6 ms·

We Can Finally Do Away with the Accursed Beep-Beep of Heavy Machines

44 points by mhb 5y ago

micromacrofoot 5y ago
this can not happen fast enough, I live next to a warehouse and I think i’ll probably still hear the beeping for years after it’s gone
zinekeller 5y ago
Standard notice that this Forbes article is essentially equivalent to a Medium or Substack post (this is more of a criticism at Forbes and its pay-to-post system rather than at the individual writers).
- DonHopkins 5y ago
  Brad Templeton founded Looking Glass Software and ran rec.humor.funny via the Usenet address funny@looking.UUCP, so he was known as the Funny Looking Guy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Templeton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Templeton http://www.anvari.org/shortjoke/Big_Jokes/12870_edited-by-brad-templeton-mail-yes-mail-your-jokes-to-funny-looking.html http://www.anvari.org/shortjoke/Big_Jokes/12870_edited-by-br... >Edited by Brad Templeton. MAIL, yes MAIL your jokes to funny@looking.UUCP Attribute the joke's source if at all possible. I will reply, mailers willing. Topical (current events) jokes should be sent to topical@looking.UUCP
  - zinekeller 5y ago
    As I noted, I'm not criticising the author, but because Forbes has sullied their reputation just to lend their name to nearly anyone. The warning is for someone who's still unaware that Forbes has turned into this and they should probably check who's behind the author and not rely on the Forbes' name to lend credence to the ideas (which unfortunately has published some very, very questionable articles like obvious pump-and-dump schemes). ... which is unfortunate since that there's still a Forbes newsroom (which produce the published magazine editions) which is the only part of Forbes which has actual editorial accountability (and therefore you can lend to Forbes' name).
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - bradtemp 5y ago
      While Forbes does have some articles from paying contributors, these are marked. Articles from "Senior Contributors" involve paying the contributor, not the other way around. So not really like Medium or Substack (Though these do provide some remuneration to those who restrict their articles to paying subscribers, I believe.)
zinekeller 5y ago
Okay, radar detection is trickier than what this writer seems to imply - it is hard to detect a pedestrian on regular cars already so I have doubts that the radar technology, as currently stands, will enhance safety. On the other hand, if the white noise technology lives up to its promises then wow, please actually implement this!
cedricd 5y ago
I live in NYC and on many heavy machinery I hear a white noise-type sound when they back up -- just like the article describes. It's still pretty noticeable, but the ambient noise is already pretty high in the city, so it does fade quickly. Not sure how it would be in a quieter environment, but it's much less annoying than a beep for sure.
sandworm101 5y ago
No sympathy from me on this one. We should not remove longstanding and effective safety features because their sound is displeasing to people far outside the zone of danger. Put up noise abatement fences. A person walking in my neighborhood was hit by a speeding cop car. The cop had his flashers on but not his siren. As it turned out in court, the local cops had been getting complaints about sirens being too loud and so had begun operating with only flashers when making basic traffic stops at night. Safety had been sacrificed for convenience, leading quickly to a serious accident.
- michaelcampbell 5y ago
  > effective safety features Are there any studies that quantify this effectiveness?
- shados 5y ago
  There's more effective methods that create less disturbances. Noise pollution is proven time and time again to be both a physical and mental health hazard. People are subjected to this crap while trying to live their lives in their own home, and brain washed into thinking its ok and to just deal with it. There should be huge pressure to reduce noise pollution when solutions exist. In this case, solutions do exist.
  - sandworm101 5y ago
    But this isn't noise pollution. This is noise that serves a safety purpose and is being created deliberately for that purpose. Should we make fire alarms quiet so that people outside the burning building are not inconvenienced? Shall we stop the little beeping noise at crosswalks because not all of us are blind? Abate the noise. Put up barriers. Don't sacrifice the safety of workers for your peace and quiet. The time for such debates is before work begins. Complain at the zoning committee that issued the permits for the construction. Demand that your peace and quiet is more important than allowing new construction or a new business in the area. Demand a proper mitigation plan. Demand that they soundproof surrounding buildings. Don't show up mid-construction and ask people to disable the safety alarms.
jcstauffer 5y ago
When my son was a toddler, he referred to all heavy equipment (bulldozers, etc.) as "Err-err"'s - referring to the primary sound they make. One of my fondest memories of this time was him walking backwards down the hall making the "err err" sound of a bulldozer backing up...
- yetihehe 5y ago
  Father and son stand in queue behind obese man. Son says: - Wow, what a big man! - Shh, don't say that loudly. Then man's cell phone got sms, son says: - Run, he's backing up!
hbgl 5y ago
Another case of a patent monopoly stifling technology for 20 years.
- gorkish 5y ago
  LED lighting is similarly wedged in patent hell. Put the damn things on "flexible wire" and the lawyers will devour you. If you want to launch a product in the space, expect that you will need to hire a bevy of attorneys to get things in order and expect your IP license costs to exceed your BOM costs by about a factor of 5.
  - nitrogen 5y ago
    flexible wire So, LEDs in Christmas/holiday lights are patented?
    - gorkish 5y ago
      I believe strings of "dumb" LEDs are mostly free of IP, but once you start getting into controlling them in some way by sending signals over that wire, you are squarely in the soup.
- tzs 5y ago
  The article just says that the patent could be a reason that the white-noise system didn't take off, but also notes it could be due to regulations. If you make your bulldozer with the beep-beep alert it meets regulations everywhere. If you make it with anything different that might not be the case.
bearjaws 5y ago
I dread when construction starts near where I live, especially in the winter the beeping travels so far, makes me hate having the windows open.
- wolfram74 5y ago
  I hate noise pollution too, but out of curiosity if you live in a place where winter has the properties that makes sound travel further, doesn't it also necessarily have the properties that make it a bad idea to leave your windows open?
  - rascul 5y ago
    Upper floor apartments can sometimes get quite toasty, even with the heat turned off. There was a recent HN discussion about this but I wasn't able to find it.
  - Guest42 5y ago
    Had the same thought but then thought that perhaps a smaller window upstairs opened mid-day would help airflow without affecting heat so much
  - mrfusion 5y ago
    How much does temperature affect sound distance? How about humidity?
    - krallja 5y ago
      When it gets cold, the leaves fall off of deciduous plants.
      - mrfusion 5y ago
        Is there some kind of air density factor too?
analyte123 5y ago
See this article [1] for more detail on the problem. You will learn that the current beeps are poorly designed, do not do their job well as is, and are frequently so loud that they can damage worker’s hearing. As someone who got beeped on for months on end, I can confirm they routinely violate both OSHA worksite noise regs and municipal noise ordinances. Unfortunately it will take decades for any change to happen to the 100000s of pieces of equipment out there, even in the best case. Under current regs operators can not update the beepers without approval from the manufacturer. It will take a lot of pressure from multiple sources for any change at all. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3018517/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3018517/
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- mfer 5y ago
  Looking at that paper, the criticism isn't around effects other than their ability to make things safer. The beeps are annoying but what else does a better or equal job? Any solution that doesn't do an equal or better job will lead to more workplace injuries and deaths. Do we want that? It's a trade-off. As someone who was around large construction equipment with all those beeps for some time, I would love to have a different solution.
  - itsdrewmiller 5y ago
    The article is about something that purportedly does a better job.
    - mfer 5y ago
      The article doesn’t show evidence or direct to evidence that it does an equal or better job for safety. The people who set the requirements (e.g. insurance companies) care about safety effectiveness.
  - throw0101a 5y ago
    > The beeps are annoying but what else does a better or equal job? White noise generator / 'broadband alarm': > White-noise / broadband alarms offer advantages over the typical tonal alarms: > * Broadcast a range of frequencies making them easier to locate > * Sound is more confined to those in the area who are most at risk > * Reduces noise disturbance and noise pollution in surrounding community > * Are available with adjustable sounds for specific environments * https://www.worksafenb.ca/about-us/news-and-events/campaigns-and-initiatives/broadband-back-up-alarms-new-technology-offers-an-alternative-to-traditional-tonal-alarms/ https://www.worksafenb.ca/about-us/news-and-events/campaigns... * https://www.heavyequipmentguide.ca/article/24957/backup-alarm-being-replaced-more-frequently-with-white-noise-by-bc-businesses https://www.heavyequipmentguide.ca/article/24957/backup-alar... * https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/new-back-up-alarm-snow-removal-1.5027996 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/new-back-up-alarm-snow...
rhdunn 5y ago
What happened to the white noise beeper talked about in Tom Scott's video from 7 years ago -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa28lIGuxq8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa28lIGuxq8?
- jeroenhd 5y ago
  Isn't that exactly what the Forbes article is talking about? The patent should be expired now, so third party companies can finally mass produce these things cheap enough that they can start to appear in new construction and transport equipment. Such equipment can last decades, though, so even if every truck, bulldozer and crane switches tomorrow, we'll still be in for another 10 or 20 years of beeping at least.
  - rhdunn 5y ago
    Not knowing about the patent (only the info from the Forbes article), the device producing the sound from Tom Scott's video would have been around when that patent was still active. Therefore, either 1) it was from the company issuing the patent and they weren't able to bring it to the US market; or 2) it was from a different company. Given that the comments in the video mention that the US still has the beep-beep sound, I wonder if that was preventing the UK company selling the system to the US. In that case, why didn't the creator of the patent bring it to market in the US while it was still valid?
- ceejayoz 5y ago
  The Amazon trucks in my area use this.
mrfusion 5y ago
It’s funny how worthless patents are for things that are slow to change.
LinuxBender 5y ago
This will probably never happen, but... There is technically already a partial solution for this but AFAIK there are no regulations or legal frameworks to allow it. Construction workers can already buy noise cancelling bluetooth headphones [1][2] so they can listen to music while working. They will still need ear plugs when working with loud tools but the headphones are loud. If the equipment with the beepers also transmitted a signal the headphones could be adapted to pick up via bluetooth along with a TDR calculation to figure out distance, the worker could hear the machine coming to them and would probably be more annoyed they can't hear their music. All of this also assumes that regulations were stricter on fencing off the area from non construction workers assuming you get rid of the beepers. Missing is the standard for linking these headphones and the myriad of construction equipment to something that calculates distance and warns the listener. So there you go HN entrepreneurs. Write the RFC's, make some prototypes and give them for free to a construction company. Maybe partner with companies that produce the top 10 fork-lifts, skid-steers, tractors, bulldozers, flat-bed trucks and dump trucks as a start. BONUS if you give the workers a way to talk to the driver without having to allocate licensed frequencies. [1] - https://www.homedepot.com/b/Safety-Equipment-Hearing-Protection/DEWALT/N-5yc1vZc22tZ4j2 https://www.homedepot.com/b/Safety-Equipment-Hearing-Protect... [2] - https://www.lowes.com/pd/DEWALT-Earbud-Noise-Canceling-Headphones/1001441720 https://www.lowes.com/pd/DEWALT-Earbud-Noise-Canceling-Headp...
- ohazi 5y ago
  People struggle to get their Bluetooth headphones to pair reliably with their phone, can you imagine the nightmare of simultaneously pairing with a phone, an excavator, and two bulldozers?
  - LinuxBender 5y ago
    I think you would pair your headphones with some type of primary multiplexer that knows how to talk to the other gear and is probably centrally managed by the foreman. So your headphones in this model could see one device and thus you could use standard bluetooth headphones. I could see some type of Arduino or similar device acting as the multiplexer. Unsure if an arduino is capable enough but others here could probably chime in. That device could also handle the local communications. Maybe its a RasPi in a bright yellow case that goes on your tool belt with a DeWalt/Hilti/Bosch logo, whomever you partner with to fund this. Oh and a removable standard speed charging battery standardized to charge with the other tools.
mfer 5y ago
I'm familiar with cases of people wearing noise canceling headphones on a job site being killed because they didn't hear the beep and were struck by a machine they didn't notice. The beep is for safety. The annoyingness makes it hard to ignore which is good for safety. Anything that tries to replace it needs to keep safety up. It can't be easy to ignore. I can't require headphones on a person (what if the battery dies after 8 hours and they are working a 12 hour shift... or any number of other things). So many organizations are pushing safety. Governments who want to protect people. Insurance companies who don't want to pay the cost (and put requirements on construction companies). And people who don't want to die or get maimed. A patent on an idea doesn't mean it works to get people to notice who have been around the equipment for 3 or 6 or more months. I would love to see some research on it. That annoying beep works well so it's hard to replace.
dekhn 5y ago
The new noise sounds a lot like the start of the emergency broadcast system (I think it's called the SAME header, but not sure).
retrac 5y ago
As someone nearly deaf, a few things come to mind: * Can I hear this white noise thing? I can hear the typical backup beep up close. They're annoyingly loud for people like me. In theory white noise might be audible to more people with partial frequency losses. I don't know in practice. * Audible measures should never be a sole indicator of danger. Why isn't there a flashing light? * I can't hear electric cars at low speed at all.
ukfarmer 5y ago
I'm puzzled by which machines are covered by these regulations, and which aren't. I bought a new farm telehandler three or four years ago, and a dairy farmer friend did about the same time. His machine has the reversing alarm which is apparently non-optional. Mine doesn't, and as far as I know, they never sell anything with one. They're from different manufacturers and mine's centre-pivot whereas his is side-mount, but they're basically similar-sized kit to do the same job. Nonetheless, only one of us makes an enemy of the neighbours at 4am. (I wonder if the rules only require them for construction sites, and my manufacturer doesn't sell into that market whereas his does?)
morninglight 5y ago
That "Accursed Beep-Beep" can be a life saver when it is used to signal a vehicle in reverse. Depending on your situation, you may be interested in installing such a warning device on your personal car or truck. The model ESZ-26B is a Piezo Alert that will operate from 3 to 28 Vdc and can deliver either a continuous or intermittent warning sound. It is usually a simple task to have it wired to the brake lights in most vehicles. It is available from many vendors. If you need more information, just do a serch for "ESZ-26B".

44 points by mhb 5y ago

this can not happen fast enough, I live next to a warehouse and I think i’ll probably still hear the beeping for years after it’s gone

zinekeller 5y ago

Standard notice that this Forbes article is essentially equivalent to a Medium or Substack post (this is more of a criticism at Forbes and its pay-to-post system rather than at the individual writers).

DonHopkins 5y ago
Brad Templeton founded Looking Glass Software and ran rec.humor.funny via the Usenet address funny@looking.UUCP, so he was known as the Funny Looking Guy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Templeton https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brad_Templeton http://www.anvari.org/shortjoke/Big_Jokes/12870_edited-by-brad-templeton-mail-yes-mail-your-jokes-to-funny-looking.html http://www.anvari.org/shortjoke/Big_Jokes/12870_edited-by-br... >Edited by Brad Templeton. MAIL, yes MAIL your jokes to funny@looking.UUCP Attribute the joke's source if at all possible. I will reply, mailers willing. Topical (current events) jokes should be sent to topical@looking.UUCP
- zinekeller 5y ago
  As I noted, I'm not criticising the author, but because Forbes has sullied their reputation just to lend their name to nearly anyone. The warning is for someone who's still unaware that Forbes has turned into this and they should probably check who's behind the author and not rely on the Forbes' name to lend credence to the ideas (which unfortunately has published some very, very questionable articles like obvious pump-and-dump schemes). ... which is unfortunate since that there's still a Forbes newsroom (which produce the published magazine editions) which is the only part of Forbes which has actual editorial accountability (and therefore you can lend to Forbes' name).
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - bradtemp 5y ago
    While Forbes does have some articles from paying contributors, these are marked. Articles from "Senior Contributors" involve paying the contributor, not the other way around. So not really like Medium or Substack (Though these do provide some remuneration to those who restrict their articles to paying subscribers, I believe.)

zinekeller 5y ago

Okay, radar detection is trickier than what this writer seems to imply - it is hard to detect a pedestrian on regular cars already so I have doubts that the radar technology, as currently stands, will enhance safety. On the other hand, if the white noise technology lives up to its promises then wow, please actually implement this!

cedricd 5y ago

I live in NYC and on many heavy machinery I hear a white noise-type sound when they back up -- just like the article describes. It's still pretty noticeable, but the ambient noise is already pretty high in the city, so it does fade quickly. Not sure how it would be in a quieter environment, but it's much less annoying than a beep for sure.

sandworm101 5y ago

No sympathy from me on this one. We should not remove longstanding and effective safety features because their sound is displeasing to people far outside the zone of danger. Put up noise abatement fences. A person walking in my neighborhood was hit by a speeding cop car. The cop had his flashers on but not his siren. As it turned out in court, the local cops had been getting complaints about sirens being too loud and so had begun operating with only flashers when making basic traffic stops at night. Safety had been sacrificed for convenience, leading quickly to a serious accident.

michaelcampbell 5y ago
> effective safety features Are there any studies that quantify this effectiveness?
shados 5y ago
There's more effective methods that create less disturbances. Noise pollution is proven time and time again to be both a physical and mental health hazard. People are subjected to this crap while trying to live their lives in their own home, and brain washed into thinking its ok and to just deal with it. There should be huge pressure to reduce noise pollution when solutions exist. In this case, solutions do exist.
- sandworm101 5y ago
  But this isn't noise pollution. This is noise that serves a safety purpose and is being created deliberately for that purpose. Should we make fire alarms quiet so that people outside the burning building are not inconvenienced? Shall we stop the little beeping noise at crosswalks because not all of us are blind? Abate the noise. Put up barriers. Don't sacrifice the safety of workers for your peace and quiet. The time for such debates is before work begins. Complain at the zoning committee that issued the permits for the construction. Demand that your peace and quiet is more important than allowing new construction or a new business in the area. Demand a proper mitigation plan. Demand that they soundproof surrounding buildings. Don't show up mid-construction and ask people to disable the safety alarms.

jcstauffer 5y ago

When my son was a toddler, he referred to all heavy equipment (bulldozers, etc.) as "Err-err"'s - referring to the primary sound they make. One of my fondest memories of this time was him walking backwards down the hall making the "err err" sound of a bulldozer backing up...

yetihehe 5y ago
Father and son stand in queue behind obese man. Son says: - Wow, what a big man! - Shh, don't say that loudly. Then man's cell phone got sms, son says: - Run, he's backing up!

hbgl 5y ago

Another case of a patent monopoly stifling technology for 20 years.

gorkish 5y ago
LED lighting is similarly wedged in patent hell. Put the damn things on "flexible wire" and the lawyers will devour you. If you want to launch a product in the space, expect that you will need to hire a bevy of attorneys to get things in order and expect your IP license costs to exceed your BOM costs by about a factor of 5.
- nitrogen 5y ago
  flexible wire So, LEDs in Christmas/holiday lights are patented?
  - gorkish 5y ago
    I believe strings of "dumb" LEDs are mostly free of IP, but once you start getting into controlling them in some way by sending signals over that wire, you are squarely in the soup.
tzs 5y ago
The article just says that the patent could be a reason that the white-noise system didn't take off, but also notes it could be due to regulations. If you make your bulldozer with the beep-beep alert it meets regulations everywhere. If you make it with anything different that might not be the case.

bearjaws 5y ago

I dread when construction starts near where I live, especially in the winter the beeping travels so far, makes me hate having the windows open.

wolfram74 5y ago
I hate noise pollution too, but out of curiosity if you live in a place where winter has the properties that makes sound travel further, doesn't it also necessarily have the properties that make it a bad idea to leave your windows open?
- rascul 5y ago
  Upper floor apartments can sometimes get quite toasty, even with the heat turned off. There was a recent HN discussion about this but I wasn't able to find it.
- Guest42 5y ago
  Had the same thought but then thought that perhaps a smaller window upstairs opened mid-day would help airflow without affecting heat so much
- mrfusion 5y ago
  How much does temperature affect sound distance? How about humidity?
  - krallja 5y ago
    When it gets cold, the leaves fall off of deciduous plants.
    - mrfusion 5y ago
      Is there some kind of air density factor too?

analyte123 5y ago

See this article [1] for more detail on the problem. You will learn that the current beeps are poorly designed, do not do their job well as is, and are frequently so loud that they can damage worker’s hearing. As someone who got beeped on for months on end, I can confirm they routinely violate both OSHA worksite noise regs and municipal noise ordinances. Unfortunately it will take decades for any change to happen to the 100000s of pieces of equipment out there, even in the best case. Under current regs operators can not update the beepers without approval from the manufacturer. It will take a lot of pressure from multiple sources for any change at all. [1] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3018517/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3018517/

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
mfer 5y ago
Looking at that paper, the criticism isn't around effects other than their ability to make things safer. The beeps are annoying but what else does a better or equal job? Any solution that doesn't do an equal or better job will lead to more workplace injuries and deaths. Do we want that? It's a trade-off. As someone who was around large construction equipment with all those beeps for some time, I would love to have a different solution.
- itsdrewmiller 5y ago
  The article is about something that purportedly does a better job.
  - mfer 5y ago
    The article doesn’t show evidence or direct to evidence that it does an equal or better job for safety. The people who set the requirements (e.g. insurance companies) care about safety effectiveness.
- throw0101a 5y ago
  > The beeps are annoying but what else does a better or equal job? White noise generator / 'broadband alarm': > White-noise / broadband alarms offer advantages over the typical tonal alarms: > * Broadcast a range of frequencies making them easier to locate > * Sound is more confined to those in the area who are most at risk > * Reduces noise disturbance and noise pollution in surrounding community > * Are available with adjustable sounds for specific environments * https://www.worksafenb.ca/about-us/news-and-events/campaigns-and-initiatives/broadband-back-up-alarms-new-technology-offers-an-alternative-to-traditional-tonal-alarms/ https://www.worksafenb.ca/about-us/news-and-events/campaigns... * https://www.heavyequipmentguide.ca/article/24957/backup-alarm-being-replaced-more-frequently-with-white-noise-by-bc-businesses https://www.heavyequipmentguide.ca/article/24957/backup-alar... * https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/new-back-up-alarm-snow-removal-1.5027996 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/new-back-up-alarm-snow...

rhdunn 5y ago

What happened to the white noise beeper talked about in Tom Scott's video from 7 years ago -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa28lIGuxq8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fa28lIGuxq8?

jeroenhd 5y ago
Isn't that exactly what the Forbes article is talking about? The patent should be expired now, so third party companies can finally mass produce these things cheap enough that they can start to appear in new construction and transport equipment. Such equipment can last decades, though, so even if every truck, bulldozer and crane switches tomorrow, we'll still be in for another 10 or 20 years of beeping at least.
- rhdunn 5y ago
  Not knowing about the patent (only the info from the Forbes article), the device producing the sound from Tom Scott's video would have been around when that patent was still active. Therefore, either 1) it was from the company issuing the patent and they weren't able to bring it to the US market; or 2) it was from a different company. Given that the comments in the video mention that the US still has the beep-beep sound, I wonder if that was preventing the UK company selling the system to the US. In that case, why didn't the creator of the patent bring it to market in the US while it was still valid?
ceejayoz 5y ago
The Amazon trucks in my area use this.

mrfusion 5y ago

It’s funny how worthless patents are for things that are slow to change.

LinuxBender 5y ago

This will probably never happen, but... There is technically already a partial solution for this but AFAIK there are no regulations or legal frameworks to allow it. Construction workers can already buy noise cancelling bluetooth headphones [1][2] so they can listen to music while working. They will still need ear plugs when working with loud tools but the headphones are loud. If the equipment with the beepers also transmitted a signal the headphones could be adapted to pick up via bluetooth along with a TDR calculation to figure out distance, the worker could hear the machine coming to them and would probably be more annoyed they can't hear their music. All of this also assumes that regulations were stricter on fencing off the area from non construction workers assuming you get rid of the beepers. Missing is the standard for linking these headphones and the myriad of construction equipment to something that calculates distance and warns the listener. So there you go HN entrepreneurs. Write the RFC's, make some prototypes and give them for free to a construction company. Maybe partner with companies that produce the top 10 fork-lifts, skid-steers, tractors, bulldozers, flat-bed trucks and dump trucks as a start. BONUS if you give the workers a way to talk to the driver without having to allocate licensed frequencies. [1] - https://www.homedepot.com/b/Safety-Equipment-Hearing-Protection/DEWALT/N-5yc1vZc22tZ4j2 https://www.homedepot.com/b/Safety-Equipment-Hearing-Protect... [2] - https://www.lowes.com/pd/DEWALT-Earbud-Noise-Canceling-Headphones/1001441720 https://www.lowes.com/pd/DEWALT-Earbud-Noise-Canceling-Headp...

ohazi 5y ago
People struggle to get their Bluetooth headphones to pair reliably with their phone, can you imagine the nightmare of simultaneously pairing with a phone, an excavator, and two bulldozers?
- LinuxBender 5y ago
  I think you would pair your headphones with some type of primary multiplexer that knows how to talk to the other gear and is probably centrally managed by the foreman. So your headphones in this model could see one device and thus you could use standard bluetooth headphones. I could see some type of Arduino or similar device acting as the multiplexer. Unsure if an arduino is capable enough but others here could probably chime in. That device could also handle the local communications. Maybe its a RasPi in a bright yellow case that goes on your tool belt with a DeWalt/Hilti/Bosch logo, whomever you partner with to fund this. Oh and a removable standard speed charging battery standardized to charge with the other tools.

mfer 5y ago

I'm familiar with cases of people wearing noise canceling headphones on a job site being killed because they didn't hear the beep and were struck by a machine they didn't notice. The beep is for safety. The annoyingness makes it hard to ignore which is good for safety. Anything that tries to replace it needs to keep safety up. It can't be easy to ignore. I can't require headphones on a person (what if the battery dies after 8 hours and they are working a 12 hour shift... or any number of other things). So many organizations are pushing safety. Governments who want to protect people. Insurance companies who don't want to pay the cost (and put requirements on construction companies). And people who don't want to die or get maimed. A patent on an idea doesn't mean it works to get people to notice who have been around the equipment for 3 or 6 or more months. I would love to see some research on it. That annoying beep works well so it's hard to replace.

dekhn 5y ago

The new noise sounds a lot like the start of the emergency broadcast system (I think it's called the SAME header, but not sure).

retrac 5y ago

As someone nearly deaf, a few things come to mind: * Can I hear this white noise thing? I can hear the typical backup beep up close. They're annoyingly loud for people like me. In theory white noise might be audible to more people with partial frequency losses. I don't know in practice. * Audible measures should never be a sole indicator of danger. Why isn't there a flashing light? * I can't hear electric cars at low speed at all.

ukfarmer 5y ago

I'm puzzled by which machines are covered by these regulations, and which aren't. I bought a new farm telehandler three or four years ago, and a dairy farmer friend did about the same time. His machine has the reversing alarm which is apparently non-optional. Mine doesn't, and as far as I know, they never sell anything with one. They're from different manufacturers and mine's centre-pivot whereas his is side-mount, but they're basically similar-sized kit to do the same job. Nonetheless, only one of us makes an enemy of the neighbours at 4am. (I wonder if the rules only require them for construction sites, and my manufacturer doesn't sell into that market whereas his does?)

morninglight 5y ago

That "Accursed Beep-Beep" can be a life saver when it is used to signal a vehicle in reverse. Depending on your situation, you may be interested in installing such a warning device on your personal car or truck. The model ESZ-26B is a Piezo Alert that will operate from 3 to 28 Vdc and can deliver either a continuous or intermittent warning sound. It is usually a simple task to have it wired to the brake lights in most vehicles. It is available from many vendors. If you need more information, just do a serch for "ESZ-26B".