Just a little idea for a feature to have on portable CD players and MP3 players, and several other things designed to be connected to headphones.

Basically the player has a normal volume control, but with a switch next to it that says "manual/auto". The player has a microphone, and if the switch is set on auto, the player reads how loud the surrounding environment is, and adjusts the volume appropriately. If set to manual, you just manually adjust the volume like any other CD or MP3 player (depending on your "tech-tastes")
-- Dickcheney6, Jan 24 2009

Automatic sound level Automatic_20sound_20level
Earlier effort [csea, Jan 24 2009]

How does the volume monitor differentiate between ambient environmental noise and speech? For example, if I'm listening to Los Lonely Boys on my headphones while walking down a boulevard with substantial vehicular traffic, I may wish the unit to increase the volume so that I don't miss a beat. On the other hand, if someone starts yelling at me to watch out for the careening bus behind me which has just jumped the curb, I might wish that the increased volume had not masked the warning.
-- jurist, Jan 24 2009


Well-baked, and redundant [link].
-- csea, Jan 24 2009


" On the other hand, if someone starts yelling at me to watch out for the careening bus behind me which has just jumped the curb, I might wish that the increased volume had not masked the warning"

That sort of thing could be prevented if the volume changed somewhat slowly. This way, someone could still yell and get your attention before it changed.
-- Dickcheney6, Oct 05 2010



random, halfbakery