Introducing Nora: Sound Alerts Built by a Deaf Handler, for the Deaf Community

If you've been following BritCrafts US, you know that everything I create comes from lived experience. My service dog stickers exist because I needed one myself. My Deaf awareness products exist because I live it every day. And now, that same drive has led me to build something bigger — an iOS app called Nora.

Nora is a sound alert app designed specifically for Deaf and hard-of-hearing users. It uses your iPhone's microphone and Apple's on-device sound classification technology to listen to the world around you and alert you when important sounds are detected — all without recording or storing any audio. Privacy first, always.

Why I Built Nora

As someone who is Deaf and wears hearing aids, I know what it's like to miss sounds that hearing people take for granted. A smoke alarm going off in another room. A doorbell ringing while you're not wearing your aids. A dog barking to be let out. These are sounds that matter — and missing them can range from inconvenient to genuinely dangerous.

Existing solutions like flashing light systems and vibrating alerters are helpful, but they're expensive, tied to specific locations, and can't travel with you. I wanted something that was always with me — something that used the device already in my pocket. That's how Nora was born.

How Nora Works

Nora runs on your iPhone and uses Apple's built-in sound classification to identify sounds in your environment in real time. When it detects a sound you care about, it sends you a visual and haptic alert so you know what's happening around you.

All sound processing happens on your device — nothing is sent to the cloud, nothing is recorded, and nothing is stored. This was a non-negotiable for me. Your privacy matters more than any feature.

Built by Someone Who Gets It

A lot of accessibility tools are built by hearing people guessing at what Deaf people need. Nora is different. It was built by a Deaf person who uses hearing aids daily, who handles a hearing service dog, and who understands the real-world gaps that technology can fill.

I designed Nora to solve problems I actually face — not theoretical ones. That's the same philosophy behind every BritCrafts product. If I wouldn't use it myself, I wouldn't make it.

Nora and BritCrafts: The Connection

You might wonder what a sound alert app has to do with a sticker shop. The answer is: everything. Both exist because I saw a gap and decided to fill it. BritCrafts started because I couldn't find a service dog sticker I liked. Nora started because I wanted a smarter way to stay aware of sounds around me. Both are built from the same place — lived experience, practical design, and a refusal to settle for "good enough."

Together, they represent two sides of the same mission: making life better, safer, and more visible for the Deaf and hard-of-hearing community.

What's Next for Nora

Nora is just getting started. Future updates will include personalized phrase recognition — training Nora to recognize specific phrases like your name being called or "dinner's ready" — and eventually voice identification so it can tell you who is speaking, not just what sound is being made. The goal is to give Deaf and hard-of-hearing users the most complete picture of their sound environment possible.

If you're Deaf, hard of hearing, or know someone who is, give Nora a try. And if you want to support the mission, check out our Deaf awareness stickers and patches on Etsy.

Nora is developed by Emma Taylor at Persist Solutions. Learn more at norahears.com.