Bluetooth, Hearables, IoT, Smart Energy and other random Stuff
Wireless things we put in our ears.
Most people have a view about their speakers, earbuds and headphones. They’ll happily enthuse about the audio performance, how well the noise cancellation works, their battery life and features like transparency. But nobody talks about microphones. The most you’re ever likely to hear is an exasperated “can you hear me” during a phone conversation, or a possibly muted oath about whether they’re muted and how to turn the mute on or off.
It’s almost wo weeks since Apple shipped its first tranche of Vision Pros to around 100,000 lucky boys and girls (although I suspect the majority were lucky boys). According to the New York Times, the average cost of a Vision Pro is close to $4,600 by the time you’ve fitted it out with the recommended accessories. If you’re outside the US, there’s a significant premium on top of that. So, the first tranche of sales of around 200,000 units will have netted Apple in excess of $1 billion. That’s a staggering achievement, as is folding all of the tech into the product. Bringing it to market is an amazing step. The question is whether it’s going to impinge on very many people?
Sometimes, it needs what seems to be a small, tangential innovation to make a product successful. At the time, it may not seem much, but it can result in the product acquiring a life of its own. One product which is making its way along that trajectory is the humble earbud charging case.
The history of the charging case is quite interesting. Stereo wireless earbuds were a long time coming. It needed some serious technical innovation by a couple of chip companies to make them possible – new technology by Cambridge Silicon Radio (now part of Qualcomm) to let them receive and render separate left and right audio channels, and small near-field magnetic induction chips from another silicon company – NXP to send wireless signals through our heads. It then needed the brilliance of a German startup called Bragi to turn these concepts into working stereo earbuds, kickstarting the whole hearables market. It has become the fastest growing technology product ever, eclipsing even the iPhone in its growth.
Just before Christmas, the Bluetooth SIG published the final documents in the first release of Bluetooth LE Audio. It’s been the largest single development in the history of the Bluetooth specifications, taking around eight years and comprising 25 new or updated documents, with over 1,250 pages of specification. Its aim is ambitious, the intent being to provide the platform for the next twenty years of wireless audio development.
Today is World Hearing Day and the World Health Organisation has taken the opportunity to launch the first-ever “World Report on Hearing”. In it, they warn that more than 1 billion young people are at risk of avoidable hearing loss, with the total number of people predicted to develop hearing loss rising to around 2.5 billion by 2050. A key message is prevention, warning of the immense social and economic cost of hearing loss if this increase continues.
Yesterday, Apple pre-empted the report by releasing findings from the first year of their Hearing Study. Their report shows that the average weekly headphone exposure for one in ten participants was higher than the WHO recommended limit. They remind listeners that “while catchy tunes can be tempting, you should consider listening to music and other media at the lowest enjoyable volume”. It’s a useful piece of research, as it is collecting real data about usage, providing some of the most accurate information we have on what people actually do.
In contrast, Spotify is still urging users to turn up the volume. Last week, at its virtual “Stream On” event. Spotify announced “a new HiFi service, which will deliver music in a CD-quality, lossless audio format”. It claims that “fans will be able to experience more depth and clarity while enjoying their favorite tracks”. To promote the new service, they’ve commissioned a short YouTube video from Billie Eilish and FINNEAS, which contradicts almost everything that the WHO is trying to do promote hearing health. It appalls me that anyone at Spotify released it. Here’s a transcript and a brief analysis of the opening conversation.
In October 2020, the hearables industry acquired its first unicorn. Eargo, a startup making hearing aids, had a successful IPO, with its market valuation rising to $1.3 billion. It’s been on a roller-coaster ever since, nudging $3 billion last month before sliding back to $2.3 billion. Some might argue that it’s not the first hearables unicorn, as Apple acquired Beats for $3 billion back in 2014, but Beats was never really a unicorn. Beats had received a $500 million investment from Carlyle the year before, which gave it a valuation at just over $1 billion, but a large chunk of that valuation was based on their music service, not their hardware. Ironically, the success of Airpods means that Apple now almost certainly outsells its acquisition, making Beats the junior hearables partner. We’ll probably never know whether Beats played any part in the Airpod’s development, or whether it was a purely internal Apple development, but that’s history. The question on everybody’s lips in the hearables industry is “Who will be the next unicorn?”