GadgetReview

Bone conduction seems to be of all the rage these days when talking about submersible earphones.  I had a bland experience with the Finis SwiMP3’s and feel that music underwater has yet to be truly conquered.

Thanko of Japan has just announced the new EMP-708LITE Vonia earphones that use bone conduction to transmit the music to your brain in up to 5 meters of depth.  This product is only available in Japan but you can order a pair for around $45.  Any opinions on this technology??

[via NewLaunches]

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Today, I read an article that made me question my own sanity.

I read all about the Liquid Image Scuba Series HD320, and when you hear what this is and connect it to earlier work, then you’re going to have a serious problem yourself.  Because by the time I finish talking about this you’ll wonder the same thing I did:  namely, maybe Thanko’s Underwater USB Camera wasn’t so lunatic after all.

The Liquid Image Scuba Series HD320, you see, is a diving facemask with a side-mounted HD video camera.  All you have to do is line up the crosshairs on the mask with the thing you want to photograph, then press the button on the mask to take the footage.  It’s the equivalent of a five megapixel camera and can go as far down as 115 feet.

You can get one of these beauties via West Marine for just $300, but there are lower cost versions available.

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Oh Thanko…have I told you lately that I love you…r insane brand of gadget lunacy?

The boys and girls out at Thanko have truly done it again.  They’re offering up a waterproof USB camera that will remain waterproof up to 20 meters deep, which is approximately sixty feet.

It’s got four gigs of onboard memory, USB, stores files in AVI at 736X280 resolution at 20 frames per second.  Even better, the battery takes up to two full hours of nonstop running to go blank, so you’ll have plenty of time to learn all its various features.

But yes, you read that right…they’re actually offering up a waterproof diving USB camera.  I admit there are plenty of other possible uses for it, but the fact that you can actually use it as a diving camera strikes me as a bit outlandish.  But if you ever wanted to hunt gold in the Caribbean, and don’t mind shelling out a hundred and forty bucks worth of that gold in advance, this has GOT to be the way to do it.

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Having previously reviewed a few underwater MP3 solutions it was clear to me what I expected from the Finis SwiMP3.  While other incarnations of submersible MP3 players had issues with water always getting in your ears disrupting the flow of sound, the SwiMP3 player had to eliminate that in order to be a plausible contender.

Immediately upon “unboxing”, it was apparent that the SwiMP3 player was exactly that.  Tailored to swimmers, the only way to adorn the product was to attach them to a pair of goggles.  The clips on each earpiece are designed to loosely fit around any pair of goggles and were a bit weird to try and situate them correctly without a mirror. …Continue reading: Finis SwiMP3 “Bone Conduction” Underwater EarPhones Review

H2Audio has been making some heavy duty underwater iPod cases for some years now and the iDive300 is their first foray into deeper waters.  Designed to hit depths of up to 300 feet deep, the iDive300 is priced at $350 and is an extremely niche product that only seriously bored divers would need.  Sporting watertight controls and over the ear speakers I can’t imagine a large production batch for this item.  Beyond that, the iDive300 has a warranty for your iStuff in case something goes awry once submerged.   What do we think?  Cool or worthless?

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