Waterproof MP3 Player Uses Bone Conduction

An anonymous reader writes "Aquatic training product manufacturer Finis has just released a waterproof digital music portable for swimmers and surfers that claims to solve a problem with such devices in the water. Regular earphones don't work well because they need an uninterrupted air channel to function. What makes the SwiMP3 unique is that it uses bone conduction to stimulate the inner ear and deliver sound."

Comments

But how deep?

[se2schul]

Cool, but how deep will it go? Can I bring it on a 300' deep scuba dive to entertain me during hours of long decompression stops?

Re:But how deep?

[over_exposed]

This would be more useful for swimmers. Either people doings laps or even better, synchronized swimmers. Now they can hear the music they're flailing around to.

Frequency response?

[ByteSlicer]

Does anybody here know the frequency response of cheek bone? I would expect it to filter high frequencies.

Where

[Anonymous Coward]

Where would a swimmer put an mp3 player? It's not like there's some convenient pockets or anything.

It looks weird, but

[Megaweapon]

I wonder if it would also work in generally loud (and not underwater) areas where you don't want to block some sounds with regular earphones.

Re:It looks weird, but

[tindur]

And does listening to this harm your ear like normal earphones or would this be a better alternative for those who like to listen to loud music?

How does it sound

[OglinTatas]

How does it deal with the accoustics of bone instead of air? In my head, my voice sounds like a sexy baritone, but when I hear my voice in voicemail, it sounds tinny and whiney. My point is that sounds coming through the air sound a whole lot different than sounds that resonate in your head.

Re:How does it sound

[gazbo]

A little experiment for you:

Take an electric motor from a remote controlled car, and wire it up to a 3.5mm jack. Stick the jack in a headphone socket, and then play some music - the motor won't spin, but it will vibrate. Now, gently bite the metal axle.

Near-perfect sound! Ok, it's not exactly audiophile quality, but we're talking about biting a fucking motor here; stick some R&D time in like they have and I can believe it'll sound fine.

Re:How does it sound

[infinite9]

Back in 1983, I went on a guided tour of a panasonic site in japan. One of the things they demonstrated for me was a radio that used bone conduction. The cool thing was that you could place it anywhere on your skull and it sounded the same. I sounded at least as good as the walkmans at the time I was listening to. So it may not be able to do highs and lows very well, but neither can a lot of portable headphones. As a side benefit, it didn't leak sound the way most headphones do.

Creepy sounds in my head!

[RocketRainbow]

No really, I'm serious! This is why speakers are so much more popular than headphones: the sound appears to be coming from somewhere! With good headphones, you can still get a reasonable effect (My sennheisers make it seem like the music is right there at the outside of my ears, which is just where I like it) but with direct stimulation it's just not pleasant to have directionless noise coming from outta nowhere!

Re:Creepy sounds in my head!

[olclops]

While true, the bigger reason that loudspeakers sound better than headphones is that your brain is used to processing sound with both ears. In other words, sound from loudspeakers sounds more natural because your right hear hears sound from both the left and right speakers, only it hears the right speaker louder and slightly sooner. (And, obviously, the reverse is true for the left ear). That's what creates the "stereo" effect. This isn't true with headphones - your right ear only hears the right channel. So for the vast majority of recorded material, when you listen in headphones, your brain interprets the sound as slightly wrong somehow.

Some manufacturers of headphone amplifiers (http://headroom.headphone.com/) include a simple processor that feeds some of the left channel to the right headphone with the appropriate attenuation and delay, and vica versa. I use one of these and love it. The concious effect is subtle, but you find that you can listen to headphones for a much, much longer time before you get that "Aaaagh! Gotta take these off!" effect.

Metal Gear Solid

[Guitar Wizard]

If I am correct, this is along the exact same lines as the earpiece that Solid Snake wore in Metal Gear Solid for the PlayStation. It vibrated the bones in his ear so he could hear incoming transmissions "simulated" in his head, keeping the noise level down for stealth-factor.

This seems like a very cool and promising technology...I'm glad to see it finally entering the consumer market.

All the Tri-Geeks will have one of these...

[RobL3]

I belong to a very rare subset of Geek known as the Tri-Geek. Guide to spotting the Tri-Geek - bike on car cost more than car, Wetsuit hanging in cube, funny tan lines, %10 body fat, empty Gu packs lying around instead of coffie cups and... an obsesive compulsive need to have the best, coolest, newest equipment available. I WILL have one of these! I don't care if it only holds 16 megs, they're going to sell a ton to people just like me. Now I'm off to find the credit card I hid from myself...

Why bother?

[pklong]

What does society have against silence? Everywhere you go you are bombarded with music. At work you have the radio or hi-fi blaring. At home you have telly on permanently or your hi-fi blaring. When you go shopping you are subjected to muzac. In the car you have the radio/cd on.

Everywhere we are bombarded with mindless noise.

Now you can't even go swimming without having your mp3 collection zapped into your inner ear. Insanity.

Also could be good for certain types of hearing lo

[rickthewizkid]

This could also be useful for folks with certain types of conductive hearing loss, such as Treacher collins syndrome, which generally results in small, or no external ear structures, and other similar conditions.

This technology has been used in some types of hearing aids for years - again, for people who have small or missing external ear canals.

Just my winamp-in-a-headset's worth.
RickTheWizKid

Limited Functionality

[Opalima]

Only 30 songs? How many laps of the wading pool is that exactly? I find it unusual that the unit holds such a limited number of songs.

Re:Limited Functionality

[igrp]

Well, at least in theory, you could use low-bitrate mono MP3s without any loosing any quality. With bone conduction, there is only a single source of transmission and not two (ie. your ears).

A MP3 played on this player will sound like it's "all around you", coming from all directions. It's omniphonic sound. That's why there's not really a point in having stereo MP3s. You could convert them to mono and squeeze in more songs.

possibilities for hearing impaired?

[CrudPuppy]

I wonder about the possibilities of this technology for certain types of hearing impairment.

my bone-conduction hearing is far better than my air-conduction hearing in tests. they could be onto something here...

Re:possibilities for hearing impaired?

[Mattcelt]

If the cochlear bones are damaged, then even bone-conduction won't help with hearing, because it is those three bones that do the actual conversion of air pressure to electrical signals that the brain can decode as sound. Without those specific bones to do the conversion, doing bone conduction is no more useful than, say, holding your fingers up to a person's throat while they're speaking and feeling the vibrations they're making. While it's a useful thing in certain circumstances (and therefore an idea not totally without merit), it's nowhere near the same as true hearing.

Sorry to burst your bubble! Rest assured that it took me a looong time when I was young to understand that my grandmother (whose was deaf from birth) could feel sound, but couldn't hear it.

medical issues?

[ifnkovhgroghprm]

I've seen a bunch of devices lately that transmit signals through the body in various ways. This one uses your bones to transmit audio. I'm wondering if they've done enough analysis to see what kinds of medical problems might pop up after prolonged use of this device. I wouldn't want rapid onset of osteoporosis to occur because of an MP3 player...

Ah, a modern version of the 'bone phone'

[nurb432]

Though most of you here are too young to reemember it, there was a product that used 'bone conduction' back in the early 80's..

Sold by DAK and later ( i think ) sharperimage..

It was a radio.. And it fit over your neck like a towel.. And rather expensive from what i remember, but cool

Re:Why not?

[Anonymous Coward]

In reality, the density of water causes 'sound waves' to be transmitted at a much greater speed that that of Air. Because the Human body has evolved to adapt to Air based sound, underwater sound cannot be processed properly by our air-adapted eardrum and inner-ear.

Look it up yourself. The speed of sound (I don't have an exact figure) underwater is much higher and thus, different.

Still not new

[poptones]

Twenty years ago a company that ran ads in all the gadget magazines offered a "bone fone." It was marketed most directly to skiers as a means of listening to their music while skiing without having to muck with earphones and cables.

Even ignoring the potential problems for folks with inner ear troubles who want to dive (the music via bone conduction could contribute further toward disorientation and dizziness from such problems) the sound via this method sucked then, I suspect it will still suck now. There's a great step from "Wow I was deaf and now am able to hear!" to "...and I want to pay money to listen to lo-fi music through this thing while I'm diving (or any other time) because...?"

I have a pretty messed up right ear and I am a terrible swimmer, but even still I love the water. One of the things I love most is the difference in sound between out of the water and underwater. Why would anyone want to interrupt that rare peace with noise from the terrestrial world?

Re:Still not new

[FrankHaynes]

I couldn't agree more!

The sound perceived by bone conduction is typically lo-fidelity, mostly the lows and mid-range frequencies are heard, but the highs are basically non-existant.

Despite the fact that when most people say 'mp3' these days they expect us to think 'music' (or even 'pirated music'!), I see this as a potential boon to Masters swimming instructors. I will soon be joining a Masters swim team simply to improve my breathing technique and to learn how to turn, and from what I have seen it seems pretty silly to have the instructor screaming at the top of his lungs for the few milliseconds that a swimmer's ear is above the surface while taking a breath.

This device could allow the instructor to issue guidance and instructions pretty much full-time to an immersed swimmer. Now THAT would be a practical and useful application.

As for surfing (the REAL kind of surfing where you get wet, not sitting on your fat ass browsing web pages), I know that Craig, Topher, Buddy, Beaker, and Vax would miss my various renditions that I sing while we're out in the lineup waiting for a waves, so I'll pass on this device for that application. Besides, it's healthier to be able to hear the maladjusted sociopath who is threatening you for surfing "his break".

Bone conduction...

[Anonymous Coward]

Bone Conduction can also make you deaf. Try talking to anyone who has worn cans for more than 10 years in talk radio and you'll know that they're hearing is impaired, mostly due to bone conduction, forcing them to compensate by overiding the gain and subsequently damaging thier cochleas.