MP3-Playing Mouth Gear Makes Headphones Obsolete


Remember when your orthodontist said you could get a flavored retainer and you were all Glitter? Pshh. I want my mouth gear watermelon-flavored or not at all! Well, prepare to feel like a dated, oldtimey loser: Aisen Chacin, a Design and Technology student at Parsons the New School for Design, has created a music-playing mouth piece that uses bone conduction to transmit sounds waves — painlessly — via vibration through your teeth!

The “Play-a-Grill” — not to be confused with playa grill, which means beach grill and populates most of the search results for Chacin’s invention — was created by casting a mould of Chacin’s mouth, then from that creating a wax model of her top teeth and cobbling it together with some hacked parts from a conventional MP3 player.

The vibrations are only heard, not felt, so the wearer needn’t concern herself with thoughts of a mouth-music headache. Though, Chacin told TIME, “If the music is loud enough the concave shape of the palate makes the vibrations of bone conduction resonate, resulting in a mouth speaker.”

Imagine a 6th grade classroom: 20 or more 12-year-olds sitting at their desks, clicking their retainers in their mouths — like ya do — and all of them simultaneously blaring a different pop song with every jaw drop and yawn.

On a more serious note, this is actually a very innovative piece of technology, and if developed beyond Chacin’s prototype, the mouthpiece’s tongue controls could prove quite advantageous to those with limited mobility or some forms of paralysis.

Play-A-Grill: Music to Your Teeth

[Time]