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Mercedes-Benz pre-safe sound
- azinman2 7y agoThat’s pretty cool. Something non-obvious when we think about engineering vehicle safety. Of course it only matters if you make it out ok :)
- Havoc 7y agoGiven that manufacturers are thinking seriously about reducing road death to zero (well in survivable speed scenarios) [1] I guess looking at secondary effects is the next step [1]https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/287046-why-volvos-capping-top-speed-at-112-mph-the-elusive-quest-for-zero-deaths https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/287046-why-volvos-cappin...
- taylorlapeyre 7y agoI lost most of my hearing in my left ear in a head-on collision with a drunk driver. No other injuries. The audiologist said that my eardrum was in the kind of state you usually only see in battlefields from exposure to large explosions. People are always surprised when I tell them this was my only injury, and as a result I've always wondered how common this type of injury is with vehicle collisions. This is the first thing I've seen which makes me believe that it's a lot more common than people suspect. Very cool! I hope this is taken up by other brands as well.
- ChickeNES 7y agoThere was a blogpost I read a few years back written by someone who damaged their hearing after dropping a porcelain toilet lid. They actually ran some back-of-the-envelope calculations to estimate the decibel level, I recall it being shockingly high.
- gouggoug 7y agoI've hurt my ears at more than one occasion because of this. It's surprising how loud a porcelain lid can be. Here's the post you're referring to: https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/979583605637877760.html https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/979583605637877760.html The TL;DR is that from his calculation the lid dropping could generate noise at 138 dB, and hearing loss happens at around 140 dB.
- coke12 7y agoThere was a pretty good HN comment thread about it: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16723099 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16723099 From the linked thread: """ 5. The stupid toilet bowl lid only fell about 8 inches. How could it damage my hearing so badly? I looked up the speed of sound in ceramic, divided by the length of the toilet bowl lid (and divided by 2 since the fundamental vibration is a half wavelength). This predicts 3.5 kHz. 6. This frequency is in the audible range. Using the short dimension of the toilet bowl predicts another (higher) frequency. The toilet bowl lid probably resonated at both those frequencies and their harmonics, putting all the energy into just those specific wavelengths. 7. The toilet bowl lid was not chipped or damaged, so the impact energy went mainly into sound (& internal heat) Maybe like half the impact energy went into sound energy. This lid was concave up like an antenna, near my face when it hit, focusing the energy into my face. 8. The energy travels into your inner ear and the cochlea. The pressure wave is strongest at some distance down the cochlea depending on frequency. Since the toilet bowl lid put all the energy into SPECIFIC FREQUENCIES, it was concentrated onto specific spots in the cochlea. 9. Apparently, this concentration of energy was enough to damage the hairs -- to bend them over like trampled grass -- and I was concerned it could be permanent. My hearing was only slightly better the next morning. It was like everybody was still talking at me through kazoos. """ Fascinating. Be careful around dropping shatter-proof ceramics, I suppose!
- Cerium 7y agoBe careful dropping glass bottles into recycling bins too; they pose nearly the same problem - they don't usually shatter and the sound escapes the bin upwards towards you.
- skeletonjelly 7y agoWish I knew this back when I worked in bars, emptying big bins of glass into the outdoor bins. Learnt quickly to look up when I did it.
- QuixoticQuibit 7y agoHow would looking up help, though? Unless I’m misunderstanding, the sound would still be coming up straight towards your face/ears.
- chongli 7y agoPorcelain toilet lids and the metal plates on weightlifting machines are among the most dangerous common objects when it comes to hearing damage. I've heard of cases where the plates on the machine were stuck together with grease and the user had selected a much lighter weight than usual. A number of plates below the linchpin were all the way up by the bonds of the grease before slipping and falling back down. The metal on metal impact rings out like a bell, right next to the user's head (in the case of bench press). Really nasty!
- zaroth 7y agoAnother good reason to barbell bench and skip the machine!
- i_am_nomad 7y agoOr dumbbell bench with those heavily rubberized weights. Dropping them is about as close to silent as you can get, and the exercises are the ultimate in form-focused weight training.
- vorpalhex 7y ago> heavily rubberized weights They're called bumper plates! They're so you can drop a loaded bar without causing everyone to glare at you - and also to help avoid the plates bouncing onto your foot. But you shouldn't need these on the bench. If you bench without a spotter and get stuck, move the weights to your hip and then sit up and shift them slowly to the floor like you're finishing a deadlift. (I've always called this the 'strongman escape' but it has no formal name afaik)
- zaroth 7y agoHaha, I’ve always heard it called the “roll of shame”. The bumper plates are also round, which makes it easier to get a deadlift into position, and makes it land better when doing reps. The first 45 is a bumper plate, then add regular plates from there. Resist the urge to bounce off the bottom of the rep! :-)
- jesusthatsgreat 7y agoWhat makes it worse is that quite a few toilet lids are self closing / soft closing these days. So if you get used to it, you start trusting the lid to close itself and take your hand from underneath the lid while it's still at a height. So it's easy to slam the lid down accidentally.
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoI would just like to point out that people have been hitting all sorts of things with other things for millennia and the only people getting hearing damage from it were the ones doing it particularly loudly for decades as their day job (i.e. people in loud factories). This is below the level of terrorist attacks and shark bites in Kansas on the things to worry about list.
- londons_explore 7y agoOr... Those are the only ones officially reporting it so they can get workplace compensation... If I dropped my toilet lid, I probably wouldn't officially report it anywhere - not much can be done, after all.
- Swizec 7y agoAren’t airbags essentially explosions going off in your face? Fancy car like mercedes probably has 10+ of them going off around you Especially the one in the door right next to your head could be bad for your ears I imagine ... Never thought of that before. Thanks for bringing it up
- kuzimoto 7y agoI've had my front airbags go off twice and didn't notice any impact on my hearing. It was just kind of a loud bang, but not to the point of causing discomfort. Maybe it varies by car and type of accident though.
- danellis 7y agoExploding into a bag, though, so isn't most of the energy absorbed by the expansion of the bag?
- skgoa 7y agoYes, but people regularly get burns and light blunt trauma from airbags. The US versions of many cars even have slightly weaker airbags, because many people don't wear seatbelts and might be killed by a full-strength airbag.
- technothrasher 7y agoYou've actually got it backward. FVMSS regulations in the US require airbags that are more forceful than the UNECE regulations in place in Europe (and other countries which follow Europe instead of the US). You're correct it is about seatbelt use, though. No seatbelt requires a faster airbag to restrain the occupant.
- shoo_pl 7y agoIn modern cars the airbag will not fire if the seatbelt is not used. This is the reason why we even have seat belt detectors that make this annoying noise - not just to annoy you but also to figure out whether its safe to fire airbag or not. Getting hit with airbag into the face when wearing eye glasses for example... that would suck, would it not?
- TheSpiceIsLife 7y agoI’ve taken up wearing earplugs while driving. I also work in a noisy environment, and it occurs to me that the road and engine and wind noise is probably loud enough to have a negative impact on hearing over time. Less so in newer cars, but both mine are over 10yo. Also, in the event of a collision I’m protected.
- whenchamenia 7y agoAt least in most of the usa, wearing earplugs (or earbuds, headphones, etc) while operating a car, is illegal. Please check with your local PD to be safe. You may just be putting yourself and others at higher risk by attinuating your situational awareness.
- phinnaeus 7y agoOn a motorcycle, earplugs are a necessity at speeds over 35 MPH due to wind noise. I've found that the earplugs really only cut out the wind noise for the most part though and if anything, my awareness of other cars is increased.
- epalm 7y agoI wear earplugs when I ride my motorcycle for longer trips on the highway. When people see this, they say "that's dangerous, you'll hear less" but it mostly cuts the wind noise, and counter-intuitively I end up hearing more than I would otherwise.
- Baeocystin 7y agoThey make flat-frequency-response earplugs, too. They don't cost much more, and you get to keep the highs that provide context while still reducing the overall sound intensity. I love them for both motorcycle rides and concerts. You'll find several hits if you search for Musician's Earplugs.
- distances 7y agoI have some hearing damage with mild tinnitus and find it hard to follow discussions in noisy environments (bars, very noisy public transport, even some restaurants). Custom fitted flat frequency earplugs are the perfect help for these situations, I always carry them in pocket just in case.
- moby_click 7y agoI've had both front airbags deployed in a compact car with closed windows. Impaired hearing on the right ear (left-hand drive car) was the only damage I took.
- jedberg 7y agoThe Mercedes is known for being more expensive than most, but in most cases, it's worth it, not only for the luxury, but for the extreme attention to detail they put into safety. For example, when you get into one, it will adjust the tension of the seatbelt automatically to be ideal for each passenger. And of course this pink noise. And a ton of other little things that cost extra that most people will never notice. There's a reason the Mercedes is always at or near the top of any vehicle safety list.
- ncmncm 7y agoBut Tesla! What, crash tests don't check for hearing damage?!
- PaulHoule 7y agoFunny I was in a rollover in a Honda Fit and did not experience any injury or even pain. Some pyrotechnic device fired to tension the seatbelt but I only knew because I could smell it. I found myself hanging upside quite securely with my brain processing the strange sensation in being a place that was both highly familiar (my car) but entirely strange (being upside down.) I looked and saw that the back window had broken so I'd have an easy way to get out; I had time to plan my moves, then released the seatbelt and went out the back. All modern cars meet very high standards for safety and these are improving all the time.
- Swizec 7y agoModern cars are very safe. But luxury cars had pre-tensioners in the 80’s already. What do they have now that the rest of us will get in 2050?
- WrtCdEvrydy 7y agoStarting in 2019, you get backup cameras... Luxury brands can actually stop you from going into a lane when a vehicle is there or minimizing the damage if you push it. Kinda like Tesla Autopilot but only when you're about to do something stupid.
- CaliforniaKarl 7y agoI think this should be marked [2015], as the video included on the site was uploaded in 2015. But still, this is really cool! I also didn't know that the ear has a "self-defense" mechanism against loud noise. I wonder how that mechanism interacts with things like headphone audio being played at high volumes. Does the mechanism eventually wear out? How does that affect people who do sound effects/mixing/mastering for a living?
- arkades 7y agoThe mechanism is specifically: a muscle (stapedius) attached to one of the bones of the inner ear (stapes) pulls it away, effectively breaking the sound conduction pathway. This mechanism does not wear out. It can, however, be disrupted by damage to the muscle in question, or to the nerve innervating that muscle, or the portion of brain controlling that nerve. However, you can still conduct sound without the stapes in place. It’s less effective - that’s why the bones of the inner ear are there at all - but in loud settings, and certainly in conditions where you can conduct sound effectively to the bones of the skull (eg, headphones), you can still pass enough sound to the cochlea to damage your hair cells.
- outworlder 7y ago> Does the mechanism eventually wear out? I hope not, because I have been able to control the muscle voluntarily and it is still works after almost four decades. It doesn't go off by itself all the time though. It's more for sudden loud noise, I don't think it works at all for sustained loud noises.
- MrEldritch 7y ago>I hope not, because I have been able to control the muscle voluntarily and it is still works after almost four decades. Oh, is that how the brain rumblies thingy works? Huh, I never realized most people couldn't do that.
- tmacro 7y agoI realized it was rare, but I've never been able to explain what I'm doing to other people. Now I finally know!
- trilila 7y ago“Mercedes-Benz is constantly at the forefront of automotive safety technologies” - not really. Rear wheel drive, which is common in mb and bmw cars are a real danger in winter. Volvo claims, and seems to be, a safer and more at the forefront of safe driving choice.
- Ididntdothis 7y agoI much prefer rear wheel and feel safer with it. But I’d agree it takes a little more practice to drive one.
- BrentOzar 7y ago> Rear wheel drive, which is common in mb and bmw cars are a real danger in winter. It's up to the consumer: if you want a safe winter car, both BMW and MB will sell you an all-wheel-drive vehicle. If you want to spend less, save weight, and have an enjoyable oversteer experience, they'll sell you a rear-wheel-drive vehicle.
- snorrah 7y agoModern day traction control systems have taken the majority of danger from power oversteer out of cars. But then the only advantage you get in winter driving comes from fitting tyres (or tyre chains) appropriate to the conditions.
- PaulHoule 7y agoI prefer front wheel drive but I was impressed with how a RWD Buick with traction control handled in the winter.
- gavia1 7y agoHuge disclaimer required here. FR (front-engine, rear whe drive) cars do have less traction in snow because there is less weight over the rear wheels. This is correct. But there is nothing unsafe about FR. It has been around since the dawn of the automobile and continues to be the layout of choice outside of econoboxes and mid-engine sports cars. Mercedes-Benz also manufacture front wheel drive cars too, so feel free to purchase those instead.
- ascar 7y agoWhy not link to the source directly at Mercedes [1]? The website has only added marketing to the information available in the video from the original site. I honestly thought this is satire until I saw it from the source, but this is actually pretty cool. [1] https://www.mercedes-benz.com/en/next/connectivity/pre-safe-sound-playing-pink-noise-in-the-split-second-before-impact/ https://www.mercedes-benz.com/en/next/connectivity/pre-safe-...
- fastball 7y agoI like the OP better, to be honest. Your link is weirdly formatted on my machine to the point it looks broken. Also I prefer reading text to watching a video.
- modzu 7y agoprevious discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12813633 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12813633
- emptybits 7y ago> "PRE-SAFE® Sound is activated if your vehicle detects that a collision is unavoidable" See also: Peril Sensitive Sunglasses™
- GrifMD 7y agoJoo Janta 200 Super-Chromatic Peril Sensitive Sunglasses
- hindsightbias 7y agoCould this be used by the military to lessen combat injuries?
- jacobsenscott 7y agoI can't wait until there's an app to force this sound on via bluetooth on every benz you drive past on the interstate :)
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- bookofjoe 7y agoListen to it here: https://www.autotrader.com/car-video/video-heres-what-mercedes-benzs-pre-safe-sound-sounds-action-281474979935876 https://www.autotrader.com/car-video/video-heres-what-merced...
- Zenst 7y agoWell, that may of finally explained such musical releases such as https://g.co/kgs/2SgdjX https://g.co/kgs/2SgdjX at least for the budget car enthusiast market.
- raldi 7y agoI wish fire alarms did this for half a second before blasting your tympanic membrane with an ear-splitting noise. Residential ones are bad enough, but the ones in offices are the worst.
- tempestn 7y agoThat's a good idea! I bet if someone were to develop a residential smoke detector that did that it would sell well. (Especially if it had other compelling features like a 10-year battery.)
- raldi 7y agoNest Protect sort of does this.
- koolba 7y agoI’d be happy with one that gives battery alerts at less than maximum volume.
- koolba 7y agoIf a fire alarm manufacturer saw how many upvotes the parent to this comment received, particularly considering how deep in the thread it’s buried, they’d most certainly develop one.
- abfan1127 7y agoFYI - The 9V Lithium batteries last that long. https://www.amazon.com/Energizer-LA522SBP-Lithium-Battery-Detectors/dp/B003VKOEBM https://www.amazon.com/Energizer-LA522SBP-Lithium-Battery-De...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- tempestn 7y agoGood to know! We bought a few with integrated 10-year batteries from Home Depot a few years back, but I didn't realize you could get regular lithium 9Vs that last that long in a smoke detector now.
- hirundo 7y agoI'm guessing an engineer named it the German equivalent of "pre-crash" sound, then someone in marketing decided that "pre-safe" sounds better. It may be better to call it "foreplay" sound, since if you ever hear it you're probably screwed.
- bagacrap 7y agoThe name grates on both my ears and my eyes (due to the awkward shouty capitalization).
- dmix 7y agoDefinitely someone over thinking it. "We don't want them to associate the car with crashing so let's use a generic word that doesn't make any sense without having to read 4 paragraphs on the marketing website". So many startups do this too with product names, they fear whatever name will be too "limiting" and end up with some generic name that doesn't communicate anything at all. Brand names shouldn't be taken so literally either, no one cares that "Vodafone" sells Internet and TV connections, not just cell phones. Or that Salesforce sells a whole bunch of products unrelated to sales. Or Facebook is expanding outside of social networks into AI and VR. But more importantly than the brand/trademark is the product names don't have to be all encompassing of everything the product does (or plans to do in the future). People are smart enough to connect a name to a group of things even if the name is only about one of them. And a negative term like 'pre crash' is far more memorable than 'pre safe'.
- kbutler 7y agoSome technical disciplines use "safe" as a transitive verb meaning "to make it safe", either from damage or from damaging other things. I've seen it most often in rocketry contexts - you "safe the rocket" in an aborted launch scenario so it won't go off accidentally, etc. "It is a good idea to add a safety release valve to your launcher. Sometimes it is important to abort a launch and safe the rocket after it has been pressurised." http://www.aircommandrockets.com/rocket_launcher.htm (Google "safe the rocket" for occasional other examples.) So the PRE-SAFE sound means the sound is to "safe your ears" before the crash, making them safe from damage.
- mrfusion 7y agoIs this why it doesn’t hurt your ears when you holler?
- zmix 7y agoSome of the comments, just like PRE-SAFE SOUND, sound like an April Fool's Joke. But, apparently, it isn't. Very interesting, indeed. I never would have thought, that something like this might be an issue.
- dsjoerg 7y agoI bought a Mercedes because of this tech.
- JshWright 7y agoIt's crazy how fast a car deals with a collision. In the event of an actual crash, the car is _done_ processing the event and deploying all safety measures (airbags, seatbelt pretensioners, etc) before your body even begins to recognize the sensations of impact.
- gmueckl 7y agoNot only that. Modern safety systems distinguish between different types of crashes and compute e.g. the optimal time to deploy the relevant airbags while the crash is happening. Supposedly, some implementations rely on piezo crystals embedded into the car frame to measure how the car is being deformed during the collision.
- noisy_boy 7y agoCouldn't they come up with a more interesting name, say, "nudge-note"?
- hbosch 7y agoI just want to say that this is exactly the type of thoughtfulness, design, engineering and research that justifies the price difference in something like a Mercedes and something like a Honda. There are so many small triumphs like this in class-leading, high-end vehicle manufacturers that go unnoticed and unsung and allow people with 2019 Accords to say things like "why would I pay $45,000 for that when I get better auto-steering for half the price?". Certainly there are subtleties to high end cars like road feel, steering, throttle feedback, and ergonomics that are only apparent to "car people" and thus work the premium versus something that is more "point A to point B". I applaud Mercedes for not only putting the effort into deploying a feature like this, but also for marketing it.
- grogenaut 7y agoThis is super common with Mercedes. They put a lot of whiz bang features into their eclass. Some, Like night vision camera heads up diaplay, don't take off, others trickle down and are or will be everywhere now like side curtain airbags or Lane keeping assist. If you flip it on its head though, why is Mercedes only protecting people who pays 3-10x the price for their car for what in this case is just a software fix? Same with other cars and pre-collision breaking (vs a warning noise). But you do need some features to justify that price tag. One might liken it to how drug companies are charging $1M+ for new treatments and slowly cutting the cost as they walk the economic supply demand curve.
- clktmr 7y ago> [...] just a software fix? They paid for research, marketing, engineering, etc. By that logic one could also argue, that Amazon shouldn't store safety related products in their warehouses, but instead give them away for free.
- kemitchell 7y agoHow about the difference in long-term cost of ownership, serviceability, and overall reliability? It's certainly one kind of car person that wants the latest and greatest nearly all the time. Some like to patronize particular auto makers, like fashionistas patronize fashion houses. It's quite another, equally valid kind of car person to take used examples of far simpler, utterly reliable cars and add suspension, brakes, forced induction, tuning, and so on far beyond what any manufacturer fits on any mass-market vehicle. They patronize component makers, often race- or restoration- oriented. As for the non-enthusiasts, if you plan to lease a vehicle or trade it in every few years like clockwork, the eventual cost of added complexity might never affect you, apart from resale value. But the virtue of combining good mechanical QA with simplicity and serviceability is also much unsung, and cheaper, not more expensive.
- julianwachholz 7y agoMercedes did a small YouTube series on this together with Veritasium. Very interesting material. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82BRWm4SGL8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82BRWm4SGL8
- blauditore 7y agoThis sounds like it's something new, but I thought Mercedes had been doing this for a long time already (read about it some years ago).
- owenversteeg 7y agoAm I the only one who listened to the video and didn't have anything happen with my tensor tympani? I can voluntarily control mine ("ear rumbling") so I know what it would feel /sound like.
- gnicholas 7y agoUnless you played it pretty loud, nothing should happen. What speakers did you play it through, and at what volume?
- owenversteeg 7y agoI played it at max volume on my P30 Pro next to my ears and didn't hear anything... I'll try a more scientific test with an actual loudness measurement later.
- gnicholas 7y agoFYI, the pink noise sample in the video played back at 80 dB on my MBP (2017, 13") when I set the volume to max. I used an iPhone app to test the dB, and when I put the mic about an inch from the speaker, it registered about 80 dB. Back where I was sitting, it was much much lower, and definitely didn't affect my hearing.
- sravfeyn 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_reflex https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acoustic_reflex for people interested in 'stapedius reflex' that the article talks about.
- uasm 7y ago> "https://www.mercedesbenzofnatick.com" https://www.mercedesbenzofnatick.com" That's one long domain name...
- bobowzki 7y agoNow this is innovation! "Simple" and clever!
- aaron695 7y agoProof it works? If there anything other than MB word? If it works, why isn't the military using it. It's an old idea (2015 at least) there should be some data?