Russia to test new device to jam wireless headphones at railway crossings

Russian engineers developed a wireless headphone jammer that is going to be put to the test at railway crossings.

Photo: unsplash.com by Клем Оноджегуо is licensed under Creative Commons CC0 1.0

Students from the Institute of Radio Engineering Systems and Control of Southern Federal University developed a jamming device that turns off wireless headphones at railway tracks.

The micro-controller of the device detects the Bluetooth signal from the headphones in its range and reboots the 2.4 GHz frequency on which Bluetooth and Wi-Fi operate. This causes the sound in the headphones to disappear, and the person will be able to hear the train or the alarm at the crossing.

As soon as a person leaves the jammer's coverage area, the headphones will start working normally.

The device only blocks the operation of headphones and does not in any way interfere with the work of pacemakers, hearing aids and other wearable devices.