My wife used a hair dryer this morning. Normally this is nothing worth to blog about, but after a night with not so much sleep (my child is getting several new teeth at once and I took care about it this night) the sound of the hair dryer was a bit annoying, even if I was already preparing me to go to work too.
At this point I suddenly noticed, that I can not remember to have seen a commercial of a hair dryer where a low noise sound pressure level is one of the important features. I also can not remember that someone things that this shall be changed. This is strange.
There is a lot of movement to make cars more silent. There is a lot of movement to limit the sound pressure level of portable music players (those where the music is consumed the most with headphones). There are rules about the sound pressure level at work. There are commercials which focus on the lack of loud noise from the dishwasher or the washing machine, but I can not remember to have seen putting the noise level of a hair dryer, a mixer, a vacuum or something similar as a major feature against a competition into a commercial.
When we are a bit late to go to work, my wife is sometimes using the air conditioning of the car as a hair dryer (we drive together, so no danger on the road), and this is producing enough airflow to dry the hairs while still not being as loud as a hair dryer. Yes, the airflow generates some noise which you can not prevent, and the fans are more far away from the ear than it is the case with a hair dryer (and it is not a low-class car), but if I look at the noise level of quiet fans in a PC, I am sure that it is possible to cut the noise pressure level of a hair dryer. No high-frequent noise from the motor of the fan and a blade and case design which provides a good airflow while reducing airflow-noise is possible.
As a hair dryer is a device which is not far away from ears, I am surprised that there is not more interest (at least in various technical standards-compliance definitions and tests required by the government) in this. Specially kids seem to agree that it is too loud.
Similar for a vacuum.
And while we are at it, my mother is known to bake good cakes, she is baking at least one cake per week and if there is some festivity (family, friends, neighbors) she is even baking 5 – 6 cakes in a week. As such she is not using a cheap mixer, she is using a quality product with a stable stand. Still, this device is making a lot of noise. A part of the noise is generated by the motor (high frequency, depends upon the speed of the mixer) and if you really want to speak about something, you better go out of the kitchen.
I know, devices with a reduced noise level a more expensive to create and build, but I can not really believe that nobody would we willing to spend money for such a device. So, if you know a marketing person of a manufacturer of such devices, please have a talk about a nice “our product is better than the one of the competition because it is more silent”-campaign with him/her.