New Device Fits Awkwardly on Your Face, But Has a Super-Practical Purpose

What’s your strategy for talking on your cell phone in public? Do you excuse yourself to a room with fewer people? Do you try to talk as quietly as you can in order to prevent eavesdropping? Or do you blab away for all to hear? Thanks to a new product called Hushme, you’ve got another option--but be warned, it will turn some heads.

Hushme is a wearable device like no other. When the device isn’t being used to muffle phone calls, it wraps loosely around the neck and rests on your shoulders, which looks sort of like a big set of headphones. While in headset mode, the device connects to your smartphone via Bluetooth. This allows it to be used as a hands-free headset for listening to music or speaking on the phone (for conversations you don’t mind being heard).

It’s when you decide to take a private phone call and use the device in passive voice muffling mode that things get interesting--and by interesting we mean that the device turns into a mask and you look like a fighter pilot. In a product review, Fox News snarkily stated, “Google Glass may have a rival in the ‘awkward-looking’ wearable tech stakes.”

On their Kickstarter page, Hushme describes how this passive voice muffling mode works: “Hushme is locked over the mouth using magnetic coupling. This mode is provided by the innovative insulation materials, that are embedded inside the mask, by the extra soft cushion muffs and by the special sound-absorbing paint, that covers the whole inner surface of the device. So, people at the distance of three feet cannot decipher your words, while your speech is transmitted to the other end undistorted thanks to a sensitive built-in microphone.”

This is one device that you’ve got to see to believe:

To further help with muffling your voice while wearing the mask, you can press a button on the headband to active voice masking mode. This mode powers on the outer speakers (located on the perimeter of the mask), which will generate masking sounds. Plus (and this is where it gets really fun), the device connects to a mobile app, allowing the user to select from a library of masking sounds. Options include:

• Wind
• Ocean
• Rain
• Birds
• Monkey
• Squirrel
• Darth Vader
• R2D2
• Minion

Even though such a device may seem a bit odd when first encountered, it actually has a very practical purpose that remote workers, and even office workers, can appreciate. This may especially be the case in open office environments where constant phone conversations serve as a major distraction.

To get your very own Hushme device, you can preorder one from their Kickstarter page for $149: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1322999047/hushme-the-worlds-first-voice-mask-for-smartphones

What do you think of Hushme? Silly idea or super practical? Share your thoughts in the comments below.