Bone conducting technology has been around as far back as the 1960s when hearing aids already worked on the bone conducting principle. Even law enforcement and armed forces have been using for decades now bone conduction technology with their communication devices.
If you have never experienced music running through your cheekbones, you will find a pair of bone conduction headphones like the BoneTalker Adder ideal for times when you want to listen to music but don't want anything covering your ears, blocking out the outside world.
The BoneTalker Adder construction is lightweight (35 grams) but durable, featuring bendable titanium inner frame with a soft silicone rubber and rubberized plastic finish on the exterior.
The Bonetalker Adder bone conduction headphones don't use earcups or eartips. Instead, you get a flat piece of ventilated silicone mesh attached to the housing of the headphones that prevents dust and water from getting inside.
There is also a rubber flap protecting the micro USB port, making the Bonetalker Adder IP56 water-resistant, but not waterproof; hence you cannot use these for swimming.
A long micro USB cable is included to charge them which takes 90 minutes via maximum 5V 0.12A input charge.
The control buttons on the Bonetalker Adder are located on the right side, just above the rechargeable lithium ion battery unit (the other battery unit is located on the opposite side).
The middle button plays/pauses and powers on/off the unit. The other two buttons control the volume and skipping of tracks. There is also a status indicator light just above the top volume button.
There is an additional button with a metal finish which is located on the side of the speaker housing. This button lets you pause/play music, as well as answer/hang-up calls and bring up your voice assistant when connected to your smartphone.
The built-in microphone is located below the right speaker and has decent sensitivity levels of amplification (-36dB ± 3dB) so you can be heard loud and clear.
The Bonetalker Adder connect via bluetooth 5.0 which delivers more stable connectivity and longer wireless range (15 meters) when paired with a bluetooth 5.0 smartphone. If paired to a bluetooth 4.2 or older version, the bluetooth range is slightly less at 11 meters.
On-ear style headphones and earbuds that sit outside the ear canal are two popular options but bone conduction headphones are in fact the best type of headphones you can get for safety when jogging, road cycling and running or if you have an ear infection because they don't insert or rest anywhere on the ears.
The BoneTalker Adder and all bone conduction headphones do come with some drawbacks though like not being able to use them properly in a loud space, as well as audio bleed so in a quiet space (e.g. library) everyone around you can hear what you're listening to especially if you turn them up very high.
The Bonetalker Adder speaker sensitivity is high (100 ± 3dB) with very little resistance (only 10 ohms).
If you use earplugs though, you can have the BoneTalker Adder really quiet but still hear in very noisy situations like the London underground tube where you can't really use normal headphones because you need to have them at deafening levels to overcome the train noise.
With the BoneTalker Adder bone conduction headphones, the noise going into your ears is blocked with the foam earplugs, so you can listen to anything you want at a sensible volume.
With this said, if you were to buy the Bonetalker Adder bone conduction headphones you wouldn't be buying them for sound quality or battery life because they don't sound as good as regular headphones and you only get 4 hours of battery life from a single charge (360 hours standby time).