Qualcomm Announces Adaptive ANC Technology
Qualcomm announced at IFA 2020 its own adaptive noise canceling technology, primarily aimed at in-ear headphones – Adaptive ANC. According to the company, worldwide demand for completely wireless in-ear headphones has grown significantly – and almost everywhere except the home, people prefer use headphones of exactly this format (for home listening, full-size ones are still more suitable).
Recently, the criteria by which people choose headphones have also changed: the first places are still occupied by sound quality and price, but comfort, duration of operation on a single charge, ease of use and the presence of noise cancellation have become more significant factors when buying. According to the survey, 71% of respondents are interested in the presence of noise reduction, and 70% – in the presence of the noise transmission function. The peculiarity of the technology from Qualcomm is that the noise reduction algorithm used is constantly adapting to the location in which the owner is located. Allegedly, due to this, it is possible to achieve the same quality of noise reduction even when using earpads that are not very tight in the ears, without any preliminary calibration of the noise reduction algorithm for specific ears.
Usually, for effective operation of active noise canceling in in-ear headphones, ear pads are required that fit tightly enough in the ear canal, which, in turn, can negatively affect the comfort of using the headphones – and Qualcomm technology will allow listeners not to sacrifice comfort, adjusting to the level of noise penetrating into the ears in real time. Also, the technology does not require preliminary calibration and seamlessly switches between ringing, talking with a voice assistant and listening to music without any changes in the operation of noise cancellation.
Qualcomm technology is designed to speed up the development and release of new devices for manufacturers, as well as to simplify it. For those companies looking to customize the algorithm, Qualcomm has offered API access, and the technology is available in Qualcomm’s latest Bluetooth chip, the QCC514x. In addition to the built-in noise reduction, the chip is equipped with support for voice assistants, provides high quality wireless audio transmission and is characterized by low power consumption.
