by Sometimes, wacky technical ideas belong deposited straight in the dustbin and should never make it into actual production — or on a public web page. Meet the “Bite Me” hearing aid — okay, it’s actually called “SoundBite” but “Bite Me” is a so much more fulfilling meme — considering the silliness of the product. The Bite Me hearing aid sits on your teeth to better conduct sound. I wonder if their slogan is: “Clench and Listen” or “Bear Down and Hear Harder” or “Shut Up and Bite Me!”
SoundBite hearing system is the world’s first and only non-surgical and removable hearing solution designed to imperceptibly transmit sound via the teeth to help people who are essentially deaf in one ear regain spatial hearing ability and rejoin the conversation of life. It employs a well-established principle called bone conduction to deliver clear, high quality sound to the inner ear. Nearly invisible when worn, the SoundBite system consists of an easy to insert and remove ITM (in-the-mouth) hearing device – which is custom made to fit around either the upper left or right back teeth – and a small microphone unit worn behind the ear. No modifications to the teeth are required.
Here’s the major problem with Bite Me in case you haven’t figured it out yet — it’s useless and unusable because you clearly need to be clenching your teeth to conduct the sound –and that would make it really difficult to engage in an active conversation with a clenched jaw, and if you try to speak, you lose the activated sound until you bear down again.
Who thinks up inventions like this?
What about eating? Do you have to remove, and clean the spit off of, the Bite Me in order to enjoy a meal? Does the Bite Me require a “no talking” zone during dinner because you can’t chew and hear at the same time? Or do you just keep the device in your mouth and risk swallowing a microchip or two?
The Deaf and Hearing Impaired need less tentacles in their lives, not more, and the Bite Me is clearly an octopus — wireless or not! — that will take more strangling and tending compared to a regular hearing aid you just wear around your ear. What’s the point?
Can we please have a return to sanity in these biometric-inspired inventions for the disabled so the practicality of these devices can once again outweigh their Bite Me mockery factor?
Their web site doesn’t help much — how it really works (ie — is biting down necessary?) but it almost sounds like it’s the equivalent of dentures, which most people don’t take out during eating. Very disturbing product, nevertheless!
If you don’t bite down, I don’t know how the bone conduction would work.
The website doesn’t help — which makes me think this is more about attention-getting and not reality.