this post was submitted on 21 Sep 2023
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Noise-canceling robots to 'mute' loud conversations in cafe | What if we told you that we can actually silence a noisy table right next to us in a café?::undefined

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[–] K3zi4 74 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (16 children)

I've always thought phase cancellation technology could potentially be crazy revolutionary. Seems these guys know what they're doing, but the real challenges come with high decibel levels if I remember right.

If you tried to phase cancel out the sound of a jet engine, it would work and you wouldn't hear it, but you could also have easily just burst your eardrums too, because the sound pressure level is still present, even if the actual sound is inaudible. It's a crazy phenomena.

Edit: the sound pressure level IS cancelled out by destructive wave interference, but if this is knocked even by a matter of milliseconds, the wave is doubled and that's not good for anyone.

Also, on retrospect, phenomena was poor word choice. It's physics.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Wouldn't this system cause more noise for people on other tables around you?

[–] jimbolauski 2 points 1 year ago

Yes when the path between the noise and the noise canceling is out of phase the sound will be lower when they are in phase it will be amplified. Their canceling speakers will need to be very directional to stop this from happening

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