The traditional grabber devices that railway station workers use to retrieve items dropped onto the tracks are not as effective at picking up tiny earbuds like Apple’s AirPods. And since these devices are often expensive, the people who dropped them really would like them back right away. The operators needed a better way of retrieving them quickly.
That’s why East Japan Railway Co. partnered with Panasonic to build an earbud retrieval vacuum. The device looks a lot like a cordless stick vacuum with an extendable neck, so it can be operated from the safety of the platform. At its tip are a series of very narrow, flexible tubes that can get into nooks and crannies where earbuds are likely to settle and grab them with suction power. And since the tubes are so small, even Apple’s narrow AirPods won’t accidentally get sucked into the machine.
The device is currently being tested at one of the railway company's stations, but hopefully it will make it into wider production before too long. If the device does reach widescale production, Panasonic has said it will develop a custom attachment tool so that customers can attach the device to their pre-existing Panasonic vacuums at home. No more sacrificing your precious AirPods to that black hole known as the space behind the couch!
