Bone conduction hearing implants for the rest of us

[anon3825968]

@Mariarangok

my father is more willing to do this sort of thing than my mother is, and he has a more flexible take on the Hippocratic oath.

You seem very well setup to do interesting biohacking experiments

@fraggersparks

I think getting the Cochlear systems would be difficult.

Getting the hardware shouldn’t be too hard. I mean Cochlear is a private company. They’ll probably sell you anything you want if you ask them.

Getting the implanted bit put in is the real hurdle. A cochlear Cochlear implant would be impossible (too risky, too many side effects for no problem-solving benefits, almost certain degradation of your natural hearing faculties) but a bone conduction Cochlear implant might be.

@fraggersparks

It’s definitely within the realms of possibility for us to design our own system for a more permanent audio jack style thing. I’ve considered designing it in past.

That’s optimistic What did you have in mind if I may ask?

To my knowledge, if you want to transmit sound to the auditory system with an artificial device, the only options are direct nerve excitation (way out of reach for us and not desirable), bone conduction (doable, most likely chance of making it a reality for a hobbyist being through the teeth - see these guys) or magnet implants floating in soft bits - tragus and such (totally within our reach, but kind of ghetto performances).

If you have another idea, I’d be curious.