In recent years, you may find that more and more people around you are wearing a kind of earphone clipped to the edge of the temple. Most of these headphones are bone conduction headphones.

Bone conduction headphones are sound transmission devices that transmits sound through the vibration of the skull so that people can perceive speech.

Almost all bone conduction headphones have the problem of sound leakage,this problem is determined by their working principle. However, with the progress of technology in the past two years, they are some excellent headphones with less sound leakage. Others cannot hear the sound of bone conduction headphones within the normal social distance.

Can others hear the sound from bone conduction headphones?

Under normal volume, with a social distance of more than 1 meter, it is difficult for others to hear the sound of bone conduction headphones. Therefore, the privacy protection of the headphones is still good, and you can use them with confidence.

The reason why some people worry that “others will hear the sound of bone conduction headphones” is mainly because the headphones generally have the problem of sound leakage. However, due to the advancement of technology, mainstream bone conduction headphone brands have solved the problem of sound leakage well. Under normal social distance, your privacy is still guaranteed.

From the point of view of the principle of sound, all bone conduction headphones have the problem of sound leakage. Because they rely on the vibration of the sound unit to generate vibration waves, and drive the bone to vibrate to transmit the sound to the inner ear, so that it can be heard by people. Therefore, when the headphones are working, their shells will vibrate together with the sounding unit, and the shells will drive the air to vibrate, resulting in sound leakage. For the same headphone, when the volume is higher, the sound unit vibrates more, the air vibrates more, and the problem of sound leakage will be more serious.

Excellent bone conduction headphone brands have made a lot of efforts to solve the problem of sound leakage of headphones, and mainly adopted the following methods to reduce the problem of sound leakage.

lIntegrated body: The headphones body is designed as an integrated body without holes, so that there is no air in the body, and the air vibration caused by the sound unit is also reduced;

lShock-absorbing design of the body: through structural optimization, the shock-absorbing function of the body is improved, and the vibration of the body caused by the vibration of the sound unit is reduced;

lInverted-phase sound wave: The anti-phase sound wave is used to cancel the sound wave of the sound leakage, thereby eliminating the sound leakage.

lIt should be said that their efforts have paid off. The sound leakage problem of some excellent brands of bone conduction headphones has been well resolved.

Although bone conduction headphones have the problem of sound leakage, it has to be said that they have several outstanding advantages: they allow you to keep your attention on the ambient sound while listening to music, which is very safe; they will not hurt your ears, can Keeping the ear canal hygienic and more. These advantages are why they have become popular.

How do bone conduction headphones work?

To understand how bone conduction headphones work, you need to understand how the ear works.

The ear is divided into the outer ear, middle ear, inner ear, and auditory nerve from front to back. The outer ear is what we call the part of the ear that is visible from the outside. When sound enters the outer ear, it travels directly to the eardrum, and the sound that hits the eardrum vibrates the air in the middle ear like a drum, causing the air to vibrate and travel to the cochlea of the inner ear. Shaped like a snail, the cochlea contains lymph fluid and sound-sensing cells called hair cells. The vibration of the eardrum causes the lymph fluid and hair cells in the cochlea to vibrate. Hair cells convert this vibration into an electrical signal and transmit it to the auditory nerve. The auditory nerve carries the electrical signals received from the hair cells to the brain. The center of the brain processes the electrical signals it receives, resulting in the sounds we hear. This way of transmitting sound is the way of air conduction. Our common headphones use air-conduction sound transmission, but the working principle of bone conduction headphones is completely different. It uses bone conduction sound.

We can compare the difference between these two sound transmission methods:

The sound transmission path of air conduction headphones: outer ear → eardrum→ middle ear → inner ear (cochlea) → auditory nerve → brain

The sound transmission path of bone conduction headphones: temporal bone (skull) → inner ear (cochlea) → auditory nerve → brain

Compared with air conduction headphones, the sound transmission path of bone conduction headphones does not have several steps of “outer ear→eardrum→middle ear”. When using them, the sound conduction process is that the sound source vibrates and directly transmits the sound to the inner ear (cochlea) through the skull. This working principle also makes the headphones do not need to be inserted into the ear, which better protects the ear canal and eardrum.

As mentioned above, bone conduction headphones generate sound by vibration of sound source, which brings vibration of headphone body at the same time, thus leading to sound leakage.

Next, I will recommend several excellent bone conduction headphones, some of which have little sound leakage, such as Wissonly and Aftershokz.

1. Wissonly Hi Runner bone conduction headphones

Recommended reason:

Wissonly bone conduction headphones is the first brand I came into contact with. I first found it on the crowdfunding website. Later, I bought it after seeing many people’s recommendations in some online running forums. After my long-term comparative test, the overall function of this Hi Runner model product is very powerful, which greatly exceeds my expectations.

Their team is one of the best talents in the field of bone conduction. The product director was once the core engineer of a first-line brand, and has accumulated 10 years’ experience in the field of bone conduction technology. Wissonly Hi Runner increases the vibration area of the sound source vibrator by 35% through excellent structural design, which makes the music feel more spatial and immersive. It is also excellent in sound leakage reduction. The fully wrapped design reduces the vibration of the shell, and the structural optimization makes the sound leakage wave be offset, thus avoiding 90% sound leakage, which is much better than the bone conduction headphones of the same price on the market.

The fully-enclosed design of Wissonly Hi Runner bone conduction headphones makes its waterproof grade to IPX8, which means that you can wear it for bathing, swimming and even diving within 20 meters. Even better, the Hi Runner headphones has a built-in storage of 32GB, which can store 5,000 songs. It can still be used without the mobile phone. It supports both MP3 mode and Bluetooth mode. It is equipped with Bluetooth 5.0 chip, which makes it superior to most bone conduction headphones in transmission distance, connection stability and power consumption.

2.Philips A8606 bone conduction headphones

Recommended reason:

The most peculiar point of Philips is that it is equipped with LED night running lights at the rear end of the fuselage, and the A8606 is also the same. The back of both sides of the headphones has rain-shaped lights flashing, wearing it at night can make people around you alert to your location. And turning on them during exercise can improve the safety factor, and night travel can also achieve the effect of not being collided. The Bluetooth version of 5.0 can maintain the smoothness of listening to songs at a short distance, and the 13.3mm vibrator makes it have a good performance in sound quality.

3.AfterShokz OPENRUN PRO bone conduction headphones

Recommended reason:

It has improved the sound quality and sound leakage reduction, and can connect two Bluetooth devices at the same time.Duo to its ergonomic ear-sticking design,it has high wearing comfort. There are two sizes, 16.2cm and 18.7cm. Girls suggest the mini version.

4.Earsopen peace tw-1 bone conduction headphones

Recommended reason:

PEACE TW-1 bone conduction headphone is a Japanese high -end headphone product. It is a rare ear-clip headphone on the market. It is directly clipped to the outer ear and worn just like wearing jewelry. Because the weight of its single body is only 8g, even if it is worn by ear clip, there will be no sense of weight bearing. After all, the weight of many earrings also reaches 8g. Of course, there will still be some discomfort when it is worn for a long time.

It adopts Bluetooth 5.0 technology, and the Bluetooth connection is more stable, with few disconnection cases. The sound quality and leak-proof treatment is good, and it is excellent for bone conduction headphones. The only drawback is that the price is a little high. After all, it is positioned as a high-end brand.

5 Nank Runner CC3 bone conduction headphones

Recommended reason:

Runner CC3 are equipped with the latest Bluetooth 5.3 chip. They can achieve stable connection during exercise, and even when you are running in the mountains with poor signal, there will be no disconnection with them.

They are also equipped with MP3 mode with 4G built-in memory, which helps you to enjoy music when the phone is not with you. The Runner CC3 weight 28g, and is compact and very comfortable to wear.

Among the above five products, Wissonly and Aftershokz are my favorite. Their sound quality, sound leakage reduction and comfort are all very good. Compared with the two brands, Wissonly’s product parameters are better, cost-effective, and worth buying