Safe Headphone Running

I wouldn't buy it at any price, to be honest.

Yes, it's possibly helpful with cars on quiet country roads but how does it determine what is a danger and what is not? If you're running on a safe sidewalk on a busy road, is it going to lower your music for every single car that approaches even though you're not really in danger? And what about the danger posed by things that aren't approaching? The animal up ahead may be making noise but not moving- you still need to be aware of that. And it presumably also wouldn't pick up on directions shouted by other people- eg. 'get to the left' 'single file, sharp bend' 'clear the way for x y or z' - particularly important in say a big city marathon where such directions are frequent and when lots of people still unfortunately wear earphones.

It's not an inherently bad idea but I'd worry that such a device would fool some users into thinking that they are safe and can just zone out when in reality there are plenty of things that present danger that they should be listening out for, and not all of those things are moving/approaching. If people are running with earphones, low volume doesn't always cut it since plenty of them have some degree of noise isolation anyway. Wearing just one earbud when running is the only half-decent compromise I can think of.

Nice idea, but I don't run with music

That would just be annoying.

Better to run with headphones that let in outside sound and have the volume low.

I can only speak for myself but I would have zero interest in using this.

And I run with music all the time.

that sensor would have to be be VERY high tech, because it has to scan everything around you, while you are moving at speed + recognizing other objects moving at speed + directions, too hard to do.

and btw if you lower the earphones volume (ipod ones) you can clearly hear music AND the surrounding. This is an issue to people with poor mixing skills that put music at 100% volume.

I don't believe that it's possible with current technology, so I would be curious to know if you have a working prototype. To be of any use (i.e. detecting approaching cars or cyclists at high relative speed), the range would have to be at least 25m. Imaging methods would work on a moving object like a runner. A transceiver of any kind would probably be bulky and require too much battery.

The only method I could imagine working would be based on sound - but that will not work on anything other than cars, and even then, I would be very impressed if you could achieve the required accuracy with head mounted microphones.

Please enlighten us!

Yeah. What if you run on trails? Will it turn down for close passing trees? I think your only bet it to make an option where there is a volume threshold so if there is a certain level of decibels from around you (loud car/horn) the music will lower to allow listener to hear over the music.

A cheaper was is to just buy some montrose canceling headphones and play music lower. Anybody concerned enough to buy this device are probably not jamming too load as it is.