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21st Century Business Herald reporter Dong Jingyi reported from Shanghai

The wireless interconnection of electronic products has penetrated into people's daily life, and wireless technology continues to make breakthroughs. Bluetooth, the most prevalent short-range communication technology on the market, has expanded from the initial audio transmission to low-power data transmission, indoor location services, and reliable large-scale device networks.

According to ABI Research's market statistics and forecasts, from 2021 to 2026, the annual shipment of global Bluetooth devices will increase by 1.5 times, with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 9%, and the annual shipment of Bluetooth devices will exceed 2026 billion pieces for the first time by 70.

Recently, Ken Kolderup, chief marketing officer of the Bluetooth Technology Alliance (Bluetooth SIG), said in an interview with the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that Bluetooth technology is continuously updating and developing, such as faster data transmission rates, higher positioning accuracy, lower latency, etc.

At present, Bluetooth technology has expanded beyond personal applications and entered many commercial and industrial fields, which will also bring new market opportunities for Bluetooth.

Bluetooth Low Energy Promotion Landing

Wireless audio is the first very successful project in the history of Bluetooth, Ken Kolderup said that the wireless audio market is a very large market, with annual shipments expected to reach 13.2027 billion this year and continue to grow to 16.<> billion in <>. In this process, Bluetooth technology will also be continuously innovated.

LE Audio is a new generation of Bluetooth Low Energy audio technology launched by the Bluetooth SIG at the 2020 International Consumer Electronics Show, which can transmit audio in Bluetooth Low Energy state, which is conducive to improving the battery life and performance of Bluetooth headsets.

The Bluetooth SIG has officially named the audio sharing and broadcast feature Auracast™ Broadcast Audio, which can be used by audio sending devices such as mobile phones, laptops, televisions, or public address systems to broadcast to an unlimited number of audio receiving devices such as headphones, speakers, or hearing aids within range.

In terms of personal audio sharing, with laptops, smartphones, and other devices that support Auracast™ broadcast audio, family and friends can share audio by simply using headphones or listening devices that support Auracast™ broadcast audio. In public places, Auracast™ broadcasts audio allows users to listen to muted TVs in public places.

Li Jiarong, marketing director of the Bluetooth Technology Alliance Asia Pacific and China, told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter that the application of this function in various enterprises and terminal products is currently being actively promoted, and it is expected that more practical cases will appear from 2024.

Zeng Xuezhong, Senior Vice President and President of the Mobile Phone Division of Xiaomi Group, said: "LE Audio and Auracast broadcast audio are driving the next generation of wireless audio innovation. Our recent launch of the first phone to support Auracast broadcast audio is a major step in our journey towards an audio experience like never before, and will dramatically improve the way we interact with others and the world around us. "Currently, the Redmi K8 Extreme Edition, released by Xiaomi in August, has been shown to support Auracast.

"First of all, the support of equipment will be realized, personal audio sharing will be realized, and after the awareness of technology is improved, more public systems will be involved in the future." Li Jiarong said.

According to the Bluetooth Market Update 2023, Auracast™ broadcast audio devices and their deployment in public spaces will grow significantly over the next five years, driving new audio experiences, increasing demand for Bluetooth audio peripherals, and expanding new capabilities for assistive listening solutions, creating new opportunities unparalleled in the audio market.

According to ABI Research, it is estimated that by 2030, 250.<> million venues worldwide will support Auracast broadcast audio capabilities, and the growth in the deployment of Auracast™™ broadcast audio will directly drive the adoption of LE Audio devices.

Application expansion and technological innovation

Connected consumer electronics are the main areas of Bluetooth technology application, such as wireless mice and keyboards that make work more efficient, health sports and fitness equipment that improves athletic performance and health, and medical and health devices that improve the quality of patient care.

"Every year, hundreds of consumer electronics are launched in the market, and Bluetooth can connect everything together." Ken Kolderup said that the growth rate of this market is also very fast, in 2023 alone, the shipment of Bluetooth connected electronic products will reach 16.2027 billion, and it is expected to exceed 29.<> billion by <>.

Although the consumer electronics industry as a whole has not yet come out of the downturn, Ken Kolderup believes that this will not affect the expectations of the Bluetooth peripheral device market, and there are still fast-growing categories worth paying attention to. As an example, he told reporters, wearables are one of them.

Until now, ESL systems have relied on wireless communication protocols developed by manufacturers, which has hindered their global adoption. To address this issue, leaders in the ESL industry collaborated with the Bluetooth SIG to create a scalable, extremely low-power, and highly secure ESL wireless standard based on Bluetooth technology.

"The market is relatively new and small, with about 6 million shipments so far, and that number is expected to grow to billions in the next few years." Ken Kolderup said.

In addition to the app, Bluetooth technology itself will continue to iteratively innovate, and Ken Kolderup said that several new features will be introduced in the future.

The first is high-precision distance measurement. The ranging error between two Bluetooth devices is no more than 10%. "But in our actual testing, it's much more accurate than that." Ken Kolderup said the update will improve location solutions, such as item finding, and will enable digital key solutions.

The second is higher data throughput. Bluetooth Low Energy will have a maximum throughput of 8Mbps. According to Ken Kolderup, this is in development and will optimize much of the current use of Bluetooth, such as enabling more and higher quality audio streams, faster data synchronization rates, and more.

The third is Bluetooth Low Energy in the higher frequency bands. "Our goal is to define Bluetooth Low Energy in the 5GHz/6GHz bands, which is currently at 2.4GHz." According to Ken Kolderup, this can lead to faster speeds, lower latency, and better coexistence.

Competition and coexistence of wireless technologies

It's important to note that Bluetooth isn't the only option in wireless technology.

Taking high precision as an example, this is also reflected in another wireless technology, UWB, which is gradually being widely used in related fields such as the Internet of Things, consumer electronics, and automobiles.

For example, it can provide positioning and quick connection support for Apple's "AirDrop" feature, and it can also be used for AirTag to achieve stereoscopic 3D position tracking.

In terms of smart home, Xiaomi has launched the "One Finger Connection" function through UWB, which realizes spatial positioning with centimeter-level and ±3° angle measurement accuracy; HUAWEI Smart ScreenV5 ProThe world's first Huawei Lingxi air touch,It can be regarded as the first landing of UWB technology in HuaweiC-end products。

The industry generally believes that the relevant applications of UWB in the field of smart cars have development prospects. Recently, the Meizu 20 Pro Lynk & Co 08 Customized Edition introduced the CCC 3.0 UWB non-inductive car key, combined with high-precision car search technology, which can realize remote unlocking and starting of the vehicle. NIO's first smartphone, NIO Phone, is also equipped with UWB as standard, which is used as a digital key for NIO vehicles to achieve short-range linkage.

"We think UWB is a powerful technology that can provide very accurate ranging." Ken Kolderup told reporters that Bluetooth is also involved, including high-security, high-precision ranging functions and positioning functions, which can reach the centimeter-level level. "We think that's enough for most of the situation, and for a few situations that require extremely high accuracy ranging capabilities, we think UWB is well suited to meet such needs."

On the other hand, Starlight, a new generation of wireless interconnection technology, is also seen as a strong competitor to traditional wireless technology.

At the HarmonyOS 4.0 conference and HDC 2023 developer conference, Huawei released a new generation of near-range wireless connection technology "NearLink", which is benchmarked against traditional wireless short-range communication technologies Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

According to the report of China Merchants Securities, compared with traditional wireless connections, Starlight has many performance advantages such as power consumption, transmission rate, transmission delay, and number of networking connections. Compared with traditional wireless connection technologies such as Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, Huawei's StarFlash Bit has significant advantages in terms of energy consumption, 6 times faster data transmission rate, 1/30 latency of traditional technologies, anti-interference, coverage distance, and number of connections.

"We also have a good understanding of Huawei's Starlight technology, and from the perspective of the Bluetooth SIG, we are also continuing to promote technology updates, and these new updates are also aimed at similar market opportunities." Ken Kolderup told the 21st Century Business Herald reporter.

From the perspective of application, Starlight technology is still in the early stage of commercialization, except for some Huawei products equipped with this technology, the rest of the manufacturers are still in the research and development stage, and have not yet been commercialized on a large scale like Bluetooth and Wi-Fi.

China Merchants Securities believes that Starlight technology mainly solves the needs of Bluetooth and Wi-Fi in subdivided scenarios where latency and reliability cannot be met, and will not completely subvert traditional Bluetooth and Wi-Fi solutions. At the same time, Starlink itself is also compatible with Bluetooth and Wi-Fi ecosystems, which can make a smooth transition and rapidly expand its own ecology.