Turn Your House Plants Into Speakers

thermopile writes "According to this story, your everyday houseplants could be turned into room-filling speakers. Called Ka-on ('Flower Sound' in Japanese), the machine consists of a donut-shaped magnet and coil at the base of a vase that hooks up to a CD player, stereo or TV. Prices range from $46 to $460. I don't know about you, but I'd hate getting fragged by that plant over there while playing Doom 3..."

Comments

Sound quality ?

[leonmergen]

Hmmmm, I wonder what the sound quality is... I recently bought this device, but the sound quality is really poor... nice idea though!

Way to go, Slasdot editors!

[shaka]

Déjà vu?

Some pictures of singing plants

[nayigeta]

BBC report cover the same story with some pictures.

This is pretty cool, especially for some geeks that are high on gardening.

Would like to try this myself.

Re:Some pictures of singing plants

[angedinoir]

Here is the page where you can purchase one.

Flower Speaker Amp
Flower Sound Series (Ka-On)

Current exchange rate is about 108 yen to the dollar:

http://www.lets-direct.jp/fsp/fsp3.htm

Re:Eeeehm ...

[BridgeBum]

Anyone knows an ant can't move them.

Very nice - but havent we seen this before?

[syrinje]

Looks like some article-posting-karma-whoring is in progress....and the ed fell for it. We all saw this story on slashdot before.

I quote from the original -

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wednesday July 21, @02:44PM from the listening-to-foghat-on-your-ficas dept. Kerhop writes "People who like talking to their plants can now enjoy a musical accompaniment, thanks to a Japanese invention that turns petals and leaves into amplifiers. Several others are also reporting details of how it works."

On second thoughts - this plant as speaker idea is not so hot either....

More pictures

[Ranx]

Here you can see some pictures:

http://www.lets-direct.jp/fsp/fsp3.htm (Mostly pictures of flowers in a vase).

I wonder if the last vase is really seven times more expensive than the first one.

Re:Eeeehm ...

[mairas]

I'm not sure I'll take horticultural advice from someone who has a _rubber_ plant on his desk ...

Uh, rubber plants (Ficus elastica) are common household plants, and while they might not be the most difficult plants to keep alive, they still are real, living entities, instead of being made of rubber, as you seem to suggest. I'm not sure I'd listen to critique of one's horticultural knowledge from someone who doesn't even know the rubber plant...

flat panel speakers

[billy reuben]

Look at the flower arrangements. They're comprised of small flowers accompanied by big, flat leaves. My guess is that the leaves generate most of the sound, while the flowers generate most of the press.

Re:You might make your plants sick...

[TeaQuaffer]

Here is an interesting page on music and plants.

I'm afraid that their conclusion isn't very hopeful for those of us welcoming our new listening plant over... yeah.

There is an interesting bit about Mimosa pudica, a plant that is sensitive to vibrations.

Re:Looking for a good plant to play Bob Marley

[lcsjk]

This is not rocket science. Pillows and soft objects muffle sound, so expect the same from soft stemmed and soft leaved plants. Stiff plant stems will be able to transmit the sound to the beginning of the leaves and petals, but still the volume will be low. My opinion, for what it's worth, (and I did get an A+ on my college research paper, "The Physics of Sound") is that most of the sound is from the pot itself, and without the flower pot, you have essentially no volume.

How do the plants like it? Considering that plants live in windy conditions that cause the stems to pull on the roots constantly, I would expect that moderate shaking will be beneficial. If the root hairs are severed by large vibrations, I would expect the plant to not do well. Too much water or too little water will have a more castastrophic effect.