way for people to communicate especially if you rely on lip-reading, you’re cut right off with society here it must feel like.”

Kendall added that he noticed that his father who lived in a care home in Saskatoon as he suffers from dementia, really gravitated towards the words that were displayed on his t-shirts when he came for visits.

Along with masks, Kendall is looking to create hats with LED screens

For more information on the VoiceViewer, Kendall says a Kickstarter campaign is being launched for anyone that is interested.