I get a lot of my information from long-form Podcasts. I am increasingly getting my exercise by briskly walking and I walk five miles per day. I don’t want to get into a habit of sitting while I listen to podcasts. I want exercise, and I love getting two-fer’s–exercise and high quality information at the same time. I don’t want to plug my ears with earbuds or to wear over-the-ear headphones while I’m walking, because I want be aware of the sounds around me: people, animals and traffic. I also don’t want to disturb others by blasting a podcast from my phone while I walk around.

This is an unpaid endorsement. I want to share some information about a product (J01 Soundgear) that I recently purchased that I’m enjoying. It satisfies all of my objectives stated above and it costs about $50. It is a hands-free bluetooth neckband speaker that you wear like a collar. It’s comfortable and it will not fall off even when I’m doing chores around the house while I listen. Here’s the one I’m using:

There are other models of these “wearable” or “neckband” speakers, but I’ve only tried this one, by a company named “Long Run.” It produces excellent quality sound for podcasts, but it’s almost like the sound is coming from inside my head. I don’t use this collar for music, but I’ve tried this out and the music sound quality is decent–it won’t give you deep bass, but I’m happy to make that trade-off for all of the advantages this device offers. You can also have two-way phone conversations using this device and that works well too.

I’ve worn this speaker for more than 10 hours already and it passes all of my tests with flying colors. When you are wearing it, the volume can be set at a robust-seeming level. I was concerned that this was too loud and it might be disturbing people nearby. But then I took off the collar while it was playing and I was impressed at how much lower the volume seemed. The trick is that the collar broadcasts the sound directly toward your ears, minimizing the sound moving out away from you.

I’m sharing this information because I suspect other people who walk a lot also seek a good hands-free speaker for podcasts.  This is one that works for me.