What is a TWS Bluetooth earphone? A brief introduction to TWS headpones
The most popular thing in the market since 2018 should be TWS Bluetooth earphone. What is a TWS earphone? What are the advantages and disadvantages of TWS headphones? Today I will give you a detailed explanation.
TWS is the abbreviation of True Wireless Stereo in English, TWS technology is also based on the development of Bluetooth chip technology. According to its working principle, it means that the mobile phone is connected to the main earphone, and then the main earphone is quickly connected to the auxiliary earphone in a wireless manner, so as to realize the true Bluetooth wireless separation of the left and right channels. When the slave speakers are not connected, the master speakers return to mono sound quality. TWS technology is applied to the field of Bluetooth earphones, so it has also spawned a new product – TWS Bluetooth earphones.
Apple has to talk about when speaking of its development process. In 2017, after the iPhone 7 cancelled the 3.5mm jack, the Bluetooth earphone market has developed rapidly. Of course, Bluetooth earphone technology and products have also been developed for many years. Among them, the products and quality are also uneven, and the industry is chaotic. Until Apple releasing the world’s first TWS Bluetooth earphone – AirPods, this product supports the connection of many of Apple’s ecological products (Iphone, Ipad, iwatch, Macbook), AirPods with built-in optical sensors and accelerometers, double-click this wireless earphone to connect to Siri; during the phone call, this earphone can also reduce noise and filter noise to ensure sound quality. At the same time, the domestic and international AI fields are booming. With the help of AI, TWS technology rides on the express train of the “smart” era, and the Bluetooth earphone has renewed its vitality.
TWS has those characteristics:
1. Real wireless and can realize single or double ear wear
The TWS Bluetooth earphone does not require a wired connection, getting rid of the traditional earphone’s wired restraint; the left and right earphones form a stereo system through Bluetooth, experience of listening to songs, talking, and wearing have been improved. If you add professional acoustic pickup technology, intelligent noise reduction technology & AI algorithm noise reduction technology, you can achieve a perfect sound experience: ear-worn voice connections, video calls, music enjoyment, mountain running, safe driving, etc are not bound ;
2. the intelligent noise reduction function
From a product perspective, noise reduction is an indispensable technology. The audio and video experience is the focus of TWS earphone. We can design product application scenarios, but we cannot guarantee that users will always apply your products in the scenarios you design. When we dig into certain products in the industry , found that many users claim that outdoor noise reduction is too poor.
3. Semi-intelligence & intelligence
TWS headphones experienced the path of semi-intelligent headphones in the era of crazy development in 2018. Taking smart TWS Bluetooth headphones as an example, it is not just a earphone product, which is equipped with in-depth content in the APP and immediately transforms into a smart Interactive smart products; also more original Bluetooth chip manufacturers have been upgraded in version 5.0, embedded serial flash memory, can be more flexible for customer software upgrades, support third-party software migration; cooperate with the original ecology or content provision ( Audio content, weather reports, health news, financial news, sports information, etc.), and in fact, they have a lot to do in the content area. The mainstream IT companies have all been involved in the field of artificial intelligence and are building their own smart ecological chains. Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have been used as examples to extend the Microsoft Cortana, Google Assistant, and Amazon Alexa wireless intelligent voice interaction services.
Similarly, domestic hardware manufacturers in China, including mobile phone manufacturers, all support their voice assistants. Huawei’s TWS supports Xiaoyi in their mobile phones, and Xiaomi TWS supports Xiaoai classmates, and this is particularly important. The smart era has come, pure hardware is the label that advertises low-end products, because no one is willing to spend the same money to buy a cheap hardware product. In Q3-Q4 of 2019, it is expected that the sales volume of smart speaker products + TWS smart Bluethooth earphone products will increase substantially, which will promote the faster and faster development of artificial intelligence.
Why is TWS earphone so hot?
Let me talk about the wired earphone market first. According to industry statistics and professional market research institutions, the wired earphone market is over 100 billion US dollars every year! With the support of TWS technology, you can say goodbye to all kinds of cable headphones that are constantly cut and unreasonable – when you enjoy music, not only between the media source and the headphones, even between the left and right earbuds, no cables required! In recent years, the embarrassment caused by the headphone cable is finally becoming history. And Ruzen believes that with the update of TWS technology, there will be a greater breakthrough in the field of acoustic noise reduction, and once the volume of the entire TWS industry is broken, the cost of Bluetooth chips and solutions will go down. Now overall cost of the lowest-end TWS earphone in the market is about 8-9 US dollars. It is expected that in the next two to three years, TWS earphones will become the standard accessories for mobile phone manufacturers.
What are the disadvantages of TWS earphones at this stage?
According to the actual measurement of TWS earphones of medium and high-end domestic and foreign brands bought on the market, and according to the feedback data from mainstream e-commerce companies at home and abroad, it is roughly as follows:
1. Battery life problem: This kind of problem ranks first among all problems, why, because of the size of the single earphone – considering the ergonomic design, most TWS earphones are small-in-ear or semi-in-ear style; according to statistics: The battery capacity of single ear is between 25-60mAh, the maximum battery life -single and double earbuds are fully charged, the maximum single use time is not more than 3 hours – and it is tested based on big brand TWS earphone product. Of course, we believe that the follow-up will definitely do better, the premise is that there is a breakthrough in battery technology, and ergonomic design wants to break through. Of course, there is another shortcut, which the charging compartment, because when we take off the earphone and put it in the charging compartment, it is in the charging state, so that if the battery capacity of the charging compartment is large enough, it can maintain long-term battery life, after all, no one wants to recharge the charging bin frequently. New products and technologies need to subvert the past and solve the pain points of users to achieve the best user experience. To increase the battery life of the charging compartment can compensate for the small amount of earphone power to some extent, and it is more acceptable to users.
2. Noise reduction in a complex environment: Not every TWS manufacturer has studied the acoustics field, and few companies specialize in acoustic technology in China. In the era of smart phones, noise reduction technology achieves the effect of noise reduction through network optimization + hardware support + software assistance. Among the mid-to-high-end brands we tested, almost no satisfactory noise reduction experience;
3. The bottleneck of wireless transmission distance: TWS earphone itself is based on Bluetooth technology to achieve wireless calling. According to the Bluetooth 4.2 protocol, its theoretical calling range can reach 100 meters, and finally the new Bluetooth 5.0 theory can reach 300 meters, but in the actual use process, the complex environment, the circuit itself, radio frequency interference and many other problems limit its use distance; according to the measured data, the current mainstream market use range is 10 meters, and the farthest is only 12 meters, according to mainstream application scenarios at this stage, it clearly cannot meet the user’s experience requirements. Who can solve the problem of transmission distance means that he has an absolute advantage in this industry!
4. The problem of sound quality and sound effects: This kind of problem does not have much repercussions in China, but foreign buyers have relatively high requirements on sound quality and sound effects. At Amazon official website, we grab a bunch of data, many poor reviews will report poor sound quality. In addition to the need for good chips and solutions, sound materials are also needed for sound support. On the other hand, hardware + software tuning (very professional) is required. And the cavity structure design of the earphone will directly affects the sound quality and the experience effect of the sound effect. It is still a sentence, if you want to engaged in manufacturing TWS earphones and want to be more professional in this industry, it is not as simpe as a plagiarism to a popular TWS earphone appearance structure. The internal things can reflect the competitiveness of the product.
Industry development prospects of TWS earphone products:
According to market development and industry prediction, combined with the user experience of the product market and the capture of TWS-related issues, the author makes an industry outlook for such products based on his own knowledge:
1. TWS earphones will move towards the road of intelligence: With the help of AI technology and its rapid development, TWS earphones can be perfectly combined with the AI field, can be combined with AI products, and on the other hand, they can also let go of the pace of fully intelligent products route. Because the smart voice technology at this stage is also maturing, it is widely used in automobiles, smart home products, etc. TWS earphones can do all this: such as full voice control, gesture control, etc. In addition, there are smart hands that have been widely used now. Sonsor technology on smart rings and watches can actually be extended to TWS earphones; in the next stage of market competition, artificial intelligence of TWS products will become one of the focuses.
2. TWS chip manufacturers will integrate more functions Taking Qualcomm as an example, Qualcomm’s TWS Plus technology also supports the new QCC 5100 series of Bluetooth chips. TWS Plus is currently limited to use with the Snapdragon 845 platform. If you pair the earphone that supports this technology to other devices, it will only connect in TWS mode., cannot enjoy lower audio delay and longer battery life. In addition, the technology can use the mobile phone as a broadcast center without the support of any intermediate devices, and simultaneously transmit audio signals to multiple Bluetooth devices. At present, mobile phones supporting Bluetooth 5.0 technology have gradually become the mainstream configuration. We believe that continuous investment of hardware manufacturers and product updates , more technical applications will plug the wings for TWS headphones.
3. Extension of TWS products: At present, the TWS industry is mainly manifested as TWS earphones. In fact, TWS is not only applied to earphone products, but can also be extended to all audio fields (TWS speakers, TWS smart wearable products, etc.) . For each category of innovation or to seize market opportunities is enough to make you stand out in the market!
4. High bit rate transmission will still be the focus of the next solution: The high transmission bandwidth of Bluetooth 5.0 also makes bilateral calls of TWS true wireless Bluetooth earphones possible, and breakthrough of high bit rate audio playback has also been obtained on Bluetooth audio products for the first time, but there is still much room for improvement, mainly in the breakthrough of application technology; on Bluetooth 4.2 version, many domestic manufacturers have achieved the effect of DSP – mainly in the speaker, and in the field of TWS headphones, at present, there is no one that can achieve DSP effects; this point, may be the next technical problem that the original manufacturer and suppliers needed to be solved on the sound quality and sound effects.
