Crazy clever tech: music underwater without headphones.
FINIS is committed to creating cool tech that enhances the swimming experience. But developing the Duo underwater MP3 player was certainly taking it up a notch.
One of the main issues swimmers have with underwater mp3 players is that water gets between ears and the buds, distorting and muffling music, making the listening experience infuriating. FINIS engineered the issue right out of the Duo! With bone-conduction headphones that don’t even go into your ear but sit against your cheek to deliver great beats as you tear up the black line.
It can seem a bit crazy to buy a music player that has headphones that aren’t even headphones. Here is how and why it works...
Although most sounds are transmitted through the air to our eardrums, bone-conduction headphones rely on sound being transmitted through vibrations on the skull. The sounds from the FINIS Duo headphones skip the eardrum and send sound directly to the inner ear thanks to your jaw bone. This may sound like something you might see on Star Trek but it is actually the very same process of sound transmission that lets us hear our own voice.
The well-known composer Ludwig van Beethoven, who became deaf, discovered this way of hearing. By biting his composer’s wand and pressing it against his piano, he was able to turn audio waves into physical vibrations. This was how he was able to “hear” and work on his famous compositions.
The Duo has simple buttons to play and skip tracks as well as adjust the audio level. The rechargeable battery will run for up to seven hours after a full charge and the magnetic USB dock transfers files as well as charging the player.
FINIS has also designed underwater Bluetooth headphones to stream music from your smart watch. The Amnis Stream BT Headphones deliver incredible sound underwater so podcasts and streamed music are now on tap to keep swimmer's company up and down the black line.
Long distance swimmer Diana Nyad, who became the first person to swim 110 miles from Cuba to Florida without a shark cage, is one of the FINIS Duo's many fans. Here’s a review and just for good measure here is another one that spells out the magic of this technology.