This weird candy plays music through your teeth

Seeing, smelling, hearing, tasting, and touching — the five experiences that help us pick our way through the world. Most of the time, sensory experiences overlap to paint a rich picture of our reality, but if you asked me if I could hear a piece of hard candy, you’d earn more than a head-scratch from me.

But if I was holding a special lollipop, that question would suddenly gain some agency. On the bustling floor of CES 2026 this week, a unique and sweet treat sits among entertainment tech, smart wearables, and AI-riddled hardware: the Lollipop Star. It’s not your traditional sucker on a stick, though — the wand acts as a bone-conduction audio player that sends vibrations (and specific tunes) to your inner ear from your teeth.

What’s the deal with Lollipop Star?

And the sweet science behind bone conduction tech

Lava, the company behind the clever candy, set up shop at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to show off its weirdest little novelty. It comes in three flavors, peach, blueberry, and lime, and each one corresponds to a particular artist. Ice Spice rocks the peach flavor (featuring Munch, Baddie Baddie), Akon sports the blue (to spin Beautiful Day), and Armani White takes the lime (and plays Mount Pleasant).

I haven’t had the chance to try any flavors yet, but I’d lean toward the peach myself — especially to jam out to some Ice Spice. To hear the music, you have to bite down on the candy, so the bone conduction works. And how exactly does it work?

When you hear sounds aloud or through earbuds, sound waves move into your ear from the outside, where it then passes through the eardrum and middle ear before reaching your inner ear. Bone conduction technology instead moves sound through the bones of your skull and directly into the cochlea (or the inner ear), bypassing the eardrum and middle ear entirely. The vibrations of bone conduction within the inner ear send a signal to your brain, and then you hear it. All of this happens faster than we can imagine.

Bone conduction technology is popular in many headphones and earbuds (through the cheekbones), especially for people who want to listen to music but remain aware of their surroundings. It’s also used in hearing aids.

The musical candy launches when CES ends, and it will sell for $9 per unit. You can join the waitlist online, or wait to see it on shelves at certain stores.