Use An Ultrasonic Ringtone For Stealthy Notifications

nice one, thanks for the RT's. this will come in handy at work. we can use cellphones, but it is still nice to not interrupt or bug people.

I'm old and have damaged hearing, so I can only manage the lower two. But then again, who wants a ring tone that'll attract every mosquito on the block? :)

@olliebean:

If it's silence, then that's one thing. But what makes you think that these are the same. Anything beyond the viral tendencies of the interwebs?

jupiterthunder

Umm... How is it 'stealthy' when every dog within a thousand yard radius starts barking whenever your phone rings?

And what's wrong with 'vibrate'?

This is a TERRIBLE idea - this post should be renamed: How to make your coworkers hate you and your dog go berserk.

lauran

Annoying but it told me that my ears are 15y younger than they are. Still annoying! I was certain that rock concerts would have done more damage.

genxslkr

@jupiterthunder: It isn't a sound, in fact. The mp3 file for the (supposedly) highest-pitched sample contains nothing but silence.

I recall a similar collection of high-pitched tones being posted to a forum I frequent, whereupon there followed an outbreak of willy-waving over who could hear the highest; in fact the files had been made using an encoder with a 16kHz cutoff, so all the many people who said they could hear over that were either deluded or lying.

olliebean

I'm way over 20 (...30...40...) and I can hear almost all of them--I didn't expect the widely varying pitches. Interesting.

GlennA

Apparently I'm a dog, " you certainly can't be human", because I can hear all the way up to E.

The first few are just god awful though. I still like the mosquito one I've been working with.

PinkNBlack21

@djpandemic: Care to elaborate. I'm asking b/c it is a sound, hence it is a sound wave and a wave by definition is propagating energy.

jupiterthunder

Word to the wise: If you seriously intend on using these, plan to make a few enemies. I know a couple folks who grow quite violent against a 17kHz tone.

MichaelTV

34 yo. Hear 19.9

jupiterthunder

If you can not hear the highest sample, you're not deaf, hard of hearing or anything of the like. There is no energy in the last sample at all. Regardless of pitch, with no energy, you're not going to hear anything.

djpandemic

@D0rk: Same, mine went barking to the front door. And it's storming here, so that's double freak-out for her.

On another note. I'm not even a teenager yet, apparently. 19.9kHz, but only barely. 18.8 is clear as a whistle. It's like the annoying high pitched noise from a CRT TV. Ugh.

Twoje

@peanut_butter: yes, yes I do:

http://xkcd.com/479/

@Dilpickle1:

Interesting. What sounds? Meaning, I assume he told that as you were playing them. Did he go into detail about what was making the sounds?

jupiterthunder

@Lance eagles3strong: Yes! Common Sense at last :)
Nice Comic. Do you by any chance have a link to it?

peanut_butter

@Lance eagles3strong: Wow, I can't believe I've never seen that one. But it's pretty amazing. Then again, most xkcd are subtle, yet intelligent and, to be quite honest, delightful...

That is pretty cool.

Although each sound is very crackly on my speakers. Could it be a soundcard/speaker issue or are my ears broken :D

Chris Karpyszyn

My dog hates me now after running through all those sounds to find out where my hearing level is.

But they are indeed way too annoying to use as a notification sound.

D0rk

@Lance eagles3strong:
I'm glad that I am not alone in this ;)

These noises are so annoying, it's almost unbearable. It can be amusing for the first few times but after that...

Unfortunately, I can't take these ultrasonic ringtones. Every time one goes off, it drives me more nuts than a vacuum cleaner does to a dog.

16.7, I'm almost 22. But, I find the noise so freaking annoying that I would never want to use it as a ringtone.

i cant use these around my cousin, it sounds to much like sounds he experienced in Afghanistan, and im gonna respect that. Though, They are fun to make my aunt go nuts :p

Dilpickle1

I can not hear anything above 15.8kHz... sigh...

Reminding me of this...

Between this, the voices and my tinnitus I could have a whole suite of sounds nobody else can hear.

also, 15.8KHz, not bad

Charax

hop up out the beeeeed, turn my swag ooooon, take a look in the mirror say whats up.

mutherf*cker where's my phone...

@shibathedog: Yep, I find the tones obnoxious and painful and I'm so looking forward to having more people running around using them. Use vibrate, jerks. I'd even prefer the Soulja boy.

I have to say, I like these for the cool appeal, but it's totally impractical. I think everyone I know in school just uses vibrate or vibe and ring. You can tell when someone's calling you, and no one can hear it. I can't imagine why this would be any better, really.

Wow, I guess getting made fun of for protecting my ears paid off. I can hear 21.1. I tried recreating the final tone in Audacity and it can't even make it.

JetShred

43 yrs old, can here the 21.1kHz. Not sure if I'll be able to use it on my PPC6800 phone.

judgeschambers

@Dilpickle1: Okay. Thanks. I thought he might have been referencing some sort of sonic weapon being used.

jupiterthunder

@djpandemic:

Thank you for explaining.

jupiterthunder

Anybody know any young girls that will come over to my house so we can test this... aw, wait... no, I... didn't say... I mean over 18 is... I mean ...

@jupiterthunder: He told me, But i have really crappy memory and this was like a week ago, So i totally forgot.

Dilpickle1

@Gonz:
When I could not hear anything, I pulled both samples up in audacity The last sample has no wave form

djpandemic

Interesting. I had to turn my volume all the way up to hear some of the higher pitched ones. I don't know if that affects the pitch or not though. If it does, then I was apparently cheating. If not, then I am more awesome than I thought I was.

Oh good! Now only my dog will know my phone is ringing. Unless some mosquito thinks it's a mating call!

@neely615: Same :(

lbrtdy

@Lance eagles3strong: I love XKCD!

CYMR0

@Lance eagles3strong: God I love xkcd so much. That is me! Going to high school, the ironic thing is is that my phone rings and makes a normal ringing sound, and I'm the only person that even checks my phone, because everyone else's is a song or a ringtone or something. It's kinda funny, I'm unique by being ordinary

I don't know about you guys, but these sound terrible coming out of my Blackberry Pearl. Ugh.

I'm an old geezer, so the 8KHz is the only reliable one. I'm going to give it a shot; hope it's not much louder to others than it is to me!

I can actually hear the tones up to 17.7

Dang! That just drives me crazy, hate the high pitch sounds that electronics make as well. Besides I do like 200 text messages a day and that would drive me nuts :S

lbrtdy

@Lance eagles3strong: Just thinking of that. Mine's the old school iPhone ring. Get mocked some, but still love it.

jleem41

I think I just damaged my ears more by listening to these ringtones. Seriously, my ears kind of hurt now. Thanks LH.

I'm not fond of the "mosquito ringtones"... i can hear them all too well: it sounds like someone left a TV on. My text message alert is a very cleanly recorded cricket-chirp (bought through Verizon). Subtle, and nobody seems to realize it's a ringtone, sparing me a million dirty looks.

I don't even want to try listening to these, because chances are I will not be able to hear them and I will feel like a loser. I'll stick with vibrate.

LPAkira

This is pretty cool, but the 3GS' speaker won't play C#... makes my inner programmer cry.

You can hear it crackling as it tries tho :P

How is this better than vibrate? I guess because you get to walk around emitting extremely high pitched annoying noises.

shibathedog

@jupiterthunder:
The website itself says there is no sound on the last one, claiming anyone who says they can hear it is a liar.

AJ_Syrinx

@MrBangBam: I'm exactly the same way. A bad flourescent light or an old tube TV can drive me nutty. I know, most of you can't hear it, but for me it's like a mosquito in my ear.

The best ring tones I ever heard have been bird calls. The first time I heard a chickadee call as a ring tone I actually said "oh, that's nice!" And I -hate- ringing phones.

@jupiterthunder: All I can think of is the ringing left in your ears after a bomb goes off nearby.

@djpandemic:If you CAN hear the highest sample, you amaze me.

I thought humans weren't supposed to be able to hear anything over 20KHz. I know it's a relatively flexible boundary, but didn't know it could fluctuate 2 or 3KHz...

@Terry: I was thinking just that, why not simply use vibration and keep your phone on a pocket where you can feel it? (Jean pocket is a good one, as opposed to jacket closet (I've found that my biking jacket really good at insulating my phone's vibration feature =/))

@infmom: Actually, it's believed that ultrasonic sound repels such animals [reference needed xD].

I kinda don't think it'll have any effect...

LOL @ the kids
Smart little buggers

Am I the only one who feels--literally--discomfort from hearing these? I hear all the way up to the 21, but I FEEL a queasy discomfort when they go off. I'm imagining it's the same feeling people must get from fingernails on chalkboards, which, ironically, don't bother me.

kilikopele

I fucking hate these "ringtones." Every time I hear someone with this, I want to smash their phone and punch them in the face.

...17.7KHz, btw

this made me laugh. I played 16.7kHz on my headphones and my wife (who was about 200ft away in a totally different room) yelled out "What the hell is that??", to which i replied "what are you talking about?".

I then proceeded to drive my wife insane for the next 10 min.. lol

On a related note, I used to have this app called AntiGnat. It was supposedly able to keep mosquitos away, but I never really had a chance to try it. I had it on my phone for 8 months and decided to delete it because it was wasting space.

atomicrabbit

Yea, I can still hear the 17.7khz which isn't too bad considering I used to work on fighters. My phone is rockin the Crank ringtone, mainly because I only know a few people that use it, and they're in another state. http://www.myxer.com/ringtone:46304/

These things always depress me - I can't hear 'em for crap (1st 3), I can't smell for crap, and I can't see for crap (without my admittedly mild perscrip glasses)...and I'm only 18! /sigh Well, at least I've still got my good buddy Brain...Hey! Wait! Where are you going?! I swear I didn't mean to inhale so many PVC solvent ketones yesterday! Come back!

ChaosCon

Here's another free Mosquito Rington as WAV or MP3: www.JetCityOrange.com/mosquito-ringtone/

But do test before relying on it!

@paintbox: "All the years of keeping clear of shitty bars has paid off."

"Have". Before someone else mentions it.

paintbox

Wow! As in bow-wow! It called me a dog! I got up to and including 21.1kHz. I don't want to give my age away... unless somebody actually wants it....But I'm doing good for a so called "gen x". Didn't even matter if eq was on or off.

I'd like to test this with the computer off as well. Maybe I could hear more without the ambient masking that's going on around here. Anyway, I'm happy. All the years of keeping clear of shitty bars has paid off.

paintbox

Got 21.1khz

Anyone that says he can hear the 22.4kHz sound on that page is a liar. There's no sound played and the audiofile has no content. Try to open it with Audacity. Nothing there ... I can manage the 21.1kHz and sometimes that can be really annoying. I can hear most of those inductionpowered cookers at a VERY hight pitch.

WolframPan

@Barry99705: I also have that ringtone! Crank rocks!

Old, I'm getting OLD!

junonino

@MCWHAMMER: That's... in poor judgment.

It's also very useful to annoy your neighbor's dogs.

(Not that I'd do that, of course.)

My hearing's out after 12.5 kHz, so these don't do anything for me.

@Ookseer: Ya, I hate music/etc rings, but have been using "environmental" rings for many years: birds, thunder, insects, wind, water, etc.
Doesn't scare the crap out of me and other people don't seem to mind...

My ringtone is the radio broadcast of the final pitch of the Phillies winning the World series last year, I know that no one else has this so it's pretty awesome

These aren't really good for stealth anymore than vibrate is. But they are good for annoying your classmates and making the teacher think they're all insane.

@atomicrabbit: I had an anti-mosquito app for my old Palm, had about 4 different frequencies on it, and claimed to repel bugs.

It didn't work. I tried it repeatedly over the summer a few years back, and it had no discernible effect.

@Twoje: I am one of the few people in my class able to hear the high pitch from CRT screens, although I know some people use these high pitched tones on their phones. Drives me nuts... Only solution seems to be to put my fingers in my ears.

arstinout