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

Summary:

In the past Apple press conference, we clearly saw the decline and fatigue of AirPods in technology upgrading, but while the decline in Apple's share price has been criticized, big companies such as Sony, Huawei, Xiaomi and JBL have quietly turned around and rushed to another headphone battlefield-OWS headphones, while Oladance, the first headphone brand of the concept of "OWS headphones", has launched three OWS headphones in succession this year, including the new sports OWS headphones.

Will all headphones become OWS headphones in the future?

AirPods doesn't work? Change the generation of in-ear headphones?

According to World Health Organization (WHO) 's World listening report released in March 2021, more than 1.5 billion people worldwide are hearing impaired. The report predicts that 1/4 of the world's people will have hearing problems by 2050, and nearly 2.5 billion will suffer from some degree of hearing loss. Wearing ear-in headphones is undoubtedly one of the main incentives.

In-ear headphones not only feel pain after wearing them for a long time, but also suffer from tympanic membrane and hair cell stimulation for a long time, resulting in hearing loss because of their proximity to the tympanic membrane.

But it seems that Chinese people simply don't care about the hearing damage caused by wearing headphones. if they can't hear clearly, they raise the volume and quarrel a little louder; until they can hear clearly the sound in the headphones, this is like a gentle execution field for the ear, boiling frogs in warm water, unconsciously, causing irreversible damage to hearing.

Although otorhinolaryngologists advise against prolonged use of in-ear headphones to avoid hearing loss, this is unrealistic for consumers who listen for longer and longer, which is why AirPods's "weak upgrades" are often rejected, with shipments falling by 1x4 year by year.

TWS Bluetooth headset, last breath left

Apple launched the AirPods in 2016, which ushered in a glorious moment in the TWS era of wireless headphones; the AirPods, which was just released in 2023, was criticized as "it is better not to upgrade".

Today, seven years have passed, and the era of TWS, which has no technological breakthroughs, is withdrawing from the stage of history at a speed visible to the naked eye.

TWS headphones fell by 25% for the whole of 2022, and one in four people said they had nothing to choose from. In 2023, the overall shipments of TWS (true wireless headphones) audio equipment showed a weak growth and a downward trend.

The TWS headphone market is like a backwater, and it's hard to make waves again. Just when most brands are forced to roll up their appearance and color, a brand is doing something that can overturn the industry.

The starting point of OWS should be 2021 Oladance at the 2021 TWS industry summit, the world first proposed OWS, the full name Open Wearable Stereo, that is, wearable personal audio, so that people can see that headphones can still do this?

According to news from the management and the media, many big companies have begun to turn the ship around, including Sony, Huawei and Xiaomi. They are all preparing to launch OWS headphones.

TWS's last breath really didn't last long.

Not only to subvert TWS,OWS, but to clean up the industry?

In fact, strictly speaking, OWS is first of all a comprehensive solution composed of a whole set of technologies.

The first and most direct is that OWS is committed to combining the wide sound field of home theater and the free and comfortable listening experience with the convenience of headphones through a healthier sound solution.

Some people will equate it with some hot "open headphones" a while ago, but in fact, OWS is not only an iteration of the previous generation of headphones, but also an iteration of "open headphones" and "bone conduction headphones".

Strictly speaking, the "fully open headset" brought by OWS is the ultimate solution for headphones.

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For example, for the problem of in-ear headphones, some headphone products choose the solution of bone conduction, which does solve the dominant problems caused by adjacent tympanic membrane vibration, but it needs to vibrate bones and even damage hearing fibers. has become a new hidden risk. It can be said that although the solution to bone conduction has solved the problem, it has given rise to new problems: healthy hearing and uncomfortable shock are all hidden dangers of "bone conduction headphones" that have been criticized by people.

How to solve the problem of consumer pain points without increasing the risk, and even upgrade the headset products from technology to design?

When it comes to headphones, what consumers need is not small innovation, nor new things like "open headphones" and "bone conduction headphones" that naturally don't last long with bug.

So, what exactly is OWS?

All technology upgrades must match the corresponding application scenarios to solve the corresponding big pain points in order to be called upgrading. Those uncomfortable and hearing-impaired airpods, as well as those bone-conducting headphones, are only short-term substitutes.

OWS as a new race track competed by the industry, its own extremely high product standards, doomed to the high difficulty of research and development, but also means that the future market is large, can be aimed at AirPods.

Let's take Oladance, which has just released a new flagship machine, as an example to talk about some of the high thresholds of OWS:

Discomfort is the original sin of headphones.

From a comfortable point of view, when you use OWS headphones, basically can not go back, consumers really have no reason to put headphones in their ears or cover their ears.

Taking Oladance as an example, they collected nearly 10, 000 pairs of ear models around the world, found the equilibrium and stable point, and established the stable structure of headphones to meet the wearing needs of most people.

For good sound quality, Oladance moves the home theater to the headphones.

Sound quality is the trump card for OWS to challenge the previous generation of headphones. From industry to consumers, sound quality is generally measured by "sound field is three-dimensional open" as the standard, while OWS's standard is even higher: the "power amplifier chip" used in home cinema is directly transferred to the headphones.

Judging from the current products on the market, Oladance's OWS Pro not only loaded each OWS headset with the main chip, but also creatively equipped with a home theater grade "power amplifier chip" to achieve a truly open sound field on the headset.

Not only that, OWS also superimposes intelligent acoustic algorithms on air sound transmission technology as buff, self-developed acoustic algorithms to achieve dynamic EQ and virtual bass to improve sound quality performance on the basis of ensuring sound recovery.

End electricity anxiety?

Battery life is an inevitable part of electronics and a major pain point for AirPods, while OWS headphones set the standard that "it must be played alone for more than 15 hours when fully charged."

This hard indicator forces different brands to use technology to directly improve battery life, and the solution given by Oladance is self-developed "energy lock" patent technology, through "power charging and discharge system management", really achieve low power consumption and long life.

Stay away from products that will hurt you.

The use of headphones is increasing, and you are worried about hearing loss, so OWS will solve this problem technically. Through the virtual super auditory bone, the working principle of the real auditory bone is simulated, and the millisecond hearing protection monitoring system is used to protect hearing. This technology is almost the first time the headphone industry has begun to care about protecting ears.

Keep it private and keep it private.

In order to solve the problem of leakage of headphones, the pickup of Oladance OWS headphones will pick up the ambient sound and the sound emitted by headphones, and send out "inverse sound wave signals" to counteract the leaked sound through algorithms and protect the privacy of listening.

To be open and immersed?

Oladance self-developed "Fix Point Noise Screen" focused technology, it is not active noise reduction to isolate users from the outside world, but to filter out the subtle but disturbing medium and high frequency sound waves in daily life, such as the sound of cars driving outside the window, the hum of indoor electrical appliances, and so on.

It doesn't affect your communication with the outside world, but makes it quieter when you need to focus.

In this technology, we also see a possibility that, after technical iteration, OWS headphones will eventually achieve a balance between openness and immersion, giving consumers a perfect experience.

So, all headphones become OWS headphones?

All the cross-era revolutionary products are not to create unwarranted needs for consumers, but to solve the problems encountered in people's lives through products.

The emergence of the OWS category seems to be a difficult Offer for the entire industry in the next decade, and by defining it directly:

No power amplifier chip is not open headphones, uncomfortable wearing is not open headphones, damage to human hearing health is not open headphones, battery life is not long enough is not open headphones.

OWS is not only a technical solution, but also a great proposal for headphones and a future lifestyle. It will be the best solution in the next 10 years or more, taking into account both comfort and sound quality, providing consumers with a new listening experience, then OWS may become the only form of headphones: OWS sleep headphones, OWS sports headphones, OWS business headphones.

What should our connection with the world be like? it's like having a space to be alone, just like enjoying home theater at home, but we don't need to be completely cut off from the world. There is just the right distance between us and the world.

Come and go freely, advance and retreat to a certain extent.

In the future, we should pursue what we love and leave the rest to OWS technology.

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