The Ubiquitous Sound That You May Have Never Noticed

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Ya know, I just love learning about the everyday things in our world that are meant to make life a little more accessible to those with disabilities. This video is about a small (but nearly universal) thing that elevators do to make life just a bit easier for the blind and visually impaired.

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[spoondancer]

"James, that guys back and hes filming all the elevators again"

[SittingDuc]

Outside the US, I am more used to a single tone for up - "ding!" and then two tones at different pitches for going down - "bing bong!" The same pitch twice feels weird

[Bunny]

I noticed that here in Poland it's usually high-low for going down and low-high for going up. Which I would say is more intuitive.

[raydunakin]

I've never noticed the "one ding up, two dings down" thing before. Now I'm itching to visit a building with elevators and see if they do that.

[timmowers]

lip synching to the elevator voice had me on the floor.

[DeSinc]

in australia, all our lifts are the kind that say "going up" or "going down" if I'm not mistaken - and I don't think I've ever seen a double-ding before, they probably all just rely on the voice. I could be mistaken but I really don't recall a single lift doing a double ding here so this was interesting

[ClintonMatos]

"Putting two and down together" is such a clever line.

[MillieCoyote]

You mentioned in this video that you caption all of your work and I want you to know how much I appreciate it. I'm not Deaf/HoH, but I do have sensory processing issues that can make interpreting speech a little difficult at times. Captions do so much to make YouTube more usable for me and I wish everyone was as consistent about captions as you are.

[Technomancr]

I love the captions on this video. [bwang] [doop] [ding-dong] [tink-kle] [fing] [clang]

[Koda_Grey]

From a blind person, thank you! It’s nice to hear about others caring about accessibility.

[Skyhawk]

I am starting to realize that there is incredible logic and engineering put into darn near everything around me, no matter what it is or how mundane it may seem.

[itsdave]

"That's why I closed captions all of my videos."

Later: *"Excruciatingly smooth jazz"*

[LMacNeill]

I love learning these sorts of "secrets in plain sight" facts. Thanks!

[KBilt]

Industry insider here. The in-car lanterns are not just for modernization. They are sometimes used to reduce the cost of having one at every floor and extra controller outputs to select the correct one. They are also required in specifications when the architect wants to minimize the number of cutouts in the wall for fixtures. The main drawback to car-traveling lanterns is that they can only sound once the door starts to open. Hall lanterns are able to sound in advance, so you can walk to the correct door and be there when it opens. Switching topics - when it comes to mechanical bells, these are almost always wired in series with both lamps in parallel so that only one bell is needed (if you wired one bell in parallel with both lamps, then the bell wire would backfeed the lamp that isn't supposed to be on). However if the lamp is burnt out, then the bell doesn't sound either. Most electronic chimes have separate up and down inputs so they can be wired in parallel with the lamps.

[HalTheAl]

"That's the main reason I caption nearly all of my videos"
It's greatly appreciated more often than most think.
Signed, someone who isn't hearing impaired per say but has a sensory processing disorder and who's brain sometimes needs encouragement from the eyeballs.

[saizai]

I'm functionally blind outside my home - light perception only, long white cane, etc. I've lived in lots of the US plus London and traveled throughout Europe.
1. I've almost never heard the double chime for down. Certainly not enough for it to be a noticeable pattern. The elevator in my apartment building (British: "the lift in my block of flats") does not have an arrival chime at all. However, I've only rarely been in buildings with banks of elevators, as opposed to singles; the up/down distinction is really only relevant for banks, or if it's really crowded (in which case someone inside can tell you). The door sound itself is easy to hear — though at a bank of elevators, it's often not early enough to lock on to and get to before it starts closing. Whereas there is a visual indicator of which elevator is the one arriving, the "arriving" chime is often not so easily localized.
2. Only about half of elevators have a chime to acknowledge "you have pushed the summon button". It's kinda important to know if the thing is incoming or if you're just standing there like an idiot (as opposed to being out of service, or a dodgy button, or the summon being canceled for some reason you didn't notice, etc).
3. About a quarter of elevators have completely indistinguishable (to me) outside buttons for "summon elevator" and "ring emergency alarm". You'd think this is something that one would want to tell apart, but no — same button shape, no Braille.
4. Hardly any elevators make a chime for *passed* floors, or a "which floor am I on now" signal (either an audible announce, or a tactile number on the inside face of the outside elevator door frame), so if I press the wrong button (or if someone else is also using / summoning it), I have no way of knowing I'm on the wrong floor.
5. In larger buildings (e.g. hospitals, airports, malls, etc), there's often visual signage for what is on what floor, or for that matter, what some of the weirder button labels mean (e.g. "M" or "L"). I've literally never found an accessible version of that.
6. In British & European elevators, on the inside, the ground floor button is almost always about 2-3x the height of the rest. This is very important for finding it easily. Reading Braille is slow and isn't a magic skill you get together with your cane (and especially now, I don't really like having to used an ungloved hand to touch communal surfaces).

Etc.

If you actually want to do videos about blind-accessible design, there's a lot I could point you to notice or experience that I'm pretty certain you'll never have noticed before. Ping me @ s.ai/contact if interested..

[pokedude]

I'm pretty sure here in the UK, we don't have double chimes. I do frequently hear the voice saying which direction it's going and the floor it's on, though.

[VirologicZero]

[doot doot]

“This one wants to be extra sure you got the signal”

*[DOOT]*
*[DOOT]*

[Larry]

I love telling jokes about elevators, they work on so many levels!

[Frog-kouu]

“The smarmiest voice imaginable *Going Down*”
Captions on this video are spot-on