That suspiciously cheap apartment you just moved into? Turns out to be right next to a deafening hourly commuter train — and since you signed a one-year lease, you’re looking at either 12 months wearing noise-cancelling headphones. Or desperately hoping Rudolf Stefanich’s Sono noise cancelling window device comes to fruition.
We’ve probably all seen those vibrating devices that can turn flat surfaces like tables or windows into speakers. Well, Stefanich takes that idea one step further with the Sono. Noise-cancelling headphones feature tiny microphones that can pick up and cancel out ambient sounds, and that’s exactly what the Sono would do. Except that it would counter-vibrate the window it was stuck to, turning it into a giant noise-cancelling speaker that silences any sound coming from outside.
And while Stefanich’s proposed device is only just a finalist for a James Dyson Award at this point, there’s no reason to believe the technology and approach wouldn’t work as intended. Furthermore, it’s reasonable to say that eventually, the electronics in the Sono could be integrated into window frames directly — taking soundproofing to a whole new level. [James Dyson Award via PSKF]