

World's first earbuds you will Never have to take off to listen to someone... - masshysteria
http://www.quirky.com/ideations/263928

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pedalpete
Though I like the idea, I think this is a bit of over engineering.

How will the earphone decide what the outside sounds to adjust too? Does it
need a microphone? Why not just design the earplug so that it allows outside
noise in when appropriate (ignoring the fact that we don't know how to tell
which of those noises is appropriate).

If you're going to pursue this, and have figured out how to define which
noises to let in and which not to, might I suggest that you use the microphone
for noise cancelling? Then you ignore the noise cancelling when you want to
let in outside sounds and turn off the playing sound.

Part of the problem as I see it is that we play our music so loud because we
are trying to block out outside sounds. This is the beauty of noise
cancelling, everything sounds louder because you aren't trying to overpower
the outside sounds.

