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Brown Noise Generator

in use

Brown, pink or white noise for work and study, computed on the device while you work. Nothing is streamed and nothing is played from a file. The timer is optional: with it on, the session is a flight toward a star, and the sound fades out on arrival.

In the store Chrome Web Store
Chrome with the Wikipedia article Brownian noise on the left and the extension's side panel on the right: a small warm star, the dial wound to 15 minutes, Start, the room preset and four knobs.

How it is made

Every sound is computed in the browser. The core is brown noise. Above it sit a layer of pink noise for air, a layer of space, and a slow drift that keeps the sound from standing still. Nothing changes in steps: a sudden change pulls attention away from the work.

Pink and white noise have their own sources and filters. Brown stays the default and sounds exactly as it did before the other two were added. Over the noise there is an optional tone layer with one knob; it follows the phases of the session.

Colourbrown · pink · whitethree separate sources
Roomopen office · thin walls · café · deep reading · racing thoughts · too mucha preset never changes the length
Knobsvolume · masking · stimulation · tonethe same four in every room
Timer5 · 15 · 25 · 45 · 90 minutes, or ∞length comes only from the dial

The picture is computed from the sound, and the panel has no settings for how it looks. The colour of the interface is the colour of the noise; the glow of the star is the volume. There is one switch, motion, which stops the movement for people it bothers.

The panel at rest: a small star, the dial wound to 15 minutes, Start and infinity buttons, four knobs.
The dial is wound to 15 minutes. The star is small: it is still far away.
The panel in flight: a larger star, short streaks of passing stars, no dial and no numbers.
No dial and no numbers, only the star and the stars flying past.
The same flight with the mouse over the panel: the dial is back and shows 9 minutes left.
The dial comes back while the mouse is over the panel: 9 minutes left.
Arrival: the dial has unwound to zero, the star is large and close, Start is lit again.
The dial has unwound to zero. The star is close.

Who it is for

It is made first of all for adults with ADHD. Two moments are hard for them: getting started and being pulled out of the work. The sound rises gently at the start and fades on arrival. There is no bell.

Devlog

UI

A user wrote that the panel had become too noisy: the grain on the screen and the big dial. I removed the grain completely. The star is small at rest again and grows as you fly. The dial unwinds like a kitchen timer. In flight it shows only under the mouse.

release

Renamed to Brown Noise Generator, with a new panel, icon and listing in 53 languages in one release. The picture now follows the sound.

timer

Four rules for the timer. Only the dial sets the length; a preset changes only the room. ∞ is a mode with no countdown. Changing the length mid-session starts it again from full. Finish ends the flight and the sound.

focus

Reversed the centre a second time. The sound leads; the timer is useful but optional.

sound

Added pink and white noise as their own sources, so that the words “pink noise generator” in the listing are a fact.

sound

1.1.0 added the tone layer over the noise, as much or as little of it as you want.

UI

The screen became a starfield with the star as the destination. Before that it was an ember in a ring.

The panel on 26 July: a dark starfield with a warm star in the middle.
focus

The first reversal: use showed the timer is the centre, and sound is what time is made of.

sound

Time is carried by noise, and it drifts slowly instead of changing in steps.