Google Glass passes sound through your bones, not conventional speakers

According to a recent FCC filing, Google Glass will use a ‘vibrating element’ to transmit sound to your body via your bones.

The filing demonstrates a video being played in Bluetooth Low Energy mode:

A video stored within the EUT was played on the heads-up display with audio running to the vibrating element and transmit the Bluetooth Low Energy mode.

Just before that, a patent was filed describing a wearable device that could transmit these vibrations from the headset to the body via the bone structure to the ear canal. Since sound waves are interpreted via vibration speeds, the ‘vibrating element’ seeks to do the same thing. Rather than converting the sound into an audible format, it directly transmits those waves through the bones to the ears for interpretation.

Exemplary wearable computing systems may include a head-mounted display that is configured to provide indirect bone-conduction audio. For example, an exemplary head-mounted display may include at least one vibration transducer that is configured to vibrate at least a portion of the head-mounted display based on the audio signal. The vibration transducer is configured such that when the head-mounted display is worn, the vibration transducer vibrates the head-mounted display without directly vibrating a wearer. However, the head-mounted display structure vibrationally couples to a bone structure of the wearer, such that vibrations from the vibration transducer may be indirectly transferred to the wearer’s bone structure.

The concept definitely sounds thrilling, but there are initial problems such as what happens when other sounds interfere with those vibrations, such as when you’re inside a moving vehicle. Nonetheless it’s a very interesting piece of technology and should be in the hands of developers later this year.

[Photo: Google]