What Is Bone Conduction Headphones and Can They Damage Your Hearing?

Jan 10,2023 | Sylvia

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.

So, what is bone conduction headphones?

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

In physics, sound can be transmitted through solids, air, and liquids as media. Traditional earphones transmit sound through the air, while bone conduction headphones transmit sound through the solid of the skull.

Bone conduction headphones is a device base in bone conduction technology,Bone conduction device include conduction speaker and bone conduction microphone:

(1) Bone conduction speakers are used to listen to the sound. It converts the electromagnetic signal into sound waves (also called vibration signals) directly through the bone to the auditory nerve and makes the brain center feel the sound.

(2) The bone conduction microphone is used to collect sound. It uses the slight vibration of the head and neck bones caused by human speech to collect sound signals and convert them into electromagnetic signals.

Bone conduction technology is very mature and widely used. In the early days, it was mainly used in hearing aids, emergency rescue, military, and other professional fields. In recent years, it has gradually been applied in the field of consumer electronics. They make bone conduction headphones and bone conduction helmets.

People may worry about whether bone conduction headphones will damage hearing. To answer this question, we must first understand their working principles

How do bone conduction headphones work?

First, let's look at how we hear sound. The sound we hear every day, generally through the vibration of the air, first reaches the ear and vibrates the eardrum. The vibration transmitted to the eardrum further vibrates the auditory ossicles, and finally reaches the spiral organ - the cochlea, so that the sound can be perceived.

However, there are other ways of transmitting sound to the cochlea besides passing it through the eardrum. In fact, by vibrating the "bones" like vibrating air, the vibrations are transmitted to the cochlea. When the vibration reaches the cochlea, the cochlea perceives the sound and transmits the it to the brain center to form hearing. This is the sound transmission principle of bone conduction.

In our daily life, there are many cases of hearing sound through bone conduction. For example, when we eat biscuits, we can clearly hear the sound of the biscuits being crushed. Dolphins and whales are some of the best bone conduction animals in nature, using the bones near their jaws to catch vibrations in the water to hear sound.

Bone conduction headphones are products that use bone conduction technology. When they work, they usually attach the sounding unit to the bones near the temple. When the vocal units vibrate, they vibrate the skull and transmit the vibrations to the cochlea, allowing sound to be heard. This is how bone conduction headphones work.

Can bone conduction headphones damage hearing?

Bone conduction headphones do not damage hearing under normal use, but if used for a long time and at excessive volume, hearing damage can occur.

Since bone conduction headphones do not need to be plugged into the ear canal when worn, they will not cause damage to your hearing due to wearing them. They transmit sound without passing through the ear canal and eardrum, which avoids eardrum damage caused by vibrating the eardrum.

When the bone conduction headphones are used, the ear canal is kept open, which is important for the hygiene of the ear. And they will not cause the ear canal to be wet and stuffy to breed bacteria due to sweat depositing caused by long-term exercise, thereby avoiding the damage to the ear by diseases such as otitis media.

In addition to small damage to the ear canal and eardrum, bone conduction headphones also have very little damage to the inner ear. Due to the relatively gentle and stable vibrating waves of the headphones, they have little damage to the cochlea. Moreover, the electromagnetic waves of them are very small, and their impact on the auditory nerve and brain nerve is also very small.

Therefore, bone conduction headphones will not damage hearing, they protect hearing completely, from the ear canal, eardrum, cochlea to auditory nerves, etc..They are the healthiest kind of headphones.

For hearing protection, when using bone conduction headphones, remember not to use high volumes for a long time, which can cause damage to hearing. In fact, no matter what kind of headphones you wear, long-term use at high volume will definitely cause damage to hearing. It is generally recommended that after using headphones for 2-3 hours, you should rest for 10-15 minutes.

In addition to very little damage to the ears, bone conduction headphones are also very safe. They allow you to listen to music when you can also hear the surrounding environment sounds, which avoids outdoor sports encounters danger. And they are also very comfortable to wear. It is with these advantages that they are becoming more and more popular.

So, how to choose the right one among the mass bone conduction headphones? I think we must pay attention to the two key points:sound quality and sound leakage reduction. Next, I will recommend some excellent headphones.