eli5 how does noise canceling/transparent mode work on earbuds?

Question

eli5 how does noise canceling/transparent mode work on earbuds?

In: Technology

Answer 1

Sound is a wave.

You can take 2 waves and “add” them together. If the 2 waves are exact opposites of one another then when added together they will equal nothing. It’s like taking 95+(-95)=0.

Noise canceling devices have a microphone that listens to the sound from outside, it then generates an “anti” wave that exactly matches the outside sound and plays that anti wave through the speakers.

So what your ears hear is the sound from outside, plus the antirave that equals zero. They literally generate a new sound that cancels out the external sound.