Joseph Lazarevich Poliakoff (Russian: Ио́сиф Ла́заревич Поляко́в; 24 April 1873 – 24 November 1959) was a Ukrainian-born British telephone and sound engineer and inventor, particularly of hearing aids.

[3] Poliakoff was a Ukrainian who experienced first-hand the communist revolution in Russia from the family's Moscow flat across from the Kremlin.

[5][6] Poliakoff was a renowned inventor of electrical devices[7] whose many inventions included a selenium photograph telephony shutter in 1899 (US patent 700,083, 13 May 1902),[8][9] which, along with electrical sound amplification, allowed for synchronized audio on film, the radio volume control, a magnetic induction loop that allowed hearing-impaired people to hear in auditoriums or theatres,[10][11] and the paging beeper.

[12] He also founded the Multitone Electric Company of London, England in 1931 that produced hearing aid devices,[13] with their most prestigious client being Winston Churchill.

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