As part of our new Impact Interview Series for 2026, we are kicking off the year by hearing from EarSwitch, our Global Good Pitch Session Winner at the Manchester Health Series that took place on 3rd December 2026:
Can you introduce yourself and tell us about your role?
I’m the Founder and CEO of EarSwitch. My background is as an NHS doctor, with 30 years of experience; initially working in hospitals and then as a GP (primary care physician) in Somerset for the last 21 years. I founded and bootstrapped EarSwitch from 2018 and left clinical practice to work full-time on EarSwitch in 2021.
How did your company come about, and what was the motivation behind it?
EarSwitch started because I felt the need to help people with motor neurone disease (MND/ALS) communicate after visiting a hospice in Birmingham when I was a medical student. The concept of a switch in earbuds, and hence “EarSwitch” was born over 30 years ago, but I only managed to prove the concept in 2018, after being spurred on by a children’s documentary about a 13-year-old Jonathan Bryan.
Jonathan had been born with severe cerebral palsy after his mother was involved in a severe car accident while pregnant with him. Despite not being able to speak or control his movements, Jonathan’s mother taught him to read and spell by watching which letters he was looking at, with letters stuck to a Perspex “spelling board”. I felt that there “had to be a better way” and so re-looked at EarSwitch… over the previous 3 decades, since the original concept, the technology had miniaturised and become easily available through mobile phone advancements.
The EarSwitch looks like an essentially normal audio earbud, and is operated by squeezing a muscle in your ear; the tensor tympani …. One of the smallest muscles in your body is located on the inside of your eardrum, deep within your ear. The EarSwitch is used to control “on-screen” keyboards – in a similar way to Professor Stephen Hawking controlled keyboards with the twitch of a cheek muscle (and a switch attached to his glasses).
In developing the EarSwitch, I also discovered that inside the ear is an ideal (and we think the only) site to measure accurate medical readings. It was at this time, during the COVID-19 pandemic, that it became clear that the finger-tip oxygen probe (the pulse oximeter) is often inaccurate for people with brown or black skin. The pulse oximeter was used globally to decide if someone was ill enough from COVID-19 to need hospital admission, oxygen, anti-virals and ICU admission. Many believe that the higher death rate due to COVID-19 in some racial groups was due to false reassurance given by pulse oximeters that were inaccurate for people with brown or black skin. The inner ear canal is the same colour for everyone, promising to be an ideal site to measure oxygen levels, unaffected by skin colour. It is also widely known in medicine that the best site to measure most readings (vital signs) is nearer the heart or brain (as this reflects the blood supply to the essential organs). This is why the most accurate temperature is taken from the ear rather than the finger or under the arm.
EarMetrics is therefore aiming to provide all vital signs – more accurately (and for all irrespective of skin colour) from the ear — for dedicated medical devices in healthcare environments and at home, and also from wearables (your audio earbuds or hearing aids). EarSwitch has therefore two broad aims: to help communication for those most in need and improve medical monitoring for all.
Can you describe your company’s mission and values?
EarSwitch was developed out of the need to help people communicate. It has expanded to resolve the racial inequity of pulse oximeters and to improve the safety for all… by providing more accurate medical devices.
In doing this, EarSwitch also unlocks the potential for improved health and care … by building your health data (digital twin) whenever you wear your audio earbuds to listen to music or talk on the phone (or hearing aids). We are therefore driven by impact and care; accessibility, accuracy, safety, equality and the vision for precision medicine and diagnostics based on digital twin data.
What are some of the most pressing social issues that your company is working to address through its technology?
People with motor neurone disease often lose the ability to communicate towards the end of their lives, just at the stage when communication between loved ones and carers is paramount for support and symptom control. This needs resolving urgently. Some people are unable to communicate due to severe cerebral palsy and are “locked-in” throughout their lives. Jonathan Bryan and his mother, Chantal, showed that we need to help unlock this potential… giving everyone the right to communicate and take part in society.
Everyone deserves safe health care based on accurate medical devices. The accuracy of medical devices needs to be improved for all to improve patient safety and avoid harm due to decisions based on inaccurate readings, and this improvement needs to be equitable for all; working for everyone, irrespective of skin colour.
How does your company measure the impact of its work in creating positive change?
Our impact in improving communication has been frustratingly slow. Since I proved the concept for the Communication EarSwitch in 2018, very sadly, Jonathan Bryan died age of 19 whilst studying an English Literature degree at Bath Spa University. Sadly in this time, approximately 10,000 people in the UK will have died of MND, many with communication problems at the end of their lives.
The Communication EarSwitch is considered a regulated medical device because it “replaces function lost through disease”, and so its development has required painfully slow development and validation. However, with NIHR funding over 3 projects, we have completed clinical studies in 2025, and are now looking for funding and manufacturers to get the Communication EarSwitch registered as a Class I medical device and to those who need it.
Our impact from EarMetrics will be measured when we have shown the industry that there is a more accurate way of measuring oxygen levels from the ear, that works for everyone (irrespective of skin colour). The impact will be realised when medical device manufacturers pivot to the ear and the gold standard site for oximetry.
In your opinion, what impact will your technology have in creating a better future?
We aim to help more people to communicate throughout their lives (for people with cerebral palsy), to unlock people with Locked-in syndrome due to strokes, and for people with MND.
We expect EarMetrics to increase safety and accuracy of medical diagnosis and treatment, while helping the shift of care from hospital to home, analogue to digital and treatment to prevention (the “3 shifts” from the NHS 10-year plan). We expect this to become the global gold standard of care and resolve a significant global health inequity.
EarMetrics in earphones and hearing aids will provide the reliable longitudinal (real-world) data which is required for accurate and reliable AI/machine learning insights for precision medicine and predictive health, keeping people healthier and avoiding illness.
What advice do you have for other companies looking to use tech for good and positively impact the world?
For me, it’s all about having a realistic but passionate belief in the impact you wish to achieve and then relentlessly pursuing solutions. Don’t focus on how long it will take or for the climb to the summit .. just focus on one step at a time (but keeping your eyes open for the pitfalls and the pivots).
For more information about EarSwitch, visit the website here
