Qualcomm is introducing a new system-on-a-chip designed for wireless headphones that the company says offers twice the processing power of its predecessor while using less energy.
The end result is that the devices using the Qualcomm Low Power Bluetooth SoC QCC5100 should offer longer battery life and better performance. It also adds supports for new features that will make it easier for earbud makers to include noise cancellation technology, among other things.
That’s because the 32-bit dual-core chip has integrated hybrid active noise canceling support. There’s also support for voice recognition algorithms and low power wake word detection,
It supports Bluetooth 5.0 and 2 Mbps Bluetooth low energy, aptX and aptX HD audio, and 192 kHz/24-bit audio.
No device maker has announced plans to launch earbuds or other “hearables” with the new chip yet, but Qualcomm says it will introduce several reference designs in the first half of 2018 that can help manufacturers get started.
I remember seeing an article a few months ago or so about scientists creating a cell phone that doesn’t need battery power and relies on passive transmission or something like that. If they could apply that to wireless headphones, that’d eliminate the whole issue of having to charge wireless headphones. It’s one of the reasons I’m sticking to wired headphones for the foreseeable future.