Posted on July 17 2018
Shortly after Christmas when i. Was 5, my sister Andrea introduced me to headphones with one of those single ear plugs from the 1970s, and showed me how I could plug it into my radio and listen to it. After a few minutes of private listening I couldn’t understand at all why she or anyone else around me couldn’t hear it. That just blew my 5-year-old mind, and it hasn’t been the same since.
As I got older, headphones became more a part of my workflow. I knew there are good speakers out there, I’m just a headphone guy at ear. Part of this came from. Using screen readers on first computers and later phones, besides using headphones for privacy, I’m sure people around me appreciate not being annoyed by it. I even used headphones on the bus, at work, and even when I took classes in college. There was still one area where headphones couldn’t help me though, when traveling alone using the white cane. I began to use GPS apps on my phone, but all the headphones I knew of still blocked some of the sounds from my environment, thus I didn’t feel safe using them when walking, and when traffic was loud I couldn’t hear the GPS info on the phone. Then I learned about bone conduction.
My friend Hai Nguyen Ly told me about Aftershokz and their line of bone conducting headphones, and how they rested on the face using transducers to convey sound through the cheek bone thus leaving the ear completely uncovered and blocking none of a person’s natural hearing. I couldn’t afford them then, so Hai sent me an old pair he was no longer using. Like Andrea introducing me to headphones so long ago, Hai improved my life again.
The first time I used the Aftershokz psychologically I wasn’t quite sure that it really wasn’t blocking my hearing, but it didn’t take long for me to realize that they really weren’t. I could hear traffic just fine, and the GPS info from my phone was always hearable even in the loudest truck or bus roared by. Now 5 years later after buying 2 more pair of Aftershokz headphones, I still use them pretty much every day. I wear them all the time when I’m in public, they work great at meetings and conferences. Even when I’m not needing to hear traffic when cane traveling, they still let me have the ability to use my phone without interrupting anyone around me but still be able to hear what they’re saying. Yes, trying to understand both audio streams might not work as well as I’d like, but sighted people get distracted too.
Some of you reading this might be wondering, ok but why does this matter? In my last post I talked about how for most of us most of the time technology is a nice convenience, but for those with disabilities, technology can be a huge life changer; this is definitely one of them.
Especially for blind users of screen readers. Bone conduction headphones allow them to get the info they need in real time while still having full access to their environment through their primary sense. Bone conduction technology may have been initially invented for the military, but now thankfully it is now also being used to help humans also be more human.
Accessibility Insights 