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Škoda DuoBell: A bicycle bell that penetrates noise-cancelling headphones

skoda-storyboard.com

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Re: Škoda DuoBell: A bicycle bell that penetrates noise-cancelling headphones

#511

Post by Joe_Cool »

lancewiggs wrote: post #499
michh wrote: post #234

Coincidentally, I bought a 12v car horn yesterday with the intent of wiring it into my ebike's power supply with a little button on my handlebars. Not because of other cyclists or pedestrians wearing (anc) headphones but because modern cars are so heavily sound-proofed they don't hear a bicycle bell anymore. A recent incident with an inattentive taxi driver in a brand new EV nearly flattening me prompted me to want t…

Yeas ago I motorcycled a lot, all over the world. I escalated to an air horn and hi-viz. But I pretty quickly realized that these made no tangible difference to the behavior of larger vehicle drivers. So I ended up for later vehicles with a stock horn and hi-viz only for heavy rain. These days our family cycles a lot for commuting. It’s really easy to observe that people in vehicles treat us far better if we look lik…

Sadly I had to kick a few cars that thought they could run me off my motorcycle. Worked every time. All of them didn't look out the window or they would have looked right into my face. Yelling and horn did absolutely nothing.

Most of them were extremely apologetic or even shocked (as if I appeared from thin air). None of them were angry for scratching their door. Some people are just lost in thought it seems...

Re: Škoda DuoBell: A bicycle bell that penetrates noise-cancelling headphones

#512

Post by culi »

I love to see high-tech mechanical/analog solutions like this. I recently bought a vintage mechanical kitchen timer and it almost feels like you have a different relationship to your possessions when you know they're mechanical.

It's also so nice to know I can put it away and not worry about finding it a year later with the battery I forgot to remove having exploded

Re: Škoda DuoBell: A bicycle bell that penetrates noise-cancelling headphones

#513

Post by barbegal »

Retr0id wrote: post #291

I'm very sceptical of their claims that ~780Hz is in some way special, especially the way they represent it graphically. Playing a frequency sweep while wearing WH-1000XM3 headphones, I don't notice any particular drop-off there. Near where I live, heavy goods vehicles are fitted with reversing indicators that make a "cshh cshh cshh" sound i.e. pulsed white-noise. White noise like that is the hardest for ANC to cance…

The actual research paper shows it's pure nonsense

https://cdn.skoda-storyboard.com/2026/04/Skoda-DuoBell-Resea...

As expected ANC headphones cancel less noise at low frequencies so I guess the 780Hz is a trade off between high enough frequency to be a bell and low enough frequency to get attenuated a little bit less than high frequencies.

The research paper is pretty poor quality and this is mainly a marketing exercise.

Re: Škoda DuoBell: A bicycle bell that penetrates noise-cancelling headphones

#514

Post by Phemist »

joe_mamba wrote: post #505
Phemist wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was not trying to offer a solution, as this will be highly specific to the situation in your locality and pretty pointless for me to spend time on. I am merely identifying this as a root cause, which for some reason strikes a nerve. Why does Skoda, a car manufacturer, care so much about interactions between cyclists and pedestrians? As you say, a bell that penetrates the car enclosures would be much more useful. I…

>This only started to change in the 70s and 80s Which was my entire point. City wide infrastructure rehauls were massively easier and cheaper back then than today. The amount of nimbyism and red tape has ballooned exponentially in that time span, let alone the cost. Even NL wouldn't be able to do that today if they wanted to had it not done that in the 70s.

It's a big stretch to say that the 70s and 80s was "from the start", when the preceding 30-40 years had seen increasingly car-friendly infrastructure policy and development.

Re: Škoda DuoBell: A bicycle bell that penetrates noise-cancelling headphones

#515

Post by gs17 »

SoftTalker wrote: post #501
tbrownaw wrote: post #463

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've seen cyclists using laptops. How? That seems like it would be rather mechanically challenging.

Sort of perched on the handlebars. It did seem almost impossible. Maybe there is a bracket of some sort being used.

Aw, I was hoping for some modded recumbent bicycle that has a whole desk on it.

Re: Škoda DuoBell: A bicycle bell that penetrates noise-cancelling headphones

#517

Post by Groxx »

Retr0id wrote: post #291

I'm very sceptical of their claims that ~780Hz is in some way special, especially the way they represent it graphically. Playing a frequency sweep while wearing WH-1000XM3 headphones, I don't notice any particular drop-off there. Near where I live, heavy goods vehicles are fitted with reversing indicators that make a "cshh cshh cshh" sound i.e. pulsed white-noise. White noise like that is the hardest for ANC to cance…

It's fairly easy to test out: https://onlinetonegenerator.com/

Anecdotally, bells have always come through fairly clearly for me. They filter out lower tones, not higher + sine waves. Nothing about this adds up to more than any normal $5 bell, especially rotating ones which hammer repeatedly.

Re: Škoda DuoBell: A bicycle bell that penetrates noise-cancelling headphones

#519

Post by a-dub »

the experimental report pdf is a fun read. it would be cool if they added each individual bell of the duobell and the combination to tables 4 and 5. (the topline result is in the infographic, but it would be cool to see the effects of the individual contributions of the various features and how they combine)

Re: Škoda DuoBell: A bicycle bell that penetrates noise-cancelling headphones

#520

Post by prmoustache »

jwr wrote: post #401
prmoustache wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is an issue on bike paths that are build inside a sidewalk, the cycling path is usually build using a smoother surface than the one designed for pedestrians. Plus it sometimes has a brighter paint. I am pretty sure most people don't realize it but they are inconciously attracted to it. It just feels better walking on it.

No, every bike path in a city inevitably has crossings or is laid out next to a sidewalk. People just do their random-walk thing (Brownian motion, really, sometimes) and wander into the bike path.

Sometimes you clearly see more people on the bike paths than on the regular sidewalks. And I definitely attribute that to its smoother nature compared to the fake cobbles you have in many places, amplifyied if there is a baby stroller in the mix.
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