AUDIO
Eyes and Ears According to Statista’s last survey of share of glass wearers in the UK in 2020, a whopping 59% of the population wear glasses. 77% of women and 68% of men reported wearing glasses or contact lenses in the United Kingdom, so if you have 20/20 vision you’re in the minority.
The reason that most of the population wear corrective sight solutions are attributed to genetics, advances in diagnosing those needing corrective lenses, an ageing population and yes, screen time gets the blame too. With the majority of the population with a pair of spectacles on their faces, and the temples perched neatly on their ears, thoughts turn to the ideal pair of headphones for glasses wearers, and that includes sunglasses too. We conducted a short qualitative survey amongst a small, but talkative, group of glasses- wearing colleagues, friend and associates, seeking feedback on the issues they had regarding wearing glasses and headphones and headset combinations, and what features they specifically look out for. We did not include earbuds or headphones that used bone conduction technology in our survey – we stuck to those devices that use speakers to transmit sound and have a headband. Headsets v Headphones Our snap survey glass-wearing respondents were utterly confused about the terminology they were using and what was on their heads – some thought headphones and headsets were the same devices, whilst others differentiated whether the devices were used for work or leisure. For the sake of getting through our
survey, we asked for feedback from glasses wearers for both head devices and most understood that headphones were largely designed to listen to audio and headsets were largely designed for listening and communicating and may or may not come with an attached or inbuilt microphone. Additionally, it was felt that headphones fell into mainly two categories, they could be closed or open backed, and if they were closed-back it meant that the earcups are closed on the outside which blocks the background noise and air entering the earpiece. Glass Wearers’ Gripes We had a lot of gripes from glasses wearers, and we categorised them into three distinct categories: pain, loss and fit. The pain gripe from glasses wearers centred around the pain they experienced when the arms of their glasses dug into their skin because the earpiece pressure was adding extra force. Someone described this phenomenon as “clamp force” – the force of their glasses and the extra force of earpieces on their ears. Sound Loss and Poorly Fitting The loss gripe was around the fact that the glasses arms were preventing the earpieces from fitting, and the audio was “floating away”
Thoughts turn to the ideal pair of headphones for glasses wearers...
Jabra Elite 85h The headphones contain 8 microphones, 4 of which are used by the powerful digital ANC to filter out the surrounding noise around you. ANC = Active Noise Cancellation: it responds to the environment around the wearer, switching itself on if it detects unwanted background noise according to the preferences set within the Jabra Sound+ app. The user can also customise their music settings with purpose-built speakers. With up to 36 hours of battery power on a single charge (with ANC switched on) and fast charging – you can get up to 5 hours of battery power from just 15 minutes of charging. Voice assistant enabled to Amazon Alexa, Siri®, and Google Assistant™. The headphones recognise when you remove them from your ears, auto-playing and pausing audio and answering and muting calls. The Elite 85h are certified rain-resistant and come with a 2-year warranty against water and dust. 4 soft padded ear cups 4 adjustable headband 4 lightweight design
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