It’s been over a decade since Apple revolutionised the way we listen to music with the iPod and iTunes and a few years since the smartphone and streaming flipped all of that on its head, but despite all the new technology, headphones have pretty much remained the same.
Sure, there’s all sorts of different high-fidelity, noise-blocking, and sport-ready options to choose from, but headphones are headphones. They go in the ears or around them and play music into your ear canal for your enjoyment.
Well, that might be about to change. Introducing the BATBAND, a new, crowd-funded bone conductive headphone device from StudioBananaThings. What are bone conductive headphones? Scarily, they’re exactly what they sound like.
As Consequence of Sound notes, bone conductive sound technology isn’t exactly new. Companies have been using it to send sound directly into your inner ear for some time now and hearing aids have long used similar technology.
However, most of these products have been aimed at the low-quality, casual listener market, such as cyclists. The BATBAND, on the other hand, is promising a sleek, high fidelity audio experience by surrounding your head in sound.
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Most bone conductive headphones place transducers directly in front of your ears and even on the cartilage, but BATBAND instead places two above the ear, on the temple, and one on the occipital bone on the back of your head.
According to the prototype testing video, to the listener the resulting sound seems as though it’s emanating from inside your head outward. You know, like the way mental patients describe the voices that speak to them at all hours of the day.
BATBAND also has an admittedly futuristic, scouter-like design and multi-function touch control system. There’s also a built-in microphone that allows you to make phone calls and hear the other person coming from inside your head, which sounds pretty terrifying.
