Yeuk Nam Nolan Liu¹ and Tyler Boulom², ¹USA, ²Woodbury University, USA

Many non-verbal individuals depend on symbol-based communication, yet AAC devices are frequently abandoned because they are bulky, conspicuous, or hard to reconfigure. Cue Clear addresses this with a wearable display that cycles through caregiver-curated communication symbols, controlled by a companion smartphone app. The system pairs a CircuitPython microcontroller driving an ILI9341 LCD hosting a non-blocking HTTP server over a Wi-Fi access point with a cross-platform Flutter application that builds symbol profiles and activates them on the device [3]. Key challenges included reliable communication with a resource-constrained device, responsive image browsing, and an accessible caregiver interface; these were met with a non-blocking embedded server, a read-through image cache, and a large-target, confirmation-guarded UI. In testing, caching cut image load latency about 27-fold to 43 ms, and index-only profile activation stayed near 215 ms regardless of profile size. By directly targeting known causes of AAC abandonment, Cue Clear offers a sustainable, low friction communication aid.

Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC), Picture Exchange Communication System (PECS), Circuit Python, Flutter, SoftAP HTTP server.