It's the weirdest thing. Elijah, can you hear this speaker? Yeah, I can hear it. Somehow, my microphone picks up nothing right next to it, but Elijah can hear it from down the road.
Now, sound waves are always directional to a degree, but this thing is on a whole... other level, perhaps magic? Spoiler, no. The Oddfly Model B uses ultrasonic audio waves, which you normally can't hear, and add some special sauce to create a directional speaker that's designed to create a private listening zone, giving the user a headphone-like experience. Is that something people are asking for?
And what are we giving up in return? Also, are there any fun creative ways we could use this technology? Not sure, a few things and yes, but before I tell you about them Elijah needs to tell you about our sponsor. Hey, there you are Ridge upgrade your everyday carry with a ridge wallet Their new ridge lights are just as functional and even more compact than before Use our link and save 10% off your purchase and get free shipping with code Linus To help you guys experience how cool this thing is, we've set it up on a lazy Susan in an open area of our warehouse. Then all you got to do is pop on a pair of headphones and you'll be able to hear exactly what we hear with the help of our friend Steve.
Elijah, hit it! That is so weird! It sounds like it's in the one ear and then it sounds like it's inside my skull and then the other ear and then it's gone And then because we've got flat surfaces here in the warehouse It actually bounces off of some of them and sounds like it's coming from completely different places Now alongside the greatest song of all time you might have heard a slight buzzing or interference or dropout sound That's because the microphones are picking up some of those ultrasonic frequencies that I mentioned earlier, but to most human ears, it sounds as clear as any other speaker you'd find at the local Best Buy. How does this work and what makes it different from a traditional speaker?
In a traditional speaker, two things contribute to the audio that you hear. The amplitude or how hard the speaker pushes against the air around it determines how loud it is. And the frequency, which is how many of these cycles it completes per second, contributes to the pitch.
Sound energy travels in waves. just like ripples in a body of water, meaning that when you make sound, anybody nearby can hear Baby No Money, Forget That Melody. Now we can focus or aim it to a degree, but... Because the wavelengths of audible sound are so long, the waves can travel through solid objects and even bend around corners. That's why I can hear the speaker pretty well from behind it.
That's why these speakers use ultrasonic transducers instead. And I can practically hear you guys shouting, Linus! Humans can't hear ultrasonic frequencies! That's what makes them ultrasonic!
And you're right, we can't. But... Thanks to some math that I don't understand now and probably never will, we can alter the amplitude and can modulate our ultrasonic transducer array to encode audible sound within ultrasonic sound.
Now it took decades and the development of sophisticated computer simulations to go from the original theory to this point, but now that we're here, flipping works. And because ultrasonic waves have much shorter wavelengths, They spread out far less, creating a relatively focused cone of audible sound. Still about 15 degrees, meaning that at a great enough distance, multiple people can hear it, but the effect in person is really trippy. Not to mention, a lot of fun. I'm in a position where it should be hard for anyone in the lab to see me, and I'm going to start up a LAN show.
I thought someone was talking to me. And I'm going to beam it around the warehouse and see what happens. Next target, logistics.
I don't even know what this plastic's here for. It's clearly to prevent Pete Baddack. Just like you.
Elijah's bringing a knife so we can control logistics now. We're gonna point it through the plastic. But first we gotta troll Elijah. I can see Jamie. Okay we're gonna go for Jamie.
We're gonna go for Jamie. How'd they all find us immediately? Dang it. How'd you guys find us so fast? Dang it.
Well, you win some you lose some. Still a lot of fun. If we were smart and we really wanted to throw people off though, we would use the effect where it bounces off of flat surfaces creating a really weird effect where it sounds like it's coming from the Reflection point rather than from the location of the speaker.
Let me show you what I mean. Okay, Elijah. I'm straight at you.
Yep We're there Okay, what if I bounce it more times I hear it right about there yeah, and it It's super trippy. If I did not see you, I would think it's coming from the wall. Pretty wild, right? I mean, you'd think after a bounce or two, it would sound a lot farther away, but ultrasonic waves don't attenuate nearly the way that audible waves do.
So whether I'm 10 feet away or 100 feet away, bouncing once or four times, it sounds really similar. The question now is how far can we go? Well, based on what they saw on the- You're gonna have to go a lot farther than that buddy.
Alrighty poor Elijah. He's getting his steps in today boys Most exercise I've done all year. How about now?
Yeah, I can still hear it How about now? No, I don't hear it. Okay.
How about if I aim it at you? It sounds the exact same I hear it totally fine. Okay, keep going. Oh my goodness. It's crazy to me how it's been sounding almost the exact same volume the whole way.
How about now? I can still hear it. That is wild.
We'll keep going a little bit more. Very faintly, but I can still hear it. That is very cool. We're almost at the end of our parking lot. Yeah, you can still hear it?
I can still hear it. Yeah, and Andy can hear it from back there still. Oh yeah. Keep going. There's a car on the way, but we are from end to end on the parking lot.
Here's the Google Maps image to show you how far we are. Let's see if I can still hear it. Do you hear it Andy?
I hear the truck. You might as well come back! Oh my god, this is freaking hilarious. They're standing in that corner with all those cars around them, and I'm kind of moving it around a little bit.
It's gotta sound like it's coming from like freaking everywhere. There was a split moment where all the way at the end of the parking lot, I heard like one or two notes. At that distance the issue you're running into is lining it up not even that you can hear it anymore.
That is super cool but ultrasonic waves do have a downside. They get blocked very easily. You can see I'm sitting here chilling listening to music. All I gotta do is put this piece of paper in front of it and...
Ah? And there's more. Remember that sound jammer that we bought on AliExpress?
In theory, it can be deployed stealthily, but in practice, we found that people with sensitive hearing Sorry, sorry, sorry can pick up those high frequencies and Because those ultrasonic frequencies need to be very high amplitude for the encoding to work, meaning they're very loud It can create an uncomfortable feeling for some people and especially some animals. With all that cool, how does it work stuff out of the way, what are these even for? I mean... I guess as a gamer having a personal private listening cone without needing to wear anything on my head would be kind of liberating But at this price, yeah, it's more for commercial installations, you know showrooms Museums and the like so you can step in front of an interesting piece learn more about it available now at LTT store.com and when you're done you walk away and The audio is gone With a cleverly designed gallery, including soft surfaces to minimize reflections, you can offer a pretty engaging experience for your customers or patrons.
Oddfly, the makers of this particular speaker, focus on digital signage and advertising, but they also highlight some pretty creative uses, like this one integration in a playground haunted house. Pretty spooky. What's really cool is Oddfly is working on cutting the costs, but if you don't want to wait, there's actually tons of videos online showing people building these speakers for themselves.
including this one guy who actually made it look like a little gun to point at a target. I don't know. It's kind of cute. Just like this cute segue to our sponsor. Thanks to Corsair for sponsoring this episode.
Corsair Custom Lab allows you to create a gaming setup as unique as you are. Start with a product like their K65 Plus wireless keyboard and select from a variety of different themed keycaps to match your style. From there, you can add a mouse and a mouse pad to complete the look.
Corsair handles all the heavy lifting for you. Just make your custom creation and they'll build it and ship it right to you. Learn more at the link in the video description. If you guys did enjoy this video, go check out the recording jammer video.
That one was super cool as well and helped cover up some hot takes that Linus had.