In these days of ubiquitous mobile communications, it seems like a private phone call might be a thing of the past.
Open-plan, space-sharing offices add to the problem. But what if you need to make or take a call to discuss something you’d rather other ears didn’t overhear?
Ukrainian information technology specialist Roman Sakun has come up with an answer – a “Darth Vader” mouth mask that makes you inaudible to other people when you wear it.
“You throw a pebble in water and there’s a wave. How do you stop it? You can only put an obstacle in between,” Sakun says explaining how his device, called Hushme, works.
“It’s the same with acoustic waves.”
Hushme bills itself as the world’s first voice mask for mobile phones, and the odd-looking contraption is already in great demand, Sakun says.
After being featured at two tech exhibitions – CES 2017 in Las Vegas and the Wearable Technologies Conference in London – Hushme became a huge hit in the media. The device has been written about by the BBC, Mashable, Engadget, Time, the Daily Mail, The Telegraph and many other media.
“They wrote that we’re unusual, super weird. I agree with them,” Sakun says. “But I also see great demand, as hundreds of people have shown they want to buy Hushme after reading those stories.”
Roman Sakun talks to the Kyiv Post in the Kyiv office of Ukrainian design office ARTKB. This is not a rare interview for Sakun, as he has given a lot of them during the last two months. After being featured at two tech exhibitions – CES 2017 in Las Vegas and the Wearable Technologies Conference in London – his invention, Hushme, has become a huge hit in the media. (Anastasia Vlasova)
The absurd-looking Hushme is a hands-free Bluetooth device fits over its user’s mouth and makes their voice inaudible.
The device cuts out voice sound in two ways: noise blanking and noise masking. The first is simply the muffling effect achieved when the device is worn. The second is when the device’s built-in speaker plays various sounds while one is talking.
While the later doesn’t quite fit with the goal of being inconspicuous, it keeps conversations private by drowning out the user’s voice. There are a variety of sounds, from the more “serious” ones like wind or ocean waves, to “fun” ones like the breathing of Darth Vader or beeping of R2D2 from the Star Wars films.
Hushme works with an app by which users can choose these sounds and automatically adjust their volume. It also comes with wireless earbuds and a built-in microphone. According to its developer, people on the other side of the phone conversation will hear the user even if they’re in a very noise environment.
Sakun says with the envisioned battery, the gadget will work for about eight hours on one charge.
Roman Sakun shows Hushme in action while talking to the Kyiv Post. In the process of creating the gadget, Sakun and his equal partners, Ukrainian design office ARTKB, had in mind people who work in open spaces, and people on the go. “We’re not saying that you should be like a dog in a muzzle from morning on. Hushme is for numerous conversations of up-to-20-minutes throughout the day,” Sakun says. (Anastasia Vlasova)
The device, however, is not being developed solely by Sakun – while he came up with the initial idea, Ukrainian design office ARTKB developed 90 percent of the gadget: from the market assessment and design of the device, to its blueprints, body, electronics, and programming.
ARTKB is famous on the Ukrainian IT market, having worked with a parade of successful Ukrainian startups including Petcube, Hideez, Ecoisme, eCozy, and iBlazr.
At first, Sakun paid ARTKB to develop the Hushme idea, but now the company has a stake in the project and is working on it as an equal partner.
“Hushme isn’t our client at all – it’s our brainchild and product,” ARTKB CEO Alex Nesterenko says. “First (Sakun) came to us and told us about the idea. We’ve been one team since then.”
In the process of creating the gadget, the team had in mind people who work in open spaces, and people on the go, including reporters.
“We got a letter from an American journalist accredited to work in courts. He has to report, but do it quietly so as not to disturb a hearing. He said he’d like to buy,” Sakun says.
The device will cost around $200-250, but those who pre-order the headset via its Kickstarter campaign, which launches on April 25, can buy it for $150. During the crowdfunding campaign, the company aims to collect orders worth $50,000 and start production and shipment by the end of 2017.
“Even if we fail to crowdfund, we will still be able to put our own money into the development of a fully-operational prototype to carry on.”
Sakun has been the IT director at Ukrainian ketchup producer Chumak for six-and-a-half years. His peers at Chumak had no idea he had been working part-time on his own startup for about a year-and-a-half.
It was only after seeing Sakun’s numerous interviews on Ukrainian television and in the foreign media that they realized he was an inventor. Now, Sakun says, his colleagues are looking forward to the day he can use the device in their office.
“‘You have a loud voice,’ they told me. ‘So we definitely want to test it out on you first,’” Sakun says, laughing.
Kyiv Post staff writer Denys Krasnikov can be reached at [email protected].
