Are Bone Conduction Headphones For Real?

Jonathan Kim
12 min readApr 20, 2021

They are, and you might want some

The Runner Pro bone conduction headphones by Naenka

One could argue that we are currently in the Golden Age of Headphones. Everyone is carrying smartphones that can stream infinite hours of listenable content, including not only music, podcasts, and audiobooks, but also games, video, social media, Zoom calls, and new live audio entrants like Clubhouse. So it makes sense that dozens, if not hundreds of companies have stepped in to sell a dizzying number of personal listening options of every type, size, connectivity, feature set, and price point.

It’s also becoming more obvious that, budget permitting, it makes sense for a lot of people to own multiple types of headphones for different activities. Maybe you need something with noise isolation or active noise cancellation (ANC) for working or studying in distracting environments, and a different Bluetooth pair that are light, secure-fitting, and water-resistant for exercising. Maybe you need a comfortable over-ear pair for watching TV or playing video games next to a sleeping partner, or something with a great microphone if you teach an online class. With so much audio to listen to in so many different situations, it only makes sense that one set of headphones probably won’t fit every occasion.

So with that, I’d like to ask you a question: Have you considered bone conduction headphones?

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Jonathan Kim

Used to be a film critic, now writes about tech (mostly Apple), and sometimes woodworking