Bluetooth Earmuffs

[Technic_569]

Hey GJ!

I realize that I haven’t been the most active member on the forum and it probably looks a bit odd that I have been a member for 5 years and have only made a handful of posts. I have been more of a lurker over that time period, but never the less GJ competes with Craigslist for my most frequently visited sites!

Some Background:

During my summers I mainly work with landscaping, hardscaping and metal fabrication. All have the potential to be extremely noisy at times. I work alone a lot of the time so tunes are always a good thing and make the day pass by quicker and is a hell of a lot nicer than listening to the drone of the equipment all the time.

I’m sure you all have done the old earbuds under the earmuffs bit, but that &*$^%@ cord always seems to find its way to wrap itself around anything and everything! I have used the 3M worktunes, which are fantastic for radio, but the auxiliary input kind of blows. There is still the problem with that cord. So if you are looking to listen to music from your Ipod your kind of SOL. There is nothing really out there that allows you to wirelessly listen to music and still get hearing protection.

Yes, there are Bluetooth headsets out there that claim to be noise canceling, but that’s still not hearing protection.

So the big question arises: Why hasn’t someone combined a Bluetooth headset, good speakers, and a decent set of ear muffs and mashed them together? I want something that sounds decent, won’t get cords wrapped around things and yank earbuds from your cranium, and provide enough sound deadening so that way I won’t go deaf by 40.

Now to the real meat of the post:

I came up with a prototype of what I was describing above. I grabbed a set of 3M earmuffs and stuffed a Bluetooth headset in the lobes hooked up to two halfway decent speakers. I wired it up to two push buttons to be able to turn the headset on and play and pause the music. It has a built in rechargeable battery that gets about 5 or so hours of being on before it needs to be rejuiced. The charger hooks up to a standard USB plug so it is easy to recharge.

Everything is going great at this point and the prototype works fairly well. But I have kind of plateaued on where to go with it. I feel like it is a neat idea that has potential to be something that people would want to buy.
Is this something that you guys would have an interest in if it was to be developed along a little further? I’m thinking along the lines of making it water resistant and a longer battery life to just name two things.

I have been around this forum for quite a while and I know that you guys generally don’t take well to people with low post counts talking about selling and marketing things here. I am more looking to gauge interest at this point.

So what are your thoughts? Is it a marketable idea?

 

[cjn1014]

selling these informally, or planning on going official? i guess the real expense is certification with the added hardware.

lawn guys would love them.

 

[Technic_569]

I was thinking that it would fall right in place with lawn guys.

I don't quite know yet how formal i would go, if at all. What kind of certifications are you talking about here? I'm kind of lost as far as legality wise with this sort of thing.

 

[jdm5]

There is definitely a market for this - I do have http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00DHVXBEQ/?tag=atomicindus08-20 (I didn't pay that much though) which work great!

 

[cjn1014]

I was thinking that it would fall right in place with lawn guys.

I don't quite know yet how formal i would go, if at all. What kind of certifications are you talking about here? I'm kind of lost as far as legality wise with this sort of thing.

ANSI/OSHA/New World Order sort of certification. If not, you definately have a great price point range to work in, judging by the competition. Drown out engine noise + Pink Floyd Echoes at Max Volume-Cords=Success.

 

[LonewolfZ]

Glad to see someone is taking this up. I recently ordered a set of LG Tone Plus headphones because of the problems I had with standard headphones while doing yard work.

Would be nice to see some that were over ear with solid noise canceling at a reasonable price.

 

[metalhead140]

Seems like a good idea, but in terms of selling it I think that if it's popular there would quickly be a lot of cheap mass produced copies on the market. Not an idea I'd expect to be copyrightable, and easily duplicated. It's a good idea though!

 

[RoscoTom]

I agree on the importance of taking away machine drone.

There were jobs I couldn't have taken if I didn't have my homemade phones/radio.

The cords were a pain I found I could deal with.

Some of my pals have motorcycle oriented systems with BlueTooth, custom molded ear-plug/with built in speakers, all comfortable with a helmet.
I'd think it would work/fit under ear muffs.

Lawn guys might not like spending a couple week's pay on that type of set-up.

Tom

 

[Technic_569]

I agree with you Metalhead, I don't think their is anything copyrightable about this idea. I'm taking all previously made components and just combining them. Not really anything particularly special, just they don't cost an unbelievable amount like the Bluetooth tactical/aviation systems that jdm5 is referring to.

JDM5 - Out of curiosity, how is the sound quality on that pair that you linked to? I, like most people don't have the means to drop 500 bones on a set...

My biggest issue right now is sound quality. Their is defiantly a quality difference between cords and Bluetooth. I think that mainly has to do with the compression that has to happen when using the Bluetooth data stream. Either that or the speakers I'm using are not up to par, but i think that is less of the case.

As of right now i have about 70 bucks in materials in the prototype, so as far as beating the 500 dollar competition i have quite a margin to work with.