I don’t want to startle you guys and sound the alarms technology growing too quickly or robots becoming self-aware, but this is pretty close. It seems unthinkable that you could have earphones that, you know, don’t go on your ears, but this is the future that we live in.
That new invention comes by way of the Batband. Originally a Kickstarter project, but was almost immediately funded, the new way of listening to audio bypasses your outer ear entirely and rests on your head to reach your inner ear, similar to a hearing aid, thus freeing your ears to surrounding sound.
The creators of Batband, StudioBananaThings, promise that the invention will provide “high fidelity acoustic experience via an innovative bone conduction system,” again similar to hearing aid technology. However, those previous inventions use lo-fi sounds. Something like this would be a true breakthrough. The device would also have a microphone for phone calls and recording, similar to other bluetooth listening devices on the market.
While all of this seems very cool, there are a few flaws worth pointing out just at first glance. Chiefly, it seems like it would be something very easy to steal from someone. It wouldn’t take much to snatch this very cool and expensive device right off of someone’s head. That’s much harder to do with more traditional or even Bluetooth headphones. Secondly, the idea that you could listen to music and experience sounds around you is revolutionary, but I guarantee some people prefer to tune the world out when they listen to music. That’s why they buy big cans or loud, expensive headphones. Now, they might get hit by a truck, but they went out the way they wanted to.
Still, even considering all of that, it seems like a very cool invention that could change how we listen to music in the next few years. Studio Banana Things have raised the money necessary to fund the Batband, and plan to ship in April 2016. Check out their Kickstarter for more information on the ear-free headphones, and may God have mercy on us all.
(via Consequence of Sound)
