Bone Conductors Going Mainstream

Bone conduction technology that sends vibrations directly to the inner ear, bypassing the eardrums, is seeing increasing use-evolving from its origins in medical hearing devices to mainstream consumer and strategic communication applications. The advantages in open-ear wireless applications have great appeal and the audio industry is responding.

- Mike Klasco, Martins

Popular dynamic headphone drivers, the most critical component and the voice of the headphone, are mostly commodity stuff and all are too close a cousin to the buzzer and micro speakers from which they descended. This should not be a surprise as many Asian headphone manufacturers started out producing buzzers and injection-molded plastic parts.

Conventional earphones do the job nicely for telephony communications and music listening for most consumer applications. The drivers on these designs produce sound by vibrating the air that reaches the external ear, eardrum, middle ear, and finally the inner ear. Yet, in-ear models are uncomfortable for many people for quite a few reasons. We all have experienced the pressure and lack of ventilation in our ear canals, the occlusion effect of standing waves when our ears are plugged up, along with the loss of situational awareness. Loose-fit earbuds have changed the earphone market forever, as demonstrated by the massive success of Apple's original AirPods.

Leaving the ear totally open by design, bone conduction "headphones" typically transmit vibrations directly to the human skull and skin, bypassing the ear canal, straight into the inner ear. The key value of bone conduction is that our ears are left completely open, allowing us to have a parallel hearing channel to our surroundings, while still enjoying the music. But to get to designs that are able to rival traditional earphones in music fidelity, we still have some way to go. Yet the key proposition in bone conduction is already appealing to a significant number of consumers and professionals.

Sound Through Our Bones