Product feasibility study

Design Requirements: Michael

Must not damage the users hearing through exposure to sound, maximum volume must not exceed a sound output 90dB(A) although this can cause damage to the ear it will start to do this after 8 hours of exposure a day which will be unexpected but a warning will be placed. If needs be the maximum output can be reduced to 85dB(A). As volume will be controlled using the Ipod/mp3 player and phone this will be done using an amplifier circuit with gain restriction to keep volume below the required level.

Must have 2 inputs one from the phone which will be a bluetooth connection which suits most recently manufactured phoned and a wire to the Ipod/mp3 player which is a permanently attached phono cable. It will have 1 output going to the headphones.

The Bluetooth can be class 3 as a range of 1 meter is all that is needed and this will also save on cost. We can also use version 1.2 not 2.0+EDR as a large data rate is not needed.

The product will be of a length useful to everyone and this will be a total length of a metre. The headphone wires will be a length of 20cm as this will place the main casing at a point where it can be clipped to clothing and is easily accessible. The main casing itself will be relativity small at 2cm and the phono cable to the Ipod/mp3 player will be 78cm long to be able to reach trouser pockets where an Ipod/mp3 player is stored the furthest point from the listeners ears.

The main casing will have one button on the main casing to answer and hang up the phone. This is done to reduce complexity of the product therefore reducing cost. Volume and muting can be controlled from the Ipod/mp3 player and the phone itself.

The products itself must have the correct internal wiring technology so that the music is automatically paused on button press, and resumed on button press the second time.

Design Requirements: Bradley Field

The device must be able to connect to any mp3 device with a phono headphone jack. This is the standard adaptor wich is used on most mp3 devices so you can connect to nearly all mp3 devices wich makes the device completley versityle.

The device needs to be hard wearing because it is designed to be used outside on the move and therefore needs to be tough enough to withstand sandard wear and tear. For example it needs to
be splash proof incase of rain or drink spillage.

The user needs to be able to safely dispose of the device, taking into account the enviroment and safety.

Use Case Scenarios: David

The user is listening to music and a call comes in. In this case the device will have to notify the user that there is an incoming call. This will be done by pausing whatever music is playing and playing an incoming call sound in the headphones. The user then has three seconds silence before the music resumes. This clearly allerts the user to the incoming call and allows the user to ignore the call if they do not wish to pickup. If they do however wish to pick up, the user presses the button on the device. The button is located just over half way up the length of the headphones, so it is easy to access. The other function of the button on the device is to end the call and resume playing music from the mp3 player.

Further down the line the device could be improved by adding the ability to convert text messages into speech and playing it back to the user. This would also be useful for disabled users and people with bad eyesight. Also it would be an improvement to have the headphones alert the user as to who was calling, so they could make an informed decision to ignore the call or answer without having to check the phone itself. Further improvements could include facilitating some sort of outgoing call service integrated within the device, and integration with other electronic products.

Design Analysis

Comparison to Existing Products: Jason

In the current global environment, there are several products and working designs that allow for one device to play music and then for another to pause this motion whilst a call occurs. Mobile phones have been using the technology now for the past 5 years and continued development of them has allowed for the majority of leading mobile designers to allow this function to be enabled in all their up-to date products. This idea has now been accomplishment to higher levels with also video playback, however our design follows on from this idea. The idea of having two different manufactured products working together in sync through one single headphone is however the next link in this chain.

The mobile phones that use this existing technology of intergrating MP3 player with it's initial mobile phone active function have a designed peripheral that allows for both to interext during a single segment. The instance allows for the player to pause the function of playing from the music program to answer the call. This interaction work with most mobile phones, but the end result can vary with some devices allowing for the user to initiate wether it continues playing music when call ends or isn't answered after dial-out or it remains paused till activated.

http://uk.lge.com/products/model/detail/mobilephones_lgrenoir(kc910).jhtml

Initially wired headsets would be an issue to developing the product as there are a vast global variety of headset types that only work with some special adapters, other that are only found in specific regions, others are even custom made to suit their lifestyles. Generally a wired format device would mean multiple adapters being produced initially there wouldn’t be many in the testing range but globally spread the product would need to be functional for all available MP3 & Mobile devices available.

Wireless is the key to this product, with general focus on Bluetooth connection being the best route to follow to achieve global success of the product. Many products already exist in the environment, which allow for multiple devices to work through one available headphone device, an example would be the “Plantronics Calisto Pro” Headset. This product allows for the user to use their home phone through a wireless Bluetooth headset, linked up to the home network, but is also allowed to connect through a PC headset link-up such as “Skype”, without the error and time consumption of having to re-sync the device to the PC and so forth. With latest editions now incorporating mobile phones as well as PC & Home and office phone networks, the development is still continuing within the Bluetooth Technology Industry.

http://www.headsets.com/headset/Plantronics-Calisto-Pro/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phEJ6L-Gqrs&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eheadsets%2Ecom%2F&feature=player_embedded

There are some products on the market that work with both MP3 player & Headset, however these are currently headphone with build in MP3 Player’s that can function with mobile phone devices. Despite this, the basic fundamentals behind of our idea haven’t actually been attempted nor demonstrated by anyone before in industry, so now were taking two existing working solutions of a Bluetooth Phone Networking Headset with an Bluetooth MP3 Player Headset that already exist and now creating a single active device.

Comparison to Existing Products: Tshepho

The 2 examples from the website link below are closely related to our design. The Motorola S9-HD buetooth headphones, developed in the first quater of the year 2008 is said to be compatible with any brand of Bluetooth enabled phone or music device that supports the advanced audio distribution profile. This can also be paired with most ipods using the motorola D650 stereo adapter which is sold separetely.

The other device is Philips SHB9000 headphones.

http://bluetoothinsight.blogspot.com/search/label/bluetooth%20headphones

Comparison to Existing Products: Bradley Field & Chris Smith

There is currently a product wich allows you to connect IPods and mobile phones together. The device I am comparing is a big set of headphones with a holder for the ipod. Also, similar to our product, the device also has bluetooth wich allows the phone to be connected to the headset in order to recieve mobile phone calls. However there are many benefits of our device over the naviplay headset.

The Naviplay device does not allow you to connect any mp3 player, just the Apple ipod.
The Naviplay device is big and bulky unlike our device wich is simpy a wire with a small box on it and two earphones.
Unlike our device the naviplay device holds the mp3 player up in the head wich means your mp3 player is exposed to over people view wich is a huge security flaw, however our device has your mp3 player is coneced through a standard headphone cable wich means you can put your mp3 player in your pocket.

www.slashphone.com/106/3782.html

Design Analysis
Concept Drawing: Saleh Alyahya
text

This is a concept drawing which we did not end up going with. It depicts our product with an inbuilt screen. This turned out to be too costly to include in the product.

Concept Drawings: Chris

This is a concept drawing of our finalized product.

Key Cost Drivers: Chris

Key Drivers:

Main headphone wiring
Bluetooth connectivity feature to phone
Answer / hang-up button -

Same button

Pause / un-pause technology -

The price of current headphones in the market can range from around a pound to several thousand. The primary differences between the bottom end and the top end would definitely be the quality which the headphones can provide, the comfort of the headphones, and to an extent, the size.

The only headphones costing thousands are professional grade, very large external noise cancelling headphones used by such people as professional DJ’s. Therefore this extreme of the market is fairly irrelevant in comparison with our product. The headphones we will be incorporating will be the smaller, MP3 player suited headphones. The high end of the market for headphones such as this is below £100.

So the main differences between the new high end and the low end of the headphone market in question would be quality of the headphones, and the comfort. Therefore our aim should be to produce good quality, comfortable headphones and not really worry about size (within reason) or appearance (appearance appeared to be taken into consideration a lot more on large headphones).

The main factors affecting comfort will be the shape of the headphones, which has little influence on the cost of the materials or manufacturing, so is irrelevant at this stage. The sound quality will be directly affected by the quality of the components inside the headphones. The more money spent on high quality components in the manufacturing phase, the better the sound quality will be.

However our product will already be significantly more expensive than standard headphones because of its functionality with mobile phones. So within reason, it would be more cost effective to have the headphones at a standard reliable quality instead of having a far superior quality headphone.

Looking more in depth at the components inside a headphone which make the difference, there are two main parts. Headphones are a pair of transducers that receive electrical signals from the MP3 player. The headphone’s speakers convert these signals to sound waves that your ears can then hear. It is the quality of the speaker that is the dominant factor here. The price of the components for an average, good, acceptable sound quality of headphone is not very much at all.

The cost of components which are nowadays considered to not be at the forefront of technology are cheapened even further when purchased in bulk for large scale manufacture. The mark up from headphone components to the finished product, including production and materials would probably be over ten times. This would not be possible without the components being batch purchased and mass produced on an assembly line. This would be the best way for our product to be manufactured financially.

The other key component in the product is the Bluetooth functionality and its connection with the mobile phone. Currently Bluetooth hands free kits exist for mobile phones. These range from about £10 to over £200. However a large factor with these wireless headsets is the visual appearance. This is because it is quite obvious to be walking around with a Bluetooth ear piece in, so people want it to look good.

Our Bluetooth components will be hidden besides a standard microphone built into the component box. Therefore the higher end of the market is irrelevant as visual appearance of Bluetooth devices or brands are of no importance. Therefore I believe the lower end of the market basic devices will suffice and be the most suitable to receive a significant income on the product after expenditures.

Again, if batch purchased the price of these components will decrease significantly. Overall I would conclude the overall manufacturing costs of our product to be somewhere between £1 - £4. This is based on existing product prices and the average mark up from manufacturing prices. Finding information about specific costs of specific components without enquiring directly to suppliers is impossible, as no company would wish to divulge the manufacturing price and reveal how much profit they are making from the consumer, when they are trying to sell the product.

I think a suitable price for our product would be between £20 - £40. There are no competitive products currently on the market that we were able to find. So if there are, they are marketed so poorly that they pose no threat. This gives us a fairly wide price scale which we have control over. Market research would have to be undertaken to uncover real statistical data on how much people would be willing to pay.

The only other key cost factors to take into consideration would be the internal wiring to transmit audio from the MP3 player to the headphone speakers, and from the Bluetooth receiver to the headphone speakers. Also the wiring to automatically pause the MP3 player as the user presses the answer phone button, and the resuming of music when the same button (now the hang up button) is pressed.

This is again very basic and readily, cheaply available technology nowadays. Based on research about how the headphones themselves work, the great majority of the cost of headphones goes into the speakers. Therefore I think a standard cheap, effective and reliable wiring system will do. There are no real levels of quality available here, so the price will not waiver much at all, especially when purchasing in bulk.

Main Headphone Wiring:

Internal sound carrying wiring.
External cable casing.
Headphone speaker outputs.
Audio jack to MP3 player.

Bluetooth Connectivity Feature:

Bluetooth receiving device.
Bluetooth sending device.

Phone Interaction Button:

Piece casing.
Button internal wiring.
Connectivity to Bluetooth device technology.

Automated MP3 Interaction:

Recognition of signal from Bluetooth device technology.
Signal transfer to MP3 player technology and wiring.