While the market for wireless earphones and headsets has grown significantly in recent years, replacing wired models with Bluetooth versions, the connection protocol is about to change.
We should therefore soon see the first models of wireless headphones directly connected to the market arriving on the market. WiFi, with many advantages.
If Bluetooth has revolutionized the use of headphones, it is not uncommon to experience loss of connections when you move too far away from your smartphone, or to experience jerks, or even deterioration in sound quality when depending on the distance, but also the environment.
This is why Qualcomm announced two years ago that the solution would be to do away with Bluetooth for this type of device and switch to Wi-Fi with a specific technology called XPAN (eXpanded Personal Area Network) which is still in development and is producing the first products.
Without a specific date at the moment, Qualcomm confirms that it is working with several customers with the aim of marketing the first devices equipped with the XPAN connection very soon.
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These new devices Wi-Fi should be compatible to broadcast l’audio lossless 24 bits 96 kHz with energy consumption similar to 96 kHz Bluetooth in half the quality. However, the devices should retain a Bluetooth chip to offer dynamic switching between the two protocols depending on the situation.
Unfortunately, these developments come with constraints: the headphones will have to integrate a chip Snapdragon S7 Pro from Qualcomm, and on the smartphone side, it will absolutely be necessary to have a Snapdragon SoC (the model remains to be defined).
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