Change the frequency for the find nearby friends feature

#1

Note: this is related to a current mobile feature than a new feature.

Background:
The human hearing range (how high pitched and low pitched we can hear) gradually decreases over time. This has to do with the decay of certain parts of the inner ear that gets more severe as we get older. While 20 kH may not be heard by adults (cough cough Roblox engineers), it can usually be heard in kids and teens (cough cough target audience) as a high pitched, even painful sound, depending on the volume (which is required to be really high in order to use the feature in app).

Feature Request
The “Find Nearby Friends” feature in the Roblox app can be heard easily and is at an unbearable frequency of about 20 kilohertz. My suggestion is to either lower it out of the hearing range (less than 30 hertz) or raise it out of the hearing range (may not be possible, kids can hear up to 30 kH). Until this happens, the feature is painful and not useful as a player and developer.

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#2

Funny you mention it. Another engineer at the office was working on this feature and we could both hear the sound, as pleasant as it is.

I’ll ask if there’s a limitation to the frequency of the pitch. I’m personally not well versed in how the speaker-microphone tech works.

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#3

I’m sure they did research into why the specific frequency they use was the best one - probably did testing trying a bunch of different frequencies and this is just the one that worked best. Just because humans can’t hear it doesn’t mean your average iPhone mic is able to pick it up (and vice versa)

#4

Can confirm, was very painful to ears.

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#5

Can confirm, very loud sound and parents can’t hear it at all. I would suggest 22K hertz as thats when human hearing gets out of range. HOWEVER, dogs and other animals can still hear it.

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#6

Is that what I keep hearing? :joy:

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