For your helmet, consider the following: get a good pair of small and cheap standard headphones (The Koss KSC75 would work great for this), integrate the drivers into the innards of the helmet, run the cord outside to a micro bluetooth adapter/receiver (like the one on the Sony SBH20), and attach the latter to the outside of the helmet with some 3M double-stick tape. That won’t affect the integrity of the helmet, and makes the controls easy to access. Essentially, it converts the helmet itself into a bluetooth speaker.
I wanted to do this with a bicycling helmet, but the driver elements on the Koss are just a little too thick for the inner padding on cycling helmets.
Check your state laws. In California the California Vehicle Code 27400 states, “A person operating a motor vehicle or bicycle may not wear a headset covering, or earplugs in, both ears”. Which makes total common sense from a safety standpoint.
This obviously applies to Jason’s solution, since he’s putting earplugs in both ears, but as the Koss drivers are open-air maybe my idea is street-legal?
I confess that, since I spend a lot of time driving on the same roads as he does, this whole thing does make me a little nervous, though I’m always double-wary of people on BMW bikes in the Marin area on general principle.
Right in CA you can have one ear in. However, these don’t work well in a helmet regardless. I use the Sena SMH10R (I think) in one of my helmets. Its quite great. These are for dog walking/hiking, mostly.
Less sense than one might think. Distracted driving is more about mental engagement than noise isolation - the mind really doesn’t multi task the way it fools us into thinking it does. If you are having to concentrate to hear and parse what is being said over your stereo because of high ambient noise you will have more inattentional blindness than if you were using noise isolation headphones that let you concentrate more on the environment and less on parsing audio.
Does the law make an exception for hearing aids?
Yes, also perhaps custom fit noise reducing headphones iirc.
Except, like, can’t deaf people drive?
[quote]SEC. 55. Section 27400 of the Vehicle Code is amended to read:
A person operating a motor vehicle or bicycle may not wear a headset covering, earplugs in, or earphones covering, resting on, or inserted in, both ears. This prohibition does not apply to any of the following:
(a) A person operating authorized emergency vehicles, as defined in Section 165.
(b) A person engaged in the operation of either special construction equipment or equipment for use in the maintenance of any highway.
(c) A person engaged in the operation of refuse collection equipment who is wearing a safety headset or safety earplugs.
(d) A person wearing personal hearing protectors in the form of earplugs or molds that are specifically designed to attenuate injurious noise levels. The plugs or molds shall be designed in a manner so as to not inhibit the wearer’s ability to hear a siren or horn from an emergency vehicle or a horn from another motor vehicle.
(e) A person using a prosthetic device that aids the hard of hearing.[/quote]
I don’t think they meant hearing protectors to include NR in ear monitors, but in court it seems like the wording could go either way depending on the mood of the judge and the expense of your lawyer - especially if they have a mic to let ambient noise in at a reduced volume level.
I don’t think a sensory input you have lost and learned to adapt around vs one you still have that you are paying attention to but the input is entirely different than the rest of your environment, can be considered equivalent.
Except, like, can’t people just turn their car stereos up really loud?
That reasoning would make sense if they banned radios, CD players, MP3 players and hands free cell phone use in cars altogether, but they don’t. This isn’t an evidence-based law.
The banning on holding a cell phonevwhile driving missed the boat entirely, mistaking holding the phone for inattention. The same is true of noise isolation headphones. The problem isn’t the noise isolation - if it was, there wouldn’t be special exemptions for noise isolation. And I would say that having an allowance for one ear to have an ear phone in it makes for a worse ability to localize sound than to have to equal earphones.
Distracted driving is already a violation.
Yeah. Got it. There are flaws in the law. Maybe making statements to the issues directly instead of snarky comments could help.
I’m sorry. Can you repeat that? I’ve got about 25 windows open at the moment. How is any of this on topic?
If only they also had a law about having giant speakers and hundreds of amps in the car, then it might make sense.
As for the product, personally I hate buds of any kind, they hurt my ears. I love my lightweight $12 SoundBot SB271 on-ear bluetooth headphones. They also have decent sound attenuation for working with power tools.
in other markets (i.e Germany) known at QCY … and a plethora of other names
of course, all with stellar reviews … hard to track those via fakespot … I kinda like the look of them … If i can find them here in Vietnam, around that price, I might give them a try
They look a bit like these <$8.50 wholesale bluetooth earphones.
…though the whole hoverboard fiasco shows us that just because products look the same or similar on the outside doesn’t mean they are the same on the inside. Flaming ears? 
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