Every park I take my kids to has a pair of these so-called “speaking tubes” and kids constantly scream into them but I’ve literally never encountered a pair that works. What’s the deal here?

by SirDeeSee

34 comments

  2. They aren’t to talk to people in the playground.

    They are a communication line to the Mole PeOpLe

  3. The tube goes all the way through to its pair in Australia.

  5. Same thing as two cans and a piece of string.

    All sound is, is vibrations.

  6. I hope you’re placing your ear on the receiver side and not anything else

  7. I think you answered your own question. When kids scream into them their voice is going to travel much further and basically render any noise coming out of the tube impossible to hear. Try telling your kids to speak normally.

  8. Never liked these urinals as they are a bit exposed but I guess when you got to go you got to go.

  9. If too many people piss into it the pipe will be blocked

  10. When was the last time you had a hearing check, OP? They always used to work, and I’m half-deaf from a bit too much live music.

  11. Everything was going well until I told the kids the playground was built on a graveyard…

  13. I’ve seen more than one person trying to wash their dirty shoes under them for a minute or two before they wander off shamefacedly. I couldn’t quite believe it.

  14. Depends on how well built they are.

    I’ve seen 1 that uses a large dish to focus the sound over 50 meters away into another large dish and you can hear the other person. Almost unnerving to hear a clear voice “appear” from the dish

  17. The whole point is to put your ear close to the other one. Then you can just whisper secrets into one, and the other person can hear you from the other side of the playground.

  18. Its really a new take on “throw a potaro into the hole without stepping on the red green”

  22. Are they not breathing tubes for the people buried under the playground?

  23. I’ve always thought it was a strange place to put a urinal if I’m being honest.

  24. They’re for children to denounce their parents as bourgeois traitors to the revolution. You won’t hear anything, but someone is listening, oh yes…

  26. Jodrell Bank’s play area has/had a much better version of this in the early 2000s. It used two above-ground parabolic dishes, about maybe 30m+ apart. Worked perfectly, was eerie as feck though to hear my brother whispering at me from that distance.

  27. I always test them out by yelling into one end, running to the other and listen. They definitely don’t work.

  28. If you want to try the ye olde version, go to Liverpool Anglican cathedral (other cathedrals are available) and sit in the whispering arches. Same principle, more sinister.

  30. I’ve seen plenty that work, but people tend toto stuff crap into them, so they get blocked

  32. There’s a set in our local park. I’m absolutely certain they just cement both ends into the ground with no pipe in between.

  34. Speaking as someone who builds & installs play equipment, 9 times out of 10, we when we have ripped these out during a re-fit, they haven’t been connected.

    The sad truth is, the industry has plenty of lazy installers / cowboys!

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