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Every year, cyclist-pedestrian collisions go up. The bicycle bell – the only warning a cyclist has – hasn't changed since 1895. And half the city can't hear it anymore.
Introducing: DuoBell. The first bell engineered to penetrate active noise cancellation. Purely mechanical. Developed with scientists from the University of Salford. 22 metres of extra reaction distance.
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The brief wasn't " make a better bell ". It was " understand how noise-cancellation works well enough to break it ". The answer turned out to be analogue. That's what made this so exciting.
HUGH BOYS
HEAD OF HARDWARE DEVELOPMENT
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Through acoustic testing, researchers identified a narrow frequency band – between 750 and 780 Hz – that ANC filters consistently fail to suppress.
We built the bell to emit sound precisely within that range.
A second resonator, tuned to a higher frequency, gives DuoBell its name. A custom hammer mechanism produces rapid, irregular strikes – sound waves that move too unpredictably for ANC algorithms to process and cancel in time. The result: pedestrians wearing noise-cancelling headphones gained up to 22 metres of additional reaction distance when the bell rang.
RINGING TRUE
Prototypes were trialled on London streets in February with Deliveroo couriers. They worked well enough that the couriers asked to keep them!
Confidence that someone ahead would actually hear them.
Mechanical, precise, and built around a frequency gap that smart technology couldn't close.