What Are The Disadvantages of Bluetooth Bone Conduction Headphones?

Have you ever heard music with headphones on while walking on the road, when the car behind you honks to remind you, everyone around you heard it, but you didn’t know it; or when you listened to music while wearing headphones in the office at work, even if your boss yells next to you, it can’t wake up your ears that were kidnapped by music. These awkward moments happen a lot in life, and they’re always unpleasant. However, there is a kind of headphone that can perfectly help you avoid these embarrassments, that is bluetooth bone conduction headphones that have become popular in recent years.

Bone conduction headphones have obvious advantages, but they also have some disadvantages.

What are the disadvantages of Bluetooth bone conduction headphones?

While bone conduction headphones are popular, they’re not perfect. They also have some disadvantages, summed up in three:

Disadvantage 1 : sound quality

Because of the design characteristics of Bluetooth bone conduction headphones, their anti-interference effect is not ideal when wearing them for shopping, subway, car and other noisy environments. And the sound quality is not as good as traditional headphones, because they transmit sound through the skin, skull and then to the ear ossicles, so the degree of music reproduction is not as good as traditional in-ear headphones.

Disadvantage 2 : sound leakage

The sound is transmitted through the vibration of the vibrator, so part of the sound is also transmitted through the vibration of the air, and sound leakage cannot be completely avoided. It’s just that some headphones invest more research and design in reducing sound leakage, and solve most of the sound leakage problems. For example, the Wissonly Hi runner bone conduction headphones I own are excellent representatives among them.

Disadvantage 3 the price is slightly higher

The technology of Bluetooth bone conduction headphones is more complicated than that of traditional headphones, the materials are better than traditional headphones, and the manufacturing process is more complicated, which ultimately makes the price of them a little higher. But this year, with the rapid popularity of them, their prices have dropped significantly after the production has increased significantly.

Although bone conduction headphones have the above disadvantages, compared with these disadvantages, they have more prominent advantages, such as being safer, healthier, more hygienic, and more comfortable to wear. These advantages make it popular among young people.

The advantages and disadvantages of bone conduction headphones are determined by their working principles

What is the working principle of Bluetooth bone conduction headphones?

Before understanding the working principles of bone conduction headphones, we need to review our middle school physics to understand the three mediums for sound transmit: air, solids, and liquids. Air conduction is what we know most about, such as ordinary conversation is the case that sound transmit through air. When your place ear to the railway, and when a train comes in the distance, you can hear the sound, which is the case of sound transmission by solid. When we dive, we can hear the sound of the engine of a ship in the distance, which is the case of sound transmission by liquid.

Bluetooth bone conduction headphones are a device that transmits sound through solid (bone) conduction. It transmits sound by vibrating your skull. This is unlike the air conduction of traditional wired and wireless headphones. Bone conduction headphones do not transmit sound through the eardrum, so even if the volume is slightly louder, it will not easily damage the eardrum.

We can compare the sound transmission paths of bone conduction and air conduction

Bone conduction pathways: sound waves, skull, bone labyrinth, inner ear lymph, spiral organ, auditory nerve, auditory center of the cerebral cortex

Air conduction pathways: sound waves, auricle, external auditory canal, periosteum, ossicles, vestibular window, internal and external lymph, spiral organ, auditory nerve, cerebral cortex auditory center

We can see that bone conduction has a shorter sound transmission path than air conduction, and that it takes a shortcut. And this shortcut helps bone conduction headphones not to be stuffed into the ear or wrapped around the ear. So the headphones will not cover the ear canals and have no damage to the eardrums, and the damage to the auditory nerve is relatively low.

As mentioned above, the advantages and disadvantages of Bluetooth bone conduction headphones are obvious. In order to improve their disadvantages, many leading technology brands have made a lot of efforts, such as Wissonly and Aftershokz. Fortunately, most of the shortcomings have been significantly improved. Next, I will recommend some excellent headphones for you.

1. Wissonly Hi Runner Bluetooth bone conduction headphones

Reason for recommendation:

This is the fastest growing brand of bone conduction headphones in the last six months. The team are all engineers with 10 years of accumulation in the field of bone conduction technology. They started to develop bone conduction headphones that don’t hurt ears as early as 2012. To solve the problem of sound leakage of bone conduction headphones, wissonly has made comprehensive improvement in the aspects of vibrator, body design and software optimization. The final result has been applied to Wissonly Hi Runner, and the final sound leakage can be reduced by 90% after laboratory test. I actually used the test myself. At a distance of 2cm, the volume reached 70%, but I still didn’t hear the sound of the headphones, which protected my privacy.

Wissonly Hi Runner’s body is made of titanium, which can self-adjust the fitting position to ensure a good wearing experience for headphones, so that more people can wear it. As the core component of the product, the headphones plays a key role in the product experience. Hi Runner model is equipped with Bluetooth 5.0 chip, which makes Bluetooth connection faster and more stable. It also has 32GB of built-in storage so you can use it as an MP3 player.

Other parameters of Wissonly Hi Runner are also excellent. For example, the waterproof level reaches IPX8, and you can wear it to swim or even dive. The battery life reaches 8–10 hours, which is very important to me, because I go out for sports on weekends, and I go out for a whole day.

2. Philips A6606 Bluetooth bone conduction headphones

Reason for recommendation:

Philips A6606 adopts the latest generation of exterior design, which strengthens water resistance and slip resistance during sports for a more stable fit. The surface of its body uses skin-friendly materials, which will be more comfortable to wear. The body is also relatively light, and there is no sense of weight when wearing. It also has a night running indicator to ensure that the cyclist or vehicle behind you can see you during night running, thus you can avoid danger. From a configuration point of view, the configuration of this product may not be very high, but Philips’ quality is trustworthy. The price may be slightly expensive.

3.AfterShokz OPENRUN PRO Bluetooth bone conduction headphones

Reason for recommendation:

Openrun PRO also pays great attention to comfort in wearing, and its body is made of skin-friendly silicone which makes it more comfortable, and it can be better enjoyed. In order to reduce the weight, titanium alloy is selected in its connection material, which is not easy to bend and deform, ensuring the service life. The bone conduction headphones are also equipped with Qualcomm QCC3024 chip and Bluetooth 5.0, and have stable connection and no disconnection in daily use.

4.Earsopen SS900 Bluetooth bone conduction headphones

Reason for recommendation:

With the support of AVV’s precise vertical vibration technology, the vibration intensity and frequency of SS900 is improved, which makes up for shortage of sound quality caused by small sound producing area of 10mm small size vibration unit, and makes the low frequency sound more full. The 7.5g body weight is better with the clip-on ear type, which makes it more portable. However, the clip-on ear type makes the ears uncomfortable after wearing for a long time, which is its disadvantage.

5.vidonn F3 Bluetooth bone conduction headphones

Reason for recommendation:

Vidonn F3 bone conduction headphones weigh only 29g and are very comfortable to wear. All aspects of performance are good. For entry-level headphones, its sound quality is acceptable for daily use. After all, it is difficult for you to ask an entry-level bone conduction headphones to have too good sound quality. It is worth mentioning that its exterior design is sporty and fashionable in color, which is very suitable for young people.

The technology in the field of bone conduction has made rapid progress, and most of their shortcomings have been solved. Please choose a brand with strong technical strength when buying. For example, Wissonly and Aftershokz, their sound quality and sound leak reduction performance are good. Wissonly has better cost performance, and people with low budget can choose it.