A watch that conducts sound through your body and into your ear

Apparently, you all you have to do is tap your ear to access your telephone calls. A Jan. 8, 2016 article by Mark Wilson for Fast Company describes the technology and the experience of using Samsung’s TipTalk device,

It’s not so helpful to see a call on your smartwatch when you have to pull our your phone to take it anyway. And therein lies the problem with products like the Apple Watch: They’re often not a replacement for your phone, but an intermediary to inevitably using it.

But at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show [held in Las Vegas (Nevada, US) annually (Jan. 6 – 9, 2016)], Samsung’s secret R&D lab … showed off a promising concept to fix one of the biggest problems with smartwatches. Called TipTalk, it’s technology that can send sound from your smartwatch through your arm so when you touch your finger to your ear, you can hear a call or a voicemail—no headphones required.

Engineering breakthroughs like these can be easy to dismiss as a gimmick rather than revolutionary UX [user experience], but I like TipTalk for a few reasons. First, it maps hearing UI [user interface] into a gesture that we already might use to hear to something better … . Second, it could be practical in real world use. You see a new voicemail on your watch, and without even a button press, you listen—but crucially, you still opt-in to hear the message rather than just have it play. And third, the gesture conveys to people around you that you’re occupied.

Ulrich Rozier in his Jan. 8, 2016 article for frandroid.com also raves albeit, in French,

Samsung a développé un bracelet que l’on peut utiliser sur n’importe quelle montre.

Ce bracelet vibre lorsque l’on reçoit un appel… il est ainsi possible de décrocher. Il faut ensuite positionner son doigt au niveau du pavillon de l’oreille. C’est là que la magie opère. On se retrouve à entendre des sons. Contrairement à ce que je pensais, le son ne se transmet pas par conduction osseuse, mais grâce à des vibrations envoyées à partir de votre poignet à travers votre corps. Vous pouvez l’utiliser pour prendre des appels ou pour lire vos SMS et autres messages. Et ça fonctionne.

Here’s my very rough translation,

Samsung has developed a bracelet that can worn under any watch’s band strap.

It’s the ‘bracelet’ that vibrates when you get a phone call. If you want to answer the call, reach up and tap your ear. That’s when the magic happens and sound is transmitted to your ear. Not through your bones as I thought but with vibrations transmitted by your wrist through your body. This way you can answer your calls or read SMS and other messages [?]. It works

I get sound vibration being transmitted to your ear but I don’t understand how you’d be able to read SMS or other messages.

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