You know you should be wearing hearing protection in the shop, but you don’t want to stop what you’re doing just to grab it. Do this enough times, and you might find yourself asking why everybody has started mumbling.
To avoid becoming one of 15% of the adult population with noise-induced hearing loss, you might benefit from 3M’s NI-100 Noise Indicator. Accurate to 3dB, the noise indicator flashes red every second when noise levels rise above 85 dBA (the dB limit where hearing protection is recommended) — and flashes green every second when the noise level is below 85dBA. If it isn’t flashing, either you forgot to turn it on or the battery is dead.
Weighing only 17 grams, the NI-100 can hang from your shirt on the included badge clip. The rechargeable battery will operate for up to 200 hours. To save the battery, the device will power down after 10 hours or so. A mini-USB cable plugs into the bottom of the device for charging.
Pricing for 3M’s NI-100 starts around $30 before shipping.
Article on Noise-Induced Hearing Loss (NIHL) from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders [website]
NI-100 [3M]
Street Pricing [Google]
Via Amazon [What’s This?]