Qualcomm’s State of Play Report 2020 showed that 73 percent of those surveyed are now interested in complete freedom from wires, and adoption of truly wireless earbuds has almost doubled from 23 percent to 42 percent year on year. While sound quality is still the number one purchase driver, the data shows that consumers also demand more richly featured devices that offer seamless user experiences, are comfortable to wear, and have extended battery life.

Qualcomm recently launched a reference design platform for occluded true wireless earbuds. Based on the QCC5141 Bluetooth Audio SoC, it brings together earbud form factor hardware, software solutions, and tuning tools.

Designed to support seamless user experiences

Qualcomm believes that true wireless earbuds are being used more often, for longer periods of time, and for a wider range of applications, including music listening, voice calls, and mobile gaming. As consumers become more familiar and reliant on true wireless earbuds, expectations around ease of use and overall user experience are rising. Its research showed that many users are expressing an increasing interest in improved interoperability between wireless earbuds and their smartphone, with 35 percent of respondents rating their interest as “high” or “extreme.” Another feature they really care about when using wireless audio devices is the robustness of the Bluetooth connection. In fact, nearly a quarter of those surveyed said that audio glitching or dropouts would be a purchase barrier.

The earbud reference design supports Qualcomm’s latest TrueWireless Mirroring technology which is claimed to help deliver a more seamless user experience and better overall connectivity to both earbuds. This means that when one earbud is connected to the phone via Bluetooth, the other bud mirrors the connection and can role swap when needed. For example, if the user removes the connected bud, the mirroring bud is designed to take over the connection to avoid any interruption of streaming music or an active voice call — with no action required by the user. Qualcomm TrueWireless Mirroring is also engineered to manage a single Bluetooth address, so only one device shows up when the user pairs their earbuds to a phone.