Cynaps Bluetooth Bone Conduction Headset: Self-Install Module

As a preface, I work in a retail supermarket at the time of this writing. I need to look like I'm ready to pay attention to customers, but am usually left to stock shelves, work the placing of items, et cetera. I was sick and tired of listening to the radio and ads for wine and pears, but I couldn't wear earbuds for how they look. I found a supermarket branded hat, bought this, cut out some useless stiching and stuffed it in. Worked fine for my purposes, so now I can listen to MØ or David Bowie instead of That one V.V. Brown song or my sharona.Onto the technical-ish stuff for people more interested in how it works, and not in my story. Since there's no other reviews here at this writing, I'll be as thorough as I can for someone who has no actual technical reviewing experience.Firstly, the sound quality. The sound is somewhat tinny, and it varies depending on how tightly the speakers are held to your head. Essentially the music is emanating from two small boxes that you strap with velcro to the inside of your hat. It sounds better to hold it directly to your head than the loose pressure of the hat but its less noticeable after a short period. I tried listening to a variety of music, finding electronic and strong heavy sounds to work better than acoustics and softer noises. That is not to say that music such as soft country isn't possible in louder rooms, only harder to hear. You will not be able to hear subtleties you can with more expensive headphones although you probably expected both these lines. I did find that I could easily listen to podcasts as long as ambient freezer noises didn't overpower it too much. And even then you somewhat adjust to hear it.Secondly this is not a great sports headphone. Go check out Sennheiser if you want to get a better running headset. There are plenty that have better batteries, sound quality and are designed to let you hear traffic or people around you. This does leave your ears open, but you will often find yourself focused on either your music or whatever you hear outside it. It's hard to focus on only one and I found it much easier to pause before listening to other people.Next off the battery. I have not run out of battery yet. The longest I've used it was a 7 hour shift after it was fully charged, but I found no issues with the audio dropping out or battery issues during a generally full volume sessions. I've heard 2-3 hours on full volume on reviews for the non self install, but my experience has differed so far. Charging uses a micro usb that plugs into a socket held to the box by a rubber wrap. The light will turn red when charging, and blue when done. It's obvious and lights up the hat. I found that the time to charge in my very unprofessional tests took about half to about two third of the time I used it on long days and a third of the time on short ones.How it looks. when looking at it from the outside into the cap, it looks like a cheap movie prop for a matrix rip off. I found I the power/control block took up most of what is admittedly the bill of a cheap hat. It's not immediately obvious, but this is very much practicality over form. It's ugly, it's blocky and kind of a hack job solution. You probably won't re-use the hat.Ease of setup and usage. I cut about half of the bill length to fully fit the block. Installing the modules was easy, just find where the hat touches my head, put the velcro on that rim area(tighter to the head) and plug the module wire into the block wire. The bluetooth surprised me however. I've dealt with a lot of crappy bluetooth but you just hold down the power to turn it on, keep holding and it'll put it on search. My android(HTC One) quickly picked up on it, and It worked that easily every time I tried. You can choose in settings whether to activate phone settings or not(it comes with a microphone for voice activation/phone calls), I kept that turned off, and every time I turned on bluetooth on both my phone and the hat it worked. switching songs works easily, but sometimes after extended pauses you can't play a song without taking your phone out. The reverse is true as well for having to push the button multiple times to register a pause after a being inactive on music control for a while.Other junk. There's a video on the site showing someone playing music through a car. This works, but barely. The vibration isn't nearly enough to transfer much volume through most surfaces. Kinda cool to feel music through my hands for novelty though. I have gotten a headache at times. Whether this was due to the headset I don't know. But it wasn't persistent.There are some other accounts of helping people hear more clearly but I have no way to test this. Nothing weird happens to liquids when putting on glass.Hope that helps.

really obvious for someone who has had the original. the transducers are alot thicker than the origional. and the original was alot louder. the battery did last me a full 12 hour shift. but it wasnt maxed out. the only way it will compair to the original in volume is if you tighten up your hat. but all that ends up doing is causing a headache. the one main thing i miss is being able to take phone calls and end at the touch of a button. again no mic

I'm very disappointed in this product. Honestly I think I received a counterfeit due to the poor quality and differences between the product received and the pictures online. It appears that all the plastic pieces are being made on a cheap 3D printer. On top of that only one side works at a time. Turning the headphone jack will cause the working side to switch back and forth. Also, this does not appear to be bone conduction since you can hear it from over 20ft away (I actually measured).

Very useful and works surprisingly well. Two huge advantages over earbuds:(1) it does NOT block out hearing from your ears at all(2) it can be very subtle inside a hat without interfering with conversation or drawing undue attention to "that guy with the earbuds who is not paying attention to his surroundings." Only complaint is that it isn't always loud enough....great for music, but some audiobooks, podcasts, etc may seem on "whisper mode" if I'm in an area with serious noise. On the other hand, its super-useful when you have to wear hearing protection (bypasses the eardrums - still works perfectly with earplugs) or an environment where regular earbuds are frowned upon. Got a pair for my wife to use while jogging....now she can hear traffic around her for added safety.

Great product! Quality and service top notch.

Doesn’t play in stereo, only mono.

Cheap dont buy

it just doesn't work like I had hoped