The Best of JB & Crew on Austin 360 Radio Podcast

Aftershokz, a New York-based company that makes premium sports headphones, is relocating its headquarters to Austin with plans to add dozens of employees.

The company specializes in making headphones geared for active lifestyles using bone conduction technology. It is moving from Syracuse, where it was founded in 2011 with the idea of bringing the technology, originally designed for the Chinese military, to the American commercial headphones market.

Kimberly Fassetta, AfterShokz chief marketing officer, said she hopes the move to Austin will help continue the company’s growth. She said Austin’s energy, culture, talent pool and community of technology and active lifestyle brands were draws.

“It’s a tech hub, it’s an outdoor lifestyle city and there’s lots of growth here and lots of talent,” said Jayme Schwartz, the company’s vice president of marketing and communications. “We want to take the next step in our growth and be a part of that.”

Bone conduction headphones sit on the outside of a user’s ears and absorb sound by vibrations through the inner ear rather than through the eardrums like traditional headphones. The idea is to increase safety and improve communications in active environments, such as while running or biking, by allowing the user to hear both the headphone sounds and other sounds around them.

“We’re all about staying connected to music and phone calls, but also your general surroundings,” Schwartz said.

AfterShokz owns more than 200 patents for the technology, making it the only true bone conduction headphone maker in the American market. It sold more than 1.5 million headphones last year between Amazon and local retail stores, according to the company.

AfterShokz has been moving employees into Austin for the past few weeks, temporarily working out of WeWork University Park, but the company has plans to take up two floors of Domain Place by March 2020. Eleven, or about a quarter of its Syracuse employees, will remain with the company through the relocation. The company plans to scale up to 40 employees with local hires by the end of the year. By 2021 the goal is to grow to 85 employees.

Most of the positions hired will be in sales, marketing and customer support positions.

“We are looking for Austin local talent,” Fassetta said. “Already the people that we’ve met and talked to have been incredible. It’s a much different pool than in Syracuse.”

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Amy loves a good aff, and has a new list of 30 supposedly "super effective" (yet sometimes cheesy) affirmations, so she and Chandler review the list and add their own spin to it. Find the list HERE.

Part 2 will be available next week, 9/17.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Rental scooter riders will be automatically slowed down with the use of GPS technology called geofencing when they enter trails that are off-limits to the devices starting Friday, Austin Parks and Recreation Department officials said.

Officials with the Parks and Recreation Department, Public Works and the Austin Transportation Department mapped out where geofencing was needed and sent that information to the scooter rental companies, said Amanda Ross, Austin Parks and Recreation Department division manager for natural resources.

The companies set up their devices to automatically slow down in the mapped-out areas, she said.

Prohibited areas include those that are not part of a city pilot program, which allows scooters and electric bikes on some trails. When riders enter a geofenced trail, their scooters will automatically be slowed down to 8 mph and they will receive a notification on their cellphones that they’ve entered an unauthorized area, officials said. The speed limit for scooters on allowed trails is 10 mph.

Electric bikes and scooters have been allowed on the trails along Johnson Creek, Shoal Creek south of 15th Street, Northern Walnut Creek and Southern Walnut Creek since January as part of a city pilot program. More than 9,000 scooters are in use in Austin, according to the city.

“As part of the pilot program, we’re also talking about enforcement capabilities and, honestly, we can’t be everywhere at all times,” Ross said. ”(The geofencing) is just a tool to communicate the best locations and most appropriate ways to use them on parkland.”

Scooters are not allowed on trails outside of those in the pilot program, while electric bikes can be used along Lady Bird Lake on the Ann and Roy Butler Hike and Bike Trail and the Lady Bird Lake boardwalk and on trails that do not have a natural surface, like pavement or decomposed granite. Rental electric bikes also will be slowed to 8 mph on natural soil trails, Ross aid.

READ MORE: ‘Scooter is in a tree’: Complaints to Austin 311 highlight safety, threat to trails

Scooter users will be able to use roads to get to Zilker Park, for example, but will be slowed if they try to ride across one of the trails near the park, she said.

“It’s not that we want to discourage scooter use. If someone wants to ride a scooter to a park and then stay on a park road, they are very much welcome to do so,” Ross said.

Geofencing already has been implemented on the University of Texas campus. In March, the university announced that scooters from Bird, Jump, Lime and Lyft would be limited to 8 mph in zones that make up most of its main campus.

The speed limit for areas outside of the zones is 15 mph.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

None of us are getting any younger, right? So what are we doing that we don't realize is causing us to age faster? You can bet that Amy is interested, and she found a list on this so let's talk about it. Read list here. 

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Yeah so after this week's motivation speech, Amy got thrown for a loop in her life and had to readjust her thinking a little. Check out the addendum to the motivation and we can make lemonade out of the pain that can get thrown our way.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices