
SoundBrake 2.0 device makes headphone users less oblivious - sharieskenas
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/914595512/soundbrake-20-the-awareness-device-for-headphones
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slang800
Cool concept, but why isn't it an app? Couldn't you use the mic on my phone to
listen for volume spikes, or even fine-tuned sound patterns?

Surely a modern phone CPU can do audio processing a great deal faster than a
common microcontroller. Plus it would be far easier to keep the phone charged
than to worry about a second device running out of battery.

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smt88
I agree that an app has better ergonomics, but I believe it would murder the
phone's battery life. Better to run out of battery on a third-party device
than your phone.

Plus, a separate device allows you to use it with your laptop or your phone.

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slang800
> murder the phone's battery life

I don't think that kind of audio processing would be an issue for battery
life. They're able to do everything on a coin-sized battery in their system.
From their prototype pics, they're using this:
[https://www.adafruit.com/product/1572](https://www.adafruit.com/product/1572)

That's a 120mAh coin cell that they say lasts for 50 hours. They might be
using something different in their final product, but we can safely assume
that their algorithm isn't super power-hungry and running a small mic isn't
going to do anything to your 3000-something mAh phone battery.

Obviously implementing this is a higher-level language like Java is going to
incur some overhead, when compared to their microcontroller implementation...
But the point is, they're not doing some advanced pattern matching on a
database of sounds or anything that's going to use crazy amounts of CPU-time.

> Better to run out of battery on a third-party device than your phone.

I disagree on that - it's really easy to remember to charge my phone. I do it
every single night. Other devices that I don't use for days at a time are easy
to forget about.

> a separate device allows you to use it with your laptop or your phone.

True - it would need to be ported to work on those platforms.

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smt88
This is a cool idea. When posting your own projects on HN, it's better if you
prefix with "Show HN:" so that it's clear to us that you're advertising
something, rather than a random person endorsing a product you like.

~~~
sharieskenas
Thanks smt88!

