eli5 Noise cancelling headphones are magical but how does the technology work and does it drain the battery?

Question

eli5 Noise cancelling headphones are magical but how does the technology work and does it drain the battery?

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Answer 1

I’m assuming you mean active noise canceling. You’re in luck because I’m autistic and recently looked into this.

So your headphones have a microphone that “listens” to the background noises and basically plays equal but opposite soundwaves to cancel out the sound. Think about it like this, the soundwave it’s detecting is +2. Your headphones will then play -2. So you’re hearing 0.