An account in one of yesterday's UK newspapers, reporting the death of an 11-year old school girl who failed to hear an approaching truck due to the stereo ear-phones she wore while crossing a busy street, got me wondering about the feasibility of designing noise-sensitive headphones or stereo ear-plugs that would automatically fall silent if an adjustable theshold of ambient noise is detected.
There are apparently quite a few kids every year that do get run over crossing the street, on account of being immersed in their own world of music, via a blasting pair of ear-plugs, despite all the well-intended manufacturers' warnings that such ear-plugs should never be worn while crossing the street.
With that common youthful disregard of safety warnings in mind, it occurred to me that there might be a sizeable global market for a purpose-built noise-sensing headphone adapter plug that would instantly mute music inputs to the headphones in situations where traffic noise is detected in close enough proximity to endanger the music-loving kid or adult, enabling the headphone wearer to hear the approaching traffic in time to react and avoid getting hit.
How difficult would it be to create such a noise-sensing headphone mute circuit, either packaged small and light enough enough to be inserted between the headphones and ipod-style music storage device, or sold as a stand-alone pair of "safety" headphones ?
Any advice on whether this idea could fly, and how challenging it might be to miniaturize such a device, would be much appreciated.
Thanks in advance.
There are apparently quite a few kids every year that do get run over crossing the street, on account of being immersed in their own world of music, via a blasting pair of ear-plugs, despite all the well-intended manufacturers' warnings that such ear-plugs should never be worn while crossing the street.
With that common youthful disregard of safety warnings in mind, it occurred to me that there might be a sizeable global market for a purpose-built noise-sensing headphone adapter plug that would instantly mute music inputs to the headphones in situations where traffic noise is detected in close enough proximity to endanger the music-loving kid or adult, enabling the headphone wearer to hear the approaching traffic in time to react and avoid getting hit.
How difficult would it be to create such a noise-sensing headphone mute circuit, either packaged small and light enough enough to be inserted between the headphones and ipod-style music storage device, or sold as a stand-alone pair of "safety" headphones ?
Any advice on whether this idea could fly, and how challenging it might be to miniaturize such a device, would be much appreciated.
Thanks in advance.