US Patent 10547930 Dynamic range management of bone conduction speaker output

A head-mounted wearable device (HMWD) may incorporate bone conduction speakers (BCS) to generate audio output that is perceptible to a wearer. Due to the mechanical connection between the BCS and the rest of the device, when the output amplitude of the BCSs is too great, the air-conducted audio “leaks” and may be heard by other people. This leakage may result in eavesdropping by, or generate a nuisance to, those other people. The noise level in the environment around the HMWD is determined and used to dynamically adjust the amplitude of the audio output generated by the BCS. This adjustment improves the comfort and intelligibility of the audio output to the wearer while minimizing audio leakage to the surrounding environment.