Bluetooth necklaces

More and more people are walking around Borg-ified with bluetooth earpieces. It's convenient, and a good idea when driving, but otherwise looks goofy and also wears on the ear. I've been a big seeker of headset devices that are wireless, but meant to be only put on while talking, and thus very easy to put on and remove. Self-contained bluetooth devices, with the battery in them, tend to be hard to put on. Nothing I have seen is as easy to put on (or as bulky) as a typical headphone headband.

I thought of something you could quickly clip onto your glasses but the weight will tilt them. It should be possible to build bluetooth eyeglass frames with thick over-ear sections with the battery, slightly thick arms (ideally not too dorky) for the electronics and a microphone hidden in the bridge (though it might pick up breathing a bit too much.)

Another idea is a microphone in a necklace, but just the microphone. It's a good place to get sound and it's far from the speakers which is good. One could imagine a permanently worn necklace/pendant and them another piece which is put on the ear or head for calls. Some vendors are selling "bluetooth pendant" headphones which have earbuds which plug into a pendant worn on the neck today.

My necklace could work with a 2nd wireless part (meaning two batteries) that comes from the pocket or snaps onto the pendant itself. Or a combination eyeglass frames with speaker and pendant with microphone. Of course, no phone is able to understand talking to two devices for the mic and speakers as yet, and while that could be fixed in the future, this system would need one of the devices to talk to the other and combine the signals for the phone, which is wasteful but doable.

Another way around that would be a retractable earbud or other earpiece that pulls out of the pendant and retracts back into it. Or this could be something that hangs on glasses.

Of course the pendant could also vibrate for calls, and show you the caller-ID. These pendants could be designed by fashion designers as jewelry, and not look so borgish. Some models might be super thing and be designed to be worn unobtrusively under the shirt (but still in range of good sound) for people who don't want it to be so obvious. They could be pulled out of the shirt for calls if need be for superior voice.

And please, no bright blinking LED just to tell me you're alive!

Comments

FYI. High end silver necklaces with embedded usb keys are available.

Hearing-aid manufacturers have been putting electronics into eyeglass frames since the 1970's, at least. Putting a mic in the bridge of the frames, pointing towards the mouth would be a win, too.

-jcr

Though while I see hearing aids that fit in the ear and last all day but I don't see bluetooth equipment anywhere near that, I presume the power requirements of radio are high enough to make it harder to put things in anything but clunky glasses without a lot of work. Though it's possible that thicker over-ear components could hold enough battery if on both sides. Mic in the bridge could be useful. Actually, mic in the other ear from the speaker might be best because you want the mic to pick up as little audio from the speaker as possible (saving you echo cancellation.)

A good headset built into glasses might actually make a decent headset for people who don't wear glasses, for use at the desk. The glasses would sit in a charger, and have flat "lenses" or no lenses at all. But glasses are easy to put on the head, and if you happen to get up and walk around with them, don't look as strange as headband headphones, which are the other thing that's easy to put on. For short term use, battery size can be smaller, and standby mode is not needed.

Another possible design is a hat. This can also be stylish. However, the further the speaker is from the ear, the louder it has to be to others and to the microphone. Perhaps a hat where the speaker flips down unobtrusively from the rim. Microphone on the other side of the hat. Of course a hat has lots of room for batteries. There was a time when everybody wore hats outdoors and every building had a place to hang them. One could imagine people wearing their bluetooth hats (radio heads?) outside, and having a pocket earpiece if they need to make a call indoors.

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