Qualcomm's Next-Gen Bluetooth Chipsets Geared to True Wireless Earbuds, Hearables

Qualcomm launched Bluetooth SoCs geared to true wireless earbuds and hearables Wednesday. Two versions, the ZCC514X for premier tier headphones, and the ZCC304X for entry-mid-level products, are said to enable improved connectivity, increased battery life, integrated dedicated hardware for the company’s hybrid active noise cancellation technology and voice assistant support. With Qualcomm TrueWireless Mirroring, one earbud is wirelessly connected to the smartphone via Bluetooth; the other bud mirrors the connected bud and is engineered to deliver what the company called a “rapid swap” under several scenarios. If the user removes the connected bud from her ear, the mirroring bud is designed to take over the connection to the phone, to avoid interruption of streaming music or an active voice call -- with no action required by the user, said the company. Qualcomm TrueWireless Mirroring is engineered to manage a single Bluetooth address so only one “device” shows up when the user is pairing their earbuds to a phone, it said. Active noise-canceling has “minimal impact on battery life,” said the company, due to a design that optimizes power consumption for different use cases; play time of up to 13 hours is based on a 65 mAh battery. Extended play time allows a smaller battery in a charging case and more compact case design, it said. The premium version has support for Always on Voice (wake-word) activation for multiple voice ecosystems; mid and entry-tier SOCs have push-button voice activation for multiple voice ecosystems, enabling OEMs to add voice assistant capability more cost effectively, Qualcomm said. It’s the first time voice assistant capability is available on a single-chip solution, enabling voice to become more pervasive at lower price tiers, said the company.