Bone-Conducting Headphones

Headphones that transmit sound by vibrating the skull bones directly to the inner ear, bypassing the outer and middle ear and leaving the ear canals open. In accessibility contexts they are widely used by blind travellers and wayfinding systems because the wearer can continue to hear environmental cues — traffic, voices, cane feedback — while also receiving navigation prompts or speech output. They are also used by people with conductive hearing loss whose inner ear still functions.