From Hearing to Feeling:Unlocking Through-Skin Acoustic Sensing on Smartphones

Links to Files

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3793236.3793238

Permanent Link

https://doi.org/10.1145/3793236.3793238
 http://hdl.handle.net/11603/41890

Collections

UMBC Faculty Collection
UMBC Computer Science and Electrical Engineering Department

Author/Creator

Author/Creator ORCID

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3144-5104

Date

2026-01-20

Type of Work

journal articles
Text

Department

Program

Citation of Original Publication

Li, Dong. "From Hearing to Feeling:Unlocking Through-Skin Acoustic Sensing on Smartphones". GetMobile: Mobile Comp. and Comm. 29, no. 4 (2026): 5–10. https://doi.org/10.1145/3793236.3793238.

Rights

This item is likely protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Unless on a Creative Commons license, for uses protected by Copyright Law, contact the copyright holder or the author.

Subjects

Abstract

Sound has connected people across distance for centuries, carrying voices, music, and emotion through the air. In the digital age, it connects people with their smartphones, bridging human communication and computational sensing. Today, smartphones use sound not only to transmit information but also to sense their surroundings. For example, voice assistants respond to spoken commands [10, 19, 21], while acoustic sensing techniques enable smartphones to detect hand gestures [1, 27], finger movements [13, 14], and even subtle physiological and behavioral signals such as respiration [3, 15], eye blinks [4, 16], and heartbeats [20, 26]. Together, these capabilities have transformed sound into a versatile sensing modality that allows smartphones to perceive and interpret the physical world.