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After Apple ditched the 3.5mm headphone jack with the iPhone 7, Android OEMs followed suit, and now we rarely get to see a flagship smartphone with an audio jack. However, Asus is expected to bring 3.5mm jack inside its upcoming Asus Zenfone 12 Ultra. Bluetooth earphones have now become the standard, but they are often criticized for latency and bandwidth limitations. However, it appears that Samsung may have found a solution—at least on paper.
According to a patent filing via the US Patent and Trade Office (via 91mobiles), Samsung seems to be replacing Bluetooth with ultra-wideband (UWB) for transmitting audio in its future wireless earphones. Although, the earphones will still require Bluetooth to connect to the source device, the first earphone will switch over to UWB followed by the second earphone. Audio transmission through UWB has its benefits over Bluetooth.
For starters, the issues with Bluetooth such as latency problems can be solved when transmitting audio via UWB. Also, there will be less interference problem, and Samsung also claims that UWB will allow for high-speed data transmission (up to 20Mbps speeds), along with reduced power consumption. With all these benefits, Samsung also says that the high-speed data transmission will also open gates for delivery of lossless audio.
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For context, a lossless audio file retains all the original audio information from a recording in small size. Since Bluetooth doesn't have enough bandwidth to support lossless audio, using UWB could be a great selling point for future Samsung Galaxy earphones. It goes without saying that the source device—be it a phone, computer, or a tablet—must have UWB hardware to enjoy the benefits mentioned by Samsung in its patent. While mass adoption could be a challenge, premium phones from Samsung, Google, and Apple feature UWB hardware.
While Samsung is exploring options with UWB, Qualcomm is expected to introduce XPAN-powered earphones that allows for audio transmission via Wi-Fi for improve range, quality and minimal latency.
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