Electronics

In September 2016, Apple announced the cancellation of the iPod on the iPhone 7, the 3.5mm headphone jack that has been used on the iPhone for more than ten years, and launched a headphone product AirPods without a headphone cable. Since then, the product "True Wireless Stereo" (TWS, True Wireless Stereo) has rapidly become popular.

According to research data released by the Foresight Industry Research Institute, in 2018, the market penetration rate of TWS was only 3.3%. In 2019, this figure climbed to 9.41%. From 2016 to 2019, TWS's global shipments also maintained a rapid growth rate of doubling each year.

Different from other new gadgets in the consumer electronics market, TWS has truly become a product that the public needs, rather than being a toy for niche geeks like VR, smart watches, and smart glasses.

Recently, the TWS track has made waves again. A few days ago, a number of overseas digital bloggers said that Apple will release AirPods 3 online on May 18. Although Apple did not release this product as scheduled, in the domestic market, TWS still ushered in a small wave of new product releases.

On May 20th, vivo released its new TWS product TWS 2, which supports "DEEP-HD ultra-definition audio engine" and "40dB adaptive noise reduction", priced at 499 yuan. On May 19, Huawei released FreeBuds 4, featuring "semi-open active noise reduction", priced at 999 yuan. On May 13, Xiaomi released FlipBuds Pro, which also features active noise reduction and is priced at 799 yuan.

These domestic TWS products all come from well-known mobile phone manufacturers, and mobile phone manufacturers seem to have become the main force in the TWS market. Why do mobile phone manufacturers dominate the TWS market? What is the future development trend of TWS products? These issues still need to be considered by outsiders.

Mobile phone manufacturers compete to enter the game, the TWS war continues

The reason for the collective entry of mobile phone manufacturers into TWS is actually not complicated.

Compared with traditional headphones, TWS is more abundant in product features. At the same time, TWS products launched by mobile phone manufacturers can also produce stronger synergies with their own mobile phone products. For example, most of the TWS products launched by mobile phone manufacturers can realize "open box connection" on their mobile phones, and realize simple and direct headset settings and control in their mobile phone systems. However, most of the TWS products of independent brands can achieve the above-mentioned functions through App.

In addition, unlike traditional headphones, TWS is also more complicated in product design. In addition to basic acoustic modules, TWS is often equipped with a large number of sensors, and its main control chip also needs to support complex functions such as Bluetooth, in-ear detection and even active noise reduction and voice assistant. Therefore, TWS is closer to "smart hardware" than traditional headphones in terms of product form. In this area, smartphone manufacturers have more advantages than traditional headset manufacturers.

The "TWS Headset Industry In-Depth Report" previously released by Western Securities pointed out that due to the high interaction and strong binding between TWS headsets and mobile phones, the market expectation of mobile phone manufacturers to launch TWS products is particularly optimistic. Market data also proves this view. The TWS headset market share data released by Counterpoint in 2020 shows that the top three TWS brands in market share are all mobile phone manufacturers.

According to data released by Counterpoint Research, a market research organization, global shipments of TWS reached 238 million pairs in 2020, while shipments of smartphones in the same period amounted to 1.332.5 billion. According to this calculation, nearly 20% of smartphone users will configure a pair of TWS headsets for themselves.

From the perspective of commercial value, it is even more unlikely that mobile phone manufacturers will let go of the promising market of TWS. In fact, in the past few years, TWS has contributed huge revenue to mobile phone manufacturers.

In 2020, Apple's revenue from the AirPods product line reached a staggering US$23.05 billion. Some media compared this figure with the revenue of mainstream global technology companies. AirPods’ revenue is equivalent to two Ubers, or the sum of NVIDIA and AMD. If benchmarking hardware companies, it is equivalent to 0.6 millet.

(Source: StatsPanda)

Today, the overall growth rate of the smartphone market has slowed down, and TWS is becoming a new revenue growth pole for mobile phone manufacturers. Tou Leopard Research Institute previously released "China TWS Headphone Industry Boutique Report" pointed out that the overall cost of Apple's AirPods is 600 yuan, while the cost of TWS products of the Android phone brand is 200-300 yuan. And their pricing far exceeds this figure. This means that TWS products have sufficient profit margins.

With the help of mobile phone manufacturers, the overall pattern of the TWS market has been established-mobile phone manufacturers are becoming the dominant players in the TWS market; traditional headset manufacturers have fallen behind in the TWS field, but still occupy a certain market share; in addition, part of the sound quality Independent TWS brands with unique advantages in areas such as, design, etc. can still gain a certain market space in the niche market.

It is foreseeable that in the future, competition in the TWS market will continue and will become more intense. And above the small TWS, manufacturers still have a lot of room for innovation.

The product form is fixed, how does TWS micro-innovate?

The Airpods, which was born in 2016, determined the basic product form for the subsequent TWS products-two split earphones, a charging storage box, and a system that can be connected when the lid is opened. Today, most TWS products of major brands have failed to break away from this product form.

However, this does not mean that TWS has entered an era of product homogeneity. Especially for branded TWS products, different manufacturers have their own explorations in areas such as sound adjustment, noise reduction algorithms, product design, and underlying transmission protocols. These exploration directions are often driven by the real needs of users.

Take the active noise reduction function as an example. In most scenarios, users want the stronger the noise reduction capability of TWS, the better. However, in relatively quiet scenes, the noise reduction capability of TWS will have a certain counter-effect. The strong noise reduction effect will not only erase part of the sound details, but also bring a certain "ear pressure" to the user, and some people may even experience tinnitus.

The TWS 2 product recently released by vivo tries to solve this problem through the product design of "adaptive noise reduction". Specifically, adaptive noise reduction allows TWS products to provide different levels of noise reduction effects for different noise environments. In a noisy environment, TWS provides a strong noise reduction effect; in a relatively quiet environment, TWS will automatically reduce the noise reduction effect, thereby providing users with a relatively comfortable listening experience.

In addition, with the gradual popularity of TWS, the congestion problem of the Bluetooth wireless frequency band in crowded areas has become more and more serious. Many TWS users will notice that TWS is often more prone to sound stuttering, delay, and asynchrony between the left and right ears on the subway.

This phenomenon is related to the Bluetooth protocol commonly used in the TWS industry. At present, the aptX, LDAC, and LHDC solutions commonly used in TWS headsets are common solutions in the industry. The simultaneous appearance of a large number of TWS devices often leads to congestion in the Bluetooth frequency band. Therefore, in densely crowded areas such as subways, TWS devices sometimes get stuck. .

And vivo's solution is to introduce the self-developed "DEEP-HD Ultra HD Audio Engine" on TWS 2. This is compatible with the existing aptX Adaptive high-definition audio codec scheme, and at the same time provides 1.5 times the amount of information of the traditional codec, and doubles the audio transmission bandwidth through QHS high-bandwidth technology. The introduction of these new technologies allows users to obtain a smooth listening experience in complex environments.

It is not difficult to see that the product function innovations of vivo on TWS are all based on the specific needs of users. In the traditional acoustic field, the product upgrade of vivo TWS 2 is inseparable from the long-term accumulation of vivo in the acoustic field.

On TWS 2, vivo introduced a 12.2mm super-large sound unit to bring more shocking low-frequency effects. In addition, TWS 2 is also equipped with DeepX 2.0 stereo effects, with three sound effects modes: super bass, clear vocals, and clear treble to meet the needs of different users.

This sound effect was created by vivo's "Golden Ear Acoustic Laboratory". Vivo Golden Ear Acoustics Laboratory is divided into two parts: product technology design and development team and listening and tuning team. The TingYin tuning team is mainly involved in the tuning of acoustic products. This is a rather mysterious team inside vivo. Public information shows that the Golden Ear Acoustics Laboratory is composed of a group of acoustic engineers, band musicians, and music enthusiasts. They are not many, but they have accumulated many years in the field of acoustics. To become one of them, you must pass as many as eight passes. Strict sound test to prove that you have a pair of "golden ears."

The Golden Ear technical team will participate in all aspects of product development to ensure the audio quality of vivo products from objective factors such as hardware and parameters. Prior to this, vivo's music phones, Hi-Fi headsets and TWS products will also be handled by them for research and development and tuning.

In fact, acoustics has always been a technical field actively deployed by vivo. At the beginning of the establishment of the vivo mobile phone brand, music performance was the core selling point of the product. Vivo’s early Xplay series of mobile phones are also regarded as benchmark products in the field of mobile Hi-Fi. In the future TWS wars, vivo, as the "acoustic factory" technical reserve, will also become the key to its standout.

TWS Future Trend: Popularization of Active Noise Reduction, Rise of Computational Audio

Under the background of many manufacturers competing to enter and deploy, what new trends will appear in the TWS market?

The first trend is the popularization of active noise reduction (ANC) functions.

In 2019, Apple launched AirPods Pro, targeting the high-end market, and ANC active noise reduction has become the biggest selling point of this product. Apple's product positioning is very clear-the entry-level AirPods 2 can meet the basic needs of users, while ANC is exclusive to AirPods Pro.

However, Apple may break this positioning in the future. A few days ago, several bloggers who broke the news posted that Apple’s upcoming AirPods 3 might be equipped with ANC functionality. This means that Apple may regard ANC as the standard configuration of TWS products in the future.

In addition to Apple, more and more companies also use ANC as the standard configuration of TWS products. Take the TWS 2 product recently released by vivo as an example, this product is equipped with ANC function, and the price is only 499 yuan. This means that ANC will no longer be exclusive to mid-to-high-end TWS products. Domestic mainstream brand TWS products with a price of 500 yuan are expected to be equipped with ANC in the future.

The reasons behind this trend are not complicated. Compared with traditional headphones, the use environment of TWS products is more complicated. For example, in commuting scenarios, ANC can bring significant experience improvement. Many users bluntly said: "If you use it, you can't go back."

At the same time, the cost of ANC's noise reduction algorithm and chip will decrease with the gradual expansion of the market, and its cost will drop faster than traditional acoustic-related modules. Driven by user demand and cost reduction, ANC will continue to be decentralized to more entry-level TWS products.

The second trend is that TWS will become more intelligent. At present, mainstream TWS products already support functions such as open lid and in-ear detection. At the same time, some mobile phone manufacturers are also exploring the introduction of functions such as voice assistants, motion data detection and even voice translation into TWS.

Unlike traditional headphones, TWS is not only a headset, but also a wearable product. For mobile phone manufacturers, TWS is also an important part of their software and hardware ecology. It is also the only way for mobile phone manufacturers to introduce more intelligent functions for TWS and to produce software and hardware synergy with its existing ecosystem.

The third trend is the rise of the concept of "computational audio". This concept first appeared in Apple's headset product AirPods Max. It is equipped with two H1 chips, while active noise reduction, it can also adjust the audio output according to the fit and tightness of the ear pads, so that users can get the best audio experience.

Airpods Max brings a new way of computing audio to the headset industry, and this product idea will also guide the development of TWS products in the future. In a sense, ANC also belongs to the category of computational audio. The intelligent adaptive noise reduction function carried by vivo on TWS 2 is also an exploration of TWS in computing audio.

In the future, computational audio is also expected to bring more functions such as spatial audio, audio restoration, dynamic sound effects, etc. to TWS, and bring users a more immersive auditory experience in more scenarios such as audiovisual, games and even VR. .

The chips and a large number of sensors on TWS provide the underlying hardware platform for computing audio. The new audio output mode brought by computing audio may also become the general trend of the future development of the audio industry. On this road, TWS, as the most important product form in the future, still has many ways to go.