Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, Nov. 7 (Xinhua)-- today Canalys released a report entitled "enjoy the Health tracking capabilities of True Wireless headphones (TWS)," which said that Apple AirPods Pro 2's sound performance has been significantly improved, but its health and motion tracking features have not been updated. But Apple has spent a lot of time developing health tracking features that can be integrated into AirPods, but eventually continues to stabilize. In addition, integrating additional biosensors into TWS headphones is a challenging task from other manufacturers, CTOnews.com learned. For most consumers, the health tracking application of TWS headphones is relatively small and has not yet become a strong key point for consumers to buy.

Here are the details of the report:

Apple released the second generation of AirPods Pro in the third quarter of 2022, which made significant improvements in sound performance, but did not update its health and motion tracking features.

Apple's new AirPods Pro 2 has some highlights, such as adaptive penetration mode, which can protect hearing by automatically reducing the high decibel noise around users. However, in addition to the hearing protection function, the latest generation of AirPods Pro does not introduce a new fitness tracking function.

Apple usually strives to make progress in the development of features, especially new features that have not been tested. Apple has spent a lot of time developing health tracking features that can be integrated into AirPods, including a collaboration with Cornell University in 2021 to use breathing audio to count breathing rates. However, it may be because Apple wants to give priority to improving audio performance to promote product upgrades and attract new users, so the newly released AirPods Pro does not have a built-in health tracking feature. Apple also needs to consider the impact of this new feature on the device's battery life and ensure the maturity of software and algorithms to avoid a "said but not done" situation. In addition, for Apple, it is important to explore the health and motion tracking features of AirPods, differentiate it from what Apple Watch already provides, and achieve differentiation to avoid homogenized competition.

From the unsuccessful attempts of some manufacturers, it can be seen that integrating additional biosensors into TWS headphones is a challenging task. In 2021, Amazfit released Powerbuds, which tracks a user's heart rate and monitors the user's sitting posture to prevent health problems. Although the product use case is quite clear, the shipments of the device are not ideal, because consumers are not willing to spend a lot of money on TWS headphones just for health tracking. On the other hand, HONOR integrates temperature measurement into its TWS headphones (Glory claims that its device has AI monitoring function and can provide high and low temperature notifications), but the purpose of the temperature data is not clear, so it is not a successful health monitoring application.

For most consumers, the health tracking application of TWS headphones is relatively small and has not yet become a strong key point for consumers to buy. However, because the ear is a suitable place to place sensors for data collection, it makes sense to explore the health-related features of TWS headphones. The integration of this feature will help expand the use of TWS headphones and drive the next wave of growth in the future. In order to make health tracking a key growth driver for TWS headphones, manufacturers must ensure that product use cases are more intuitive, provide meaningful and actionable information to users, and invest heavily in research and development in cooperation with medical institutions for several years to ensure the feasibility and effectiveness of device functions.

Due to macroeconomic constraints that affect the market for personal smart audio devices, it is expected that most manufacturers will give priority to survival in a highly competitive market in 2022 and 2023. In this case, only in 2024 and beyond will the industry have the opportunity to develop and adopt health tracking functions more widely. Now, manufacturers should begin to draw up a blueprint for the rise of multi-purpose TWS headphones and set strategic goals to find a tailored location in their respective ecosystems to complement their long-term digital health strategy.

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