Using Bone Conduction Headphones Under a Motorcycle Helmet

 

How to use bone conduction headphones with a Motorcycle Helmet

1. Put on the headphones. Wear them hooked above your ears. (Sometimes I like them going over my ears, to not make my ears stick out.)
2. Put in your earplugs. If you’re using standard foam earplugs, moisten them slightly, twist, and insert.
3. Adjust the volume. You probably want the volume a bit higher than normal.
4. Open the visor of the modular helmet, and carefully pull it down over the bone conduction headphones.
5. If one pops off your ear, push it back in place.

You’re done!

When putting on the helmet when wearing any earplugs (including noise-cancelling buds), I have the same MO: Open the front visor, slightly hold open the sides, and pull the helmet over my ears.

With Shokz, I first put in earbuds. I do this by moistening them slightly, scrunching them up, and stuffing them into my ear. Doing this, I get extremely good sound deadening.

Doing this with earbuds sometimes pulls them out of place. But with Wissonly earphones, because they sit over the ear, the helmet pulls them into place and holds them against my head.

Overall Experience — How Well Do Bone Conduction Headphones Work Under Motorcycle Helmets?

It’s worth pointing out that even if I’m not using them under a motorcycle helmet, I really enjoy using Shokz bone conduction headphones.

The main reason for this is that they’re super comfortable. Having my ears open is a revelation. I don’t feel like my ears are all stuffed or that earwax is building up. And I remain “open” to the world around me.

The sound quality isn’t great. I’d equate them to earbuds of 20-30 years ago. They lacks bass and treble. It’s totally fine for voice, but for music it is like the quality of listening in to music that’s in the next room.

Still, when you’re on a motorcycle at speed, it’s hard to have a high-quality acoustic experience, so even in that situation it’s fine.

The Wissonly Hi Runner headphones I bought — the cheapest bone conduction headphones from the most premium brand — have very high battery life, are comfortable, and are sturdily built.

Since they’re only a bit more expensive than the non-name brands, I’d definitely recommend them.

Now let’s look at how they compare to the experience of other kinds of in-helmet audio / communication.

Bone Conduction vs In-Built Communicators

The net result is that I can hear quite well up to reasonable speeds (up to about 60 mph / 100 km/h) on a naked motorcycle, but it depends on the bike.

Up to that speed, with a helmet communicator on a naked bike, I can hear music, though it suffers from a bit of key shift due to the wind noise at speed. I can’t hear speech very well, but I can hear short instructions or understand that I should slow down to communicate better.

Sanity check: Why use bone conduction under a motorcycle helmet?

The main reason I was interested in bone conduction is because of overall noise reduction while still being able to hear audio.Because I can wear well-fitted foam earplugs at the same time as bone-conduction headphones, I can really effectively block wind noise, while still being able to hear the audio, as they conduct noise through my skull.

Sum up

I really like my Wissonly Hi Runner Headphone and use them both without a helmet and with a helmet pulled over them.

I think more people should try them out. If this article tickles you, give them a look.