The speaker doesn’t transmit sound waves through air, but rather relies on a vibrating unit that delivers sound via vibrations through an external medium. The HumBird will then use its bone conduction powers to turn those objects into speakers, naturally amplifying your music, podcasts, or even phone conversations to up to 115dB. When current is pulsed through the coil, the magnetic field causes a piece of metal to expand and contract - if pressed against a flat surface or cavity it turns it into a speaker!

If you plan to use the bone conduction transducer for prolonged direct contact with skin, we recommend that cover the transducer and wire connections with something like Sugru to prevent accidental shorting of driver current through the skin, due to sweat and electrolyte accumulation around the metal parts. This means that with these headphones you can listen to music while remaining aware of your surroundings, making them a safer option when outdoors. Funded successfully on Kickstarter, this speaker's most remarkable feature is that you can personalize the sound by placing it on different types of surfaces. Its plastic case is a strange 'ivory' shade reminiscent of PC components from the 1990s, and its complete lack of branding is odd, but it's actually very thoughtfully designed.

Rather than packing a hefty collection of woofers and tweeters, the HumBird actually lets you use the natural acoustics of virtually any hollow object around you to get major booming sound out of this little powerhouse. In theory yes: because your ear canal is unoccluded, outside noise can make it to your inner ear much more easily than it would if you were wearing headphones or in-ears. Our editors thoroughly review and fact-check every article to ensure that our content meets the highest standards.

Bone conduction is a method of hearing in which sound waves are sent directly to the inner ear via the bones of the skull. Often these size transducers are pressed up against the jaw or ear bone to turn the skull into a speaker cavity. Bone conduction is used in a variety of medical applications, including hearing aids and assistive listening devices.

Bone conduction is when sound waves travel through the bones of the skull and directly enter the inner ear. There's no question that audio technology has improved enough to give us headphones and earbuds with excellent sound quality. Also, bone conduction headphones are less likely to cause ear infections than earbuds, as they don't block the ear canal and allow air to circulate.