Make Your Eyes Louder With Bluetooth Speaker Goggles

Your eyes are cool, but they aren’t very loud. You can remedy that with this build from [Sam Freeman]: a pair of Bluetooth speaker goggles. Combine a pair of old welders goggles with a Bluetooth receiver, a small amp and a couple of cheap speaker drivers and you’re well on your way to securing your own jet set radio future.

[Sam] found a set of speaker drivers that were the same size as the lenses of the goggles, as if they were designed for each other. They don’t do much for your vision, but they definitely look cool. [Sam] found that he could run the speakers for an hour or so from a small Lithium Ion battery that’s hidden inside the goggles, along with a large lever switch for that throwback electronics feel. The total cost of this build is a reasonably-low at $40, or less if you use bits from your junk pile.

The real trick is watching them in action and deciding if there’s any motion happening. Don’t get us wrong, they look spectacular but don’t have the visual feedback component of, say, the bass cannon. Look for yourself in the clip below. We might add a pair of googly eyes on the speakers that dance as they move, but that would get away from the more serious Robopunk look that [Sam] is going for. What would you add to build up the aesthetic of these already iconic goggles?

16 thoughts on “Make Your Eyes Louder With Bluetooth Speaker Goggles

  1. Refreshed the pages and saw this, I just burst out laughing.

    Thinking about it though, the old movies of a bi-plane and a farmer/cowboy type pilot who always wears them ‘flight goggles’ on his forehead (10-20mm above his eyes) when flying. Looks like those goggles.
    Just finish dressing like that pilot in the proper brown leather flight jacket with those goggles pointing up above the eyes. Would make a good costume

  2. robopunk attack! lol
    sweet conversation starter!

    PS: that switch, as good as it looks (and feels) is most likely rated for ONLY AC and NOT DC, very common and lovely switch, but the rating is AC and the de-rating for DC might supprise you.

    that switch might handle a lot less DC before being fudged, unless it is ALWAYS switched off AFTER the power is switched off… in other words if its a mode switch flipped before activating a machine’s power it’s fine, im not sure if its voltage or current or both that need to be derated, but ive had bad expierences with assuming an AC switch can handle DC.

    honest, i destroyed a 15A 120vAC wall switch with less then an amp at 12vDC into an inductive load(motor), although digital tech is not as much of a problem.

    heres how to keep it from failing: use it to switch a BJT or FET for power-on, then your switch will last without getting “scratchy” or “melty” or just glitchy.

    1. you certainly have a point there. Depending on the type of load the amplifier represents this might reduce the lifespan of the switch. The problem is in the arc that appears the moment the switch breaks the contact, this may even be a problem when switching on because of the bouncing of the contacts. But considering that this gadgets is only used a few times and then disappears into the back of a closet/box/cabinet/whatever, so I do not think this is a big problem. And if it was, he knew about it already.

      What annoys me a lot of times is that a lot of builders don’t take the effort in keeping the front of the switch flush with the front of the panel it sticks out of. So a lot of time you see the threat sticking out, this is ugly and is so easily fixed with some washers (if you happen to have lost one of the 2 supplied nuts). Because this is the reason every switch like this comes with 2 nuts, to mount it properly into the front panel.
      I guess that most of the time one nut threw the other one in the trash wondering “he’ I have a spare nut, why would that be… strange… hmmmm…”.
      The other reason could be that there simply wasn’t enough room in the googles for the switch, so i had to stick out.

      Other then that, this is certainly an original build. What is that music it is playing?

      1. Good points. I honestly hadn’t thought about de-rating for DC, but you’re right, that’s something to consider for a robust project. And you guessed right about these not getting frequent use – so far I haven’t seen any issue.

        And I agree with the point about threads sticking up. For whatever reason, I wanted to keep enough room inside to be able to put them over my eyes. But for wearing on a hat, one could mount it flush for a cleaner look.

        The music is Tiny Robots by The Phenomenauts, by the way. http://phenomenauts.bandcamp.com/track/tiny-robots

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