Next-Gen Audio: How To Pick the Best Bone Conduction Headphones
Did you know that your ears require a certain type of environment? We already know that our hearing can be damaged by listening to audio that’s too loud, but not as many people know that using earbuds can lead to ear infections. Creating a germy, moist, wet environment inside our ears is simply not a good idea! But most of us spend many hours each day connected to friends, family, work, and hobbies, through our technology, and most of these applications require some sort of audio component.
None of us want to be “that guy” blaring our audio out loud and contributing to noise pollution. But, if wearing headphones can be hazardous to our health, what else is there? Bone conduction audio technology is the answer.
Bone conduction headphones work by using your own bone as the medium through which sound waves travel to your inner ear. Normally, headphones shoot sound waves directly into your ear canal, where they bounce into your tympanic membrane (ear drum). But, with bone conduction technology, the inner ear can be directly vibrated. This has numerous benefits for spacial awareness, hygienic health, and multi-use scenarios. It can even help people with blockages or damage to the outer ear enjoy music.
Furthermore, these are harder to lose than modern earbuds, but remain significantly lower profile than any form of traditional headphones. Utilizing all the latest technology, many models are water-resistant, dust-resistant, and feature multi-point Bluetooth pairing (which allows you to keep them connected to multiple devices at the same time for sheer convenience factor). And, of course, all the best models come with built-in microphone capabilities, ensuring that, at the tap of a button (or a word, if you have voice commands enabled) you can take that important phone call.
Oh, and in case you’re not interested yet, these headphones can feature all-day battery life, far surpassing ordinary wireless headphones when it comes to providing for your audio needs.
These days, I personally use bone conduction headphones almost exclusively, only switching to my professional headphones when I need to do video editing, or want to fully immerse in a video gaming session.