While bone conduction technology has been around for a while, primarily in hearing aids and specialized industrial technology, headsets based on it (bonephones!) can also get devices that turn your finger into a speakerphone. telephone.
Bone conduction simply skips the first three stages and goes straight to your cochlea. Because the vibrations are already in your bones, they do not pass through the outer and middle ear at all. Nevertheless, your cochlea can still pick them up and convert them, sending out a similar (but not identical!) sequence of nerve impulses. It's like cooking dried pasta from a box instead of making your own from scratch – you skip a few steps, but get a pretty similar result.
While most of the press is focused on new consumer applications, bone conduction has made its debut as a medical technology. Ludwig von Beethoven may have been the first person to try this:he experimented with different ways of running a metal rod from his piano to his head, and while the sound probably wasn't great, it would have been quite useful. Since then, bone conduction has been used to treat several types of hearing loss, probably with better results.
Consumer tech is where the exciting stuff is happening, though. Regular headphones can sometimes feel a bit isolating because you're in a completely different dimension of sound than the world around you. However, bone conduction does not block out external noise, so if you need to pay attention to the environment around you, a set of bonephones will allow you to crank up your music. and listen to what your boss says.
This is especially handy for runners, cyclists, and other outdoor athletes who need to know what's going on around them. Even scuba divers, race car crews, and military teams have found bone conduction to be a big help, and it's Google Glass' main audio output. From a social point of view, it might also be a good thing for the world at large to have most people listening to the same basic layer of sound rather than in their own earphone bubbles. P>
If you're disappointed with this version of the future (no flying cars? Hoverboards have wheels ?), it might cheer you up to hear that you can now make phone calls by pressing your finger against your jaw to hear your phone sound.
Currently, the two companies producing these devices are Orii (Hong-Kong) and Sgnl (South Korea). Although they come in different styles (as a ring and bracelet, respectively), the basic function is the same:pair the device with your smartphone and you can call, text, interact with voice assistants and more just by tapping your finger. against the bone near your ear for sound. The sound from your phone travels via Bluetooth to the device, which then relays the sounds as vibrations that travel from your finger bone to your jawbone.
Both products hit the market and performed quite well. The vocals don't create very complex waveforms, so even running the vibrations through multiple bones doesn't really degrade the quality. Too noisy? Simply use your finger to block excess outside noise from entering your ear. Yes, in many ways it's just another weird smartphone extension, but besides being incredibly cool, it's a very interesting step towards a more organic human-technology interface.
Bone conduction probably won't fully replace traditional audio hardware, especially since some people use headphones specifically to escape noisy environments, and because the sound quality you get from bone conduction just isn't great . Bass doesn't work as well, and bonephones can easily drown out in environments with a lot of outside noise.
The added situational awareness is a big plus for many, though, and smartphone connection presents a very exciting possible future for how we interact with our technology. Smartwatches didn't really offer enough value for most people to bother buying one, and perhaps the same goes for things like Orii and Sgnl. However, there is definitely a version of the future where wearable bone conduction devices take off to the point where talking into your empty hand doesn't give you a second glance down the street.
Image credits:Bone Conduction Headset, Orii Lifestyle Photo, Biological Fact
