Qualcomm hopes to make truly wireless headphones even better with a new SoC
While Apple’s AirPods are likely the best option on the market for truly wireless earbuds, that hasn’t stopped other manufacturer’s from bringing new options to the market. Most notably, Samsung released the new Gear Icon X (2018) late last year, which have improved on every aspect when compared to the original Gear Icon X headphones.
However, Qualcomm recognizes that the trend in the headphone market is to remove all of the wires, and the company has announced a new chipset for just Bluetooth headphones. The new QCC5100 Bluetooth chipset features support for Bluetooth 5.0, Active Noise Cancellation, and aptXHD for truly wireless headphones.
The SoC architecture supports low power performance and includes a Bluetooth 5 dual-mode radio, low power audio and application subsystems. Designed to serve various “on-the-go” consumer use cases requiring robust, high quality, truly wireless listening experiences, the platform supports advanced features including Qualcomm® TrueWireless™ Stereo, Qualcomm® aptX™ HD audio, Integrated Hybrid Active Noise Cancellation (ANC) and third-party voice assistant services.
On top of bringing a slew of new features, the new chipset from Qualcomm also vastly improves battery life. This will hopefully bring Bluetooth headphones closer to the rated 5 hours of listening time for the Apple AirPods. Plus, Qualcomm has included dedicated support for personal assistants such as Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa.
Unfortunately, Qualcomm did not share whether there were any new headphones in the works that would implement this new QCC5100 chipset, but I would bet that a new set of truly wireless headphones would be coming out this year. Let us know what you think about this announcement and who you would like to see release a new pair of wireless Bluetooth headphones.