Honda has created a plush car that emits the sounds of engines revving in order to soothe crying babies. The Honda Sound Sitter is a stuffed car, but inside is a speaker that plays engine sounds of cars like the 1969 Honda 1300 sedan, Integra (RSX), S2000, and NSX.
According to Honda, the noises a baby hears while its gestating in the womb are low frequency sounds of 250 Hz or less. These include the mother’s heartbeat and blood flow. Honda tested the frequencies and sounds of 37 cars and found that the NSX’s was the closest to the frequencies heard in utero. Apparently, the high-pitched revs of the EG Civic simply didn’t cut it.
We’re not sure how scientifically accurate this is, but Honda went ahead and created a stuffed car that parents can turn on via a key-fob like remote. Indeed, when crying babies are handed the revving Sound Sitter, they seem to calm down. Maybe it actually does work, maybe it’s all a scheme to start kids on the road to car enthusiasm early. In any case Honda says it doesn’t have plans to manufacture the Sound Sitter just yet.
Taking kids for drives always seemed to relax them to sleep, I imagine this might work along the same lines.
Never mind the kids – I want one!
My mum says that, if I was crying on a car journey, revving the engine a bit would calm me 🙂
Any chance JNC wants to pick some of these for resale in the webstore?
Unfortunately they’re just prototypes, not for sale.
This is so cool. I’d buy two for my young boys right now if these were offered for sale, even if I had to hunt for them and pay exorbitantly to get them from Japan.